Category Archives: Embracing Unknown

Communication, Community, Connecting, Embracing Unknown, Life Experiences, Vulnerability

The Cry Beneath Conflict

CrisMarie introduced me to Gene Keys—a synthesis of practical wisdom meant to guide a deeper understanding of the self.
It’s a bit like astrology (rooted in birthdate and place), the Enneagram, psychology, philosophy—all woven together.

I was curious when I generated my free Gene Keys profile. What surprised me was how closely it mirrored my life’s purpose and path.

One line really spoke to me:

“Walk into conflict with an open heart—and peace will walk out with you.”

My life has been a long walk through conflict, crisis, and change.
Likely yours has been too.

Early on, I learned that when there is a cry for help—whether it sounds like grief, rage, accusation, or even war—I need to listen.
At first, I believed my role was to solve the cry, to eliminate its source. I spent years living inside that idea.

What saved me, I think, was that nature and spirit, laughter and play, music and movement were woven into my days. They seemed to know something I didn’t yet understand: that solving or silencing pain isn’t the only option.

Pain became something strangely familiar—intriguing even. A reminder that I existed. That I was alive.

What was much harder was finding ways to be heard.
My voice didn’t fit the dominant narrative. I didn’t fit the norm. So I learned where I could fit, where I could belong.

Oddly, I’ve often preferred people being upset rather than calm and quiet. Because in my world, calm and quiet were often layered over deep pain, fear, rage, and doubt—and I could hear it humming underneath. When I named what I heard, I was shut down. Told I was making it up. So I learned to share with trees and animals instead. Or through songs—where the truth could scatter, land softly, and not rattle the thick armor of the adults around me.

And now—I am one of those adults.
I have armor. I know how to numb. I know how to block the sounds and vibrations.

And still, I feel the elements calling: earth, fire, water, air.
I feel the larger web. The unified field that holds us all.

We are terrified of that web—those arms, those roots.
And yet we long to rest in them.

Here’s the deeper truth I hesitate to admit: if I stand fully in that field, the separate “me” begins to dissolve. And that scares the hell out of me.

And it calls to me.

That unified field often shows itself right in the middle of battle. Not in the shouting—but in the quiet pulse of the person beside me. In the ones standing hand in hand at the front. No words. No frantic movement. Sometimes just a soft song that reaches the heart:

We are one.
We are love.
It is how we treat each other—nothing more.

Beneath the rage that has surfaced, that song is still there.
You can hear it—if you listen.

That is how peace walks out with me.
With you.

Connecting, Embracing Unknown, Vulnerability

So Many Different Worlds

So many different worlds,
So many different suns,
And we have just one world,
But we live in different ones.

Those lines from Brothers in Arms — old words still not yet lived — echo with painful resonance today.

We are still at war.

Not the war of battlefields with clear lines — but a war of competing realities and a nation torn at its seams.

In Minneapolis this January, the killing of Renée Good, a 37-year-old U.S. citizen shot and killed by an ICE agent, sparked shock and outrage. Her death — now ruled a homicide with multiple gunshot wounds by medical authorities — has ignited protests, legal scrutiny, and national debate over use of force by federal immigration agents. 

And just this weekend, another person was fatally shot by federal agents in south Minneapolis — the second such deadly encounter in recent weeks — drawing tens of thousands into streets and fueling massive demonstrations. 

These are not distant battles. They are here, on our streets. They touch parents, neighbors, nurses, clergy, ordinary people who showed up to stand for peace — and now grieve a life lost. 

“Now the sun’s gone to hell, and
The moon’s riding high…”

I was profoundly moved by the moral courage I saw — people standing in the cold in Minnesota, clergy on their knees at the airport to block deportations, risking arrest, refusing to look away. 

And I was moved by the words of Mark Carney at Davos — proud to be Canadian, urging cooperation, common ground, shared humanity.

Yet even with all that heart and hope, someone was killed.

