A Return to Bountiful
Relief and repair
Thanks for hanging in there whilst I tend to some personal business. I’ll be producing new essays for Substack over the next few days.
My grandmother, who was my primary caretaker as a child, and my father both died within a short span. I stumbled into the wilds of an unexplored passage. My grandmother was my life preserver when I was small, and my father was a more complicated exchange.
What had been held in my tissue for decades was unleashed. I discovered strange, untamed inner beasts, provocative and surprising. I have spent a few months quietly excavating the site and have turned up some grand fossils and rare specimens.
Grief, loss, and limitations get a bad rap, and I don’t always enjoy the work of treating them as valid energies. Rather than rushing past them, I wanted to let those sensations and visions be seen and embraced, so they don’t reorganize into a pervasive clench of resistance.
I thank you for your patience, lovely reader.
March Essays En Route
A piece on insomnia as impromptu Dzogchen dark retreat. When unmetabolized grief and trauma started erupting into awareness at 3 a.m., it was an uncomfortable imposition, yet worthy of investigation. The middle of the night is exactly when adult capacities are disarmed—which makes it an opportune time to work with sensation, inner visions, and kindness toward my ancient layers.
I am also writing a post on keeping the heart genuinely open and empty, which turns out to be a wonderful condition for truth to take root and blossom.
Upcoming Course at The Field
Preparing for Dark Retreat: The Primordial Spaces of the Body
Darkness removes the visual field’s usual claim on attention, and what comes forward is the body as a space of open knowing. This course works with breathwork, awareness, interoceptive attention, and genuine visionary experience. Taught by Lama Karma Wall with guests Andrew Holecek and David Germano. The habitual structures that perpetuate suffering don’t disappear in the dark, but they do surface, and once visible they become workable.
Ten weeks, starts March 24. $600. Scholarships available.