Again, there are many conflicting narratives about what happened, but murder is murder and should not be happening when people rise to protest and speak out. These deaths deepen the grief and fracture the fragile trust we have in each other and in our institutions.
“Every man has to die… But it’s written in the starlight…”

We are fools to make war — on our brothers in arms, on our own people — and it sure feels like our government is bent toward that very thing. 

I don’t understand the venom, the dehumanization, the hate that is so casually dished out — across media, across lines of ideology, across dinner tables.

I do believe we are being torn apart.
And I don’t know what will stop it —
But it won’t come from guns, bloodshed, and hate — I am certain of that.

Maybe — as Mark Carney suggested — if nations, if people, act together from the middle ground; if middle states find shared humanity rather than competition; if compassion becomes the law of the land… — perhaps then we will remember that might does not make right.

“We’re fools to make war
On our brothers in arms.”

Community, Connecting, Embracing Unknown

I Want It To Make Sense – It Isn’t Possible

Here’s the thing for me — I want to understand it.
I want it to make sense. I want to settle the fear.
But that isn’t possible anymore.

Every time something horrific happens, I get driven to the news, to the screen, trying to make sense.
9/11. January 6. George Floyd. The COVID outbreak.
And now ICE and the recent shootings and deaths — the one in Minnesota is another I want to understand — and I can’t.

Then comes the political spin — “all self-defense,” “they deserved it.”
That enrages me on so many levels.

Murder is never a solution — much less something that is good for anyone.

I have talked to enough people who have killed to know this:
none of them believe that was what they wanted.
None of them walk away untouched.

War veterans with PTSD carry this truth in their bodies.
The people sent to “protect” our country often return unable to metabolize what they have seen — or what they were required to do.
That is trauma. Not victory.

So when we say that someone — anyone — deserves to die or be shot, especially on our streets, we are denying what we already know to be true.

Law enforcement.
Citizens.
Undocumented immigrants.

No one needs to be gunned down.
And saying that it’s okay — saying it’s justified — only deepens the violence we claim to be trying to stop.

And still, it seems we need an enemy.
We make them because it is unbearable to say, I was wrong.
To feel the shame of actions born from misinformation or partial truth.
So we defend, protect, blame — and that reflex spreads everywhere.

I watched Wicked: Part II last night.
Did you know the original Wizard of Oz came out just before WWII?
I couldn’t watch that one — the monkeys terrified me.
But Wicked, especially Part II, speaks directly to this moment.

The Wizard — someone who knows they are powerful will use anything and everything — and the look on his face when he realizes what he has destroyed.
That moment landed hard.

But what moved me most was the relationship between Elphaba and Glinda — and of course, the song.
A song about true forgiveness.
About being changed for good.

I so wish we could get that.

Even here, Elphaba leaves because people need someone to call wicked — as if goodness can only be embraced by casting someone out.

Do we really need that?

I know in myself how hard it can be not to want to destroy the perpetrator — or at least the one I believe is the perpetrator.
We can get so far down the road of right and wrong that it feels like there is no way back.

And yet — there is.

The way through may require feeling so deeply, and owning our part so fully, that it feels like sitting in the middle of a wildfire we ourselves set.

Yes — our bodies may burn.
Certainty may collapse.
Stories we tell about ourselves may turn to ash.

But real connection does not burn away.
What is true holds.
Even in the fire.

Our hearts keep beating — not despite connection, but because of it.

Maybe the flames don’t destroy connection at all.
Maybe they reveal it.

And maybe that is the only path to joy.

At some point, we have to risk that.

Can we?

Community, Connecting, Embracing Unknown, Life Experiences

Maybe Community Lives in An Aphorism

I recently read a great article about aphorisms—those pithy observations that carry a general truth or a thought-provoking point of view. The piece was adapted from James Geary’s book The World in a Phrase: A Brief History of the Aphorism.

I loved it.
Not just because the lines were clever, but because they sparked thought. And conversation. And difference.

Some Aphorisms from Geary’s peice:

Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach wrote:
Those who were carried to a goal should not think they’ve reached it.

Magdalena Samozwaniec said:
Love is that short period of time when someone else holds the same opinion of us as we do of ourselves.

And then, a line that became the seed of Geary’s life’s work:
The difference between a rut and a grave is the depth.

What I noticed is that each of these doesn’t tell you what to think.
They invite you to think.
They open something rather than close it down.

That feels like something we’ve lost a bit in the world these days.

I often find myself wondering why community on Gabriola Island felt—and still feels—more alive and thriving for me than many of the places I’ve lived since moving back to the States in 2000. I mostly attribute that to The Haven.

There, I learned relational skills. I discovered just how vital difference, intimacy, and dialogue are to aliveness, health, and thriving.

Yes, I loved the programs. I believed—still believe—that those programs were a foundational playground for community. And maybe the place itself held some magic.

But it wasn’t really the space. Or the rooms. Or even the brilliance of the teachers who carried The Haven. Those mattered, of course—they were the mud, bricks, and mortar. But they weren’t the thing itself.

What I’m slowly learning—gathering some grit around—is that Haven isn’t just a place. It’s a space I can create inside myself, one that connects me to the world around me. And that space is always shifting, changing, evolving.

Community isn’t a place you arrive at—it’s a way you stay in relationship with uncertainty.

So I ask you:

What is it that leads you to a place where you can love the shifting, not just the beauty of a new location?
What lets you listen to all kinds of music—not only the chords and tones that harmonize easily or touch a familiar, sentimental place?

What I’m realizing is that what I learned, I could have learned by taking many roads. What makes any road special isn’t the route itself—it’s the connections, the conversations, the deeper roots, and the invisible threads that weave us all together.

There’s no single “right” way to come home.

What we’re offered, again and again, is a choice: more connection or more isolation.

And those aren’t always about proximity. Some people hike alone and are deeply connected. Others sit in crowded rooms and feel profoundly alone.

Connection—and intimacy—run deeper than what meets the eye.

Connecting, Embracing Unknown, Life Experiences

Electric Patience: Where Fire Flies & Dragon Flies Meet

I’m working through something.
It feels big.
Though who knows—
maybe it’s just like opening a pressurized can of tennis balls.
Still. For me, big.

This idea of ground-to-sky lightning came to me.
At first I thought it was just my dyslexic mind showing itself—
because isn’t lightning supposed to go sky to ground?

So I did what we do now.
I asked Google. I asked AI.

What came back surprised me.

Ground-to-sky lightning is real.
Rare.
An upward flash.

A negative strike drops from the cloud,
but before it hits the ground,
something rises.
A positive streamer—
from a mountain, a tower,
the earth itself—
and it surges upward.

Wow – Wonder- Electric

Apprently I didn’t need Google or AI.

Just yesterday I had a really cool meeting
with a kind man
who spoke of the masculine, feminine,
and the elements—earth, fire, water, air.
His secret source and wisdom

Encouraged me and all to listen better, deeper and trust

From earth to air – feet to brian – Earth-Fire-Water-Air

And in me Electric Patience showed up.
In a strange way,
it felt like my own
masculine and feminine meeting.

Now I wait.

Inside me, the lightning is fast—
fireflies, sparks, ideas.
Busy. Bright. Jumping.

The feminine is slower.
Rooted.
More like lava.
And mucus
(yes, I just had a cold moving through my body—
mucus fits).

She’s not in a hurry.
She demands patience.

As the surge comes from the depths—
dragons becoming dragonflies.

Not ground fire.

A storm of fireflies and dragonflies instead.

I’m found a new kind of fuel from fire.

Where before it was combustion – now a dance of fire in sky
I like that.

A gift from Electric Patience.

May there be more.

Communication, Connecting, Embracing Unknown, Life Experiences, Valuing Differences, Vulnerability

Fear, Love, and the Risk of Reducing Aliveness

I recently came across a research abstract suggesting that Virginia Satir’s experiential family systems approach might be “integrated” with models like Emotion-Focused Therapy. The intent: give her work more structure, theory, and replicability.

It stopped me in my tracks.
Could Satir’s profound body of work—rooted in presence, creativity, and relational aliveness—be reduced to “mere creative techniques”? Sadly, yes.

And it’s not just Satir. Many programs born of humanistic psychology have been distilled into measurable techniques, slotted neatly into systems that can be studied and standardized. Relevant, yes. But at what cost?

When we prize only what can be researched or proven, we lose something vital. Aliveness. Creativity. Connection. We flatten the very field where transformation emerges.

Creation vs. Consumption

What I long for isn’t consumption of another “evidence-based” tool. It’s creation. Taking an idea and living in it—moving, playing, risking. Not applying theory with rigid gestures, but engaging the unpredictable edge where life actually shifts.

Evidence-based living too often traps us in right/wrong, safe/unsafe. The result? A shrinking space for wonder, possibility, and connection.

What Haven Taught Me

As part of The Haven Faculty, I’ve witnessed again and again the raw, alive field where healing happens—not through protocols, but through presence. Haven’s roots were never built on the theoretical. They grew from two physicians—one working with teens, one with elders—who noticed transformation simply by bringing people together.

Of course they developed models to support learning but they also made presence and connection the bottomline.

What drew me to Haven, and originally to Satir, wasn’t a model to be replicated. It was the power of human beings meeting each other without guarantees, without smoothing over, without management.

Haven has always been about leaning into conflict, discomfort, intensity—not to retraumatize, but to discover. To find more of ourselves and more of each other than we thought possible.

The Trouble with Safety

When frameworks and protocols become the defining lens, the focus shifts. The energy becomes about safety, prevention, containment. Safety matters—but transformation doesn’t live in managed safety. It lives in risk, in storm, in staying connected when it would be easier to retreat.

True safety is born in presence, not control. In the messy, unpredictable space of being human together.

The Larger Gift

Yes, trauma walks through our doors. It always has. And we hold it with care. But I refuse to let trauma—or the management of it—define transformation.

Satir’s gift, and Haven’s, is larger: a space that is alive, not managed. A space where fear and love meet, and in that meeting, choice becomes possible.

Business, Connecting, Embracing Unknown, Leadership

Community Through a Life of Pop-Ups

Leadership – Living it, Loving it, Learning within it
Pop-Ups for People
Pop-Up Communities

I think this is my work—my calling.

For a long time, I judged myself for not being a “good” community member. I thought that meant having lifelong friends, deep roots in one place, and strong ties to where I lived or worked. But my life hasn’t followed that pattern.

I’ve never worked in one company for decades. I don’t have children. I lived on Gabriola for ten years, Whitefish, MT since 2008. My longest-standing commitment may be be to The Haven, where I arrived in 1983. Over the years, I’ve been a participant, cleaner, registrar, intern, assistant, leader, part of the Education Steering group, and now the Education Council. But I don’t live there—and I still remember Ben saying, “This is not a community—it’s a business.”

Thrive! has been my longest work engagement—since our 2002 launch—yet it has evolved through many versions of clients, services, and ways of working.

I transformed my life at Haven, learned loving in my relationship of 25 years with CrisMarie but community I still struggled to figure out why that seemed so hard.

Recently, after a coaching session, I started thinking about “community” differently. I realized I’m very good at creating pop-up communities.

A pop-up community can be anything—a project, a start-up, a couple, a family, a movement, even a counrty. The United States itself began as one: people united around the idea of freedom. When Washington became the first President, he didn’t want the job, but there was a group of people determined to create something new, free from Britain and the Church. They had to figure out how to operate as a community. The Declaration of Independence and their efforts to separate church and state were attempts—imperfect but remarkable—to protect freedom.

The two greatest challenges to any community or organization are time and size.

  • In the early days, when the vision is fresh, energy flows and possibility feels limitless.
  • Over time, those with history become protective or defensive of what they helped build.
  • As size grows, a few leaders end up trying to defend and direct something that may need to evolve.

Every project, business, or relationship has to keep changing—recognizing both its strengths and its growing pains.

For me, that’s where leadership comes in and down to three things:

  1. Living – Not just creating something, but staying connected to the aliveness within it.
  2. Loving – Not clinging or defending, but loving in an active, trusting way—even when you don’t always like something happening.
  3. Learning within it – Staying humble, knowing there’s always more to discover, and being willing to listen and see new possibilities.

Leadership isn’t a title—it’s the choice to show up fully. Communities “pop up” everywhere, all the time. The people may change, but the energy of community is constant. It’s like a spiritual frequency we can tune into.

When we lose that trust and connection, what was alive can fade. But when we stay open, community—like communication—becomes eternal, even if no single form lasts forever.

I used to want to be like an old-growth cedar—deeply rooted and unchanging. Now, I see the wisdom in being more like bamboo—flexible, resilient, able to spring up anywhere.

Ultimately, it’s about knowing how to show up and engage in the moment. That’s what allows a community to truly commune. It may not be forever—but it is eternal.

Communication, Connecting, Embracing Unknown, Leadership, Vulnerability

Coming Alive Is Questionable – Check With Yourself Before Entry

On a morning walk during our recent faculty weekend, I passed this small campground with a curious sign:

AREA QUESTIONABLE – See Supervisor Before Entry

It made me laugh—and then it made me think. Later in the day as we gathered as a faculty, I realized it was the perfect metaphor for our topic: The Haven’s Code of Ethics.

The intent of the code is good—to offer process and clarity, to provide a path for complaints, and to protect the Haven, its faculty, and participants. But here’s the challenge: our real purpose is to create a community where people can Come Alive and be fully themselves. And “protecting” that? I’m not sure it’s possible—or even helpful.

Which brings me back to that sign. Maybe, I thought, ours should read:

Coming Alive Is Questionable – Check With Yourself Before Entry

What if a code of ethics wasn’t a rigid set of right/wrong rules, but an invitation into dialogue? Legal language tends to close doors with absolutes. Coming alive is messier—it lives in the grey, the “questionable area.” And maybe that’s okay.

That campground, after all, was a beautiful, vibrant place for kids and adults. Yes, there were risks. But life—real, alive life—always carries risk.

I’ll admit, I’ve had a complicated history with codes of ethics. As a therapist, patient, healthcare provider, and business owner, I’ve mostly seen them as legal shields—documents crafted to prevent lawsuits rather than foster connection. So when I first heard The Haven was deep-diving into a new code, my walls went up. This place I love for its realness, mistakes, and growth suddenly sounded like it was drafting hospital paperwork.

But thanks to Jane K and the commitment of our faculty to wrestle with this, something shifted. I started to hear that this wasn’t about legal cover—it was about creating a shared path through conflict, a way to open dialogue before we ever head toward litigation.

It won’t be perfect. No document can guarantee safety or resolve every dispute. But if we keep it living, breathing, and grounded in relationship rather than bureaucracy, it can serve our purpose: to support people in the vulnerable, risky, beautiful work of Coming Alive.

The sign still says it best: safety not guaranteed—enter at your own risk. And maybe, just maybe, that’s the point.

Connecting, Connection, Embracing Unknown, Life Experiences

Launching Camp Connection

I am moving into new territory. Not only with my mother’s passing and all the changes and shifts that brings, but also in my relationship to Haven.

Haven itself is evolving, finding its own way forward. I hadn’t fully considered how much that would influence my own life and choices. But as I’ve gone through this time of loss and reflection, I realized how intertwined Haven has been in my journey of becoming.

When I first came to the Haven, I arrived with my sister, Penny. I had cancer and was told I likely had only six months to live. It was a way for us to be together in the time I thought I had left. That first Come Alive changed the trajectory of my life.

In many ways, I grew up there. I trained there. I learned, healed, and received so much. And as best I could, I tried to give back. Without Haven, I don’t believe I would have repaired the fractures in my family or created the meaningful relationships—like the one I have with CrisMarie—that sustain me.

And yet, everything is shifting.

The funny thing about Haven is that, in many ways, it felt like re-living camp. I lived on an island. We were adults instead of children, gathered around charismatic leaders—brilliant, imperfect, and human. I loved them, and at times I wanted to knock them off their pedestals.

Now, so many of the people who shaped my experience are gone. I still find myself wrestling with how to keep the core of what I loved alive. But I’m beginning to see that this is no longer my role—or my desire.

I want to let those cords dissolve. I want to allow myself to be re-created and Haven as well.

So, I find myself called to launch something new:

✨ Camp Connection

For now, Camp Connection will be an online community. A space—not a place—where we can come together to connect, grow, and remember who we are beneath the stories and the armor.

Here is the vision I hold:

Vision Statement for Camp Connection
Camp Connection is not a place—it is a space we create together.

It is a space where we set aside the walls that keep us apart and step into the aliveness of authentic connection. Where the elements that shape us—our stories, our experiences, our differences, and our dreams—are honored and welcomed.

Camp Connection can arise anywhere: around a campfire, in a boardroom, or across a circle of chairs. Wherever we gather with courage and curiosity, we discover the possibility that lives within and between us.

Here, we are invited to listen deeply, to share openly, and to remember that belonging is not given to us—it is something we co-create.

Camp Connection is a call to come together in wonder, to awaken what is dormant, and to build community grounded in respect, empathy, and shared purpose.

It starts with a Mighty Network—already set up (complete with a few misspellings!). But ready to begin.

If you feel curious or called to join me, here’s an invitation: Camp Connection on Mighty Netorks.

Connecting, Embracing Unknown, Life Experiences, Uncategorized

Living Untethered After Good Bye

Me and my sisters Melissa and Penny

Home

My friend Paula kept gently telling me that at some point, I’d feel the shift.

Maybe it would come with exhaustion. Maybe with freedom.

But it would come.

I thought the riptide I felt in my mother’s final days was that shift.

Then came another wave — a vortex of emotion — as I worked on the memorial videos and prepared to travel to Seattle to celebrate her life.

Again, it was Paula who reminded me to stay present. To feel my way through the day.

And I did my best. It was a beautiful day — full of tears, joy, connection, and letting go.

Now I’m home. And the energy has shifted again.

I’m exhausted — and also floating a bit, untethered.

Some of the stories and memories I’ve always held so clearly… don’t quite hold the same meaning anymore.

Something’s rearranging.

As I tried to explain this new feeling — and wrestled with what I should do next — my friend Robin gently interrupted.

She said, “You keep talking about what you need to do. But what do you want to do?”

That stopped me.

I realize now: I need time.

I’m so wired to be productive. To get back on track, to plan, to accomplish.

But maybe that’s not what’s needed. Maybe it’s not what I need.

What do I want?

What if time isn’t meant to serve productivity, or safety, or even health?

What if it’s here to hold space for evolution?

We’re trained to use time to chase success — build strong bodies, stable careers, meaningful relationships, likes, money, recognition.

But what if that’s not the point?

What if the real invitation is to evolve out of separation?

Maybe that’s too much.

But maybe the purpose of this life is to learn to love. To collaborate. To connect. To live in peace.

I know — that sounds like “crazy talk.”

But every time my life has cracked open — during crisis, loss, or fear — that’s the truth that becomes crystal clear.

That really is what matters.

During COVID, people found extraordinary ways to connect.

When the floods hit Texas camps, strangers stepped in, walls came down, and people helped.

Same with wildfires, disasters — these moments break through the illusion of separateness. They stir something in us.

Then the crisis passes, and we try to go back to “normal.”

Why?

What if we didn’t?

What if we refused to return to the programming of separation, competition, and fear?

What if we chose something else?

I remember a moment — years ago — when I thought I was dying. I had just begun to drop some of my walls.

Someone said to me, “You might be better off dying.”

It sounds harsh. But I think I understood what they meant.

Living — really living — with an open heart, with love instead of fear — isn’t easy in this culture.

But I wanted to live. I still do.

Some days I’m not sure. Some days I fall back into blame and self-protection.

But I’m grateful. Because I keep getting another moment.

Another chance to be present.

To choose love.

My mother was someone, I believe, who chose that — again and again.

She lived it.

And now I get to ask myself:

What do I want, really?

And how can I live from that place?