essays.
Longer pieces — the ones that needed paragraphs. Things I followed somewhere I didn’t plan.
Learning to Walk a New Path
Launching this site again marks a new chapter for me in my writing life. I have fond memories of my first blogspot account back in the halcyon days of the early internet. I have scribbled notebooks of poems and stories from my teenage years. Back in the day, when someone would ask the dreadful question, "what do you...
What Your CPA Can't Do For You
A *Pathwright Partners* blog post There's a challenge I've noticed business owners facing that I don't think we talk about enough. And that is this question of what you need to be responsible for yourself versus what you can hand off to someone else. Accounting and finances are a great example of this. Especially...
Feeling the Mystery
Reflections on My Meditation Retreat Experience Taken at the retreat center, in a bamboo grove on the property Last month I attended an “Awakening Through the Body” meditation retreat hosted by Dharma Gates in West Virginia. In complete honesty, I had no idea what I was signing up for. I’ve learned to follow my...
Walking Without a Map
The Wanderer is the embodiment of freedom — untamed, untethered, and unwilling to be caged. She follows the pull of unseen horizons, drawn not to safety but to the mystery of what could be. This is the energy that leads us into the unknown, toward the vast expanse of future possibility. To be the Wanderer is to live...
Soul Excavation: Working with Archetypes
We carry many selves. Some buried deep—forgotten, silenced, or abandoned. Versions of us that once believed they couldn’t survive what we’ve endured. But look at us now. Blooming anyway. Not in spite of the pain, but because of it. Every scar, every silence, every shadow—it shaped the soil where we now stand...
All You Need
This week I had a new experience at the gym. I was done with my set and wiping down the machine when a lady came up to me to ask how it worked. She confessed she had never used this type of machine before and wasn’t sure how it worked. My first thought was: “And you’re asking me? I’m the least qualified person in this...
All That Remains
Winter is not my favorite season. Even that is an understatement. I confess, it is a struggle to find joy in the short, bleak days of January (and February, and March, and April....). But in the last few years I've been trying to shift my perspective and search for glimpses of light even on the darkest days. We had...
Awakening the Light
Too often we exist as hollowed soul-shells, content with a shadow of existence, insisting that this is good enough. Racing through our days as if this counts as living. Or in the words of Neil Postman, “amusing ourselves to death” and calling it life. In my journey of living intentionally, I’ve realized how important...
Rambling in the Rockies
I recently took a trip out to Colorado and got to hang out in the Rocky Mountains for a few days. After copious research, I decided to stay in Grand Lake, on the southwest side of the national park. The two options are Estes Park or Grand Lake and I did not want to deal with the traffic and tourists at Estes Park....
Leadership Rockford 2024: Reflections
Over the past year Ihad the opportunity to take part in Leadership Rockford, a 9 month program hosted by the Greater Rockford Chamber of Commerce. What is Leadership Rockford? Leadership Rockford is a program designed to help develop and connect the future generations of leaders in our area. Throughout the year we...
Spring Cake: Orange and Rosemary
One of my aspirations is to make a special bake for each solstice and equinox. I've experimented a few times with a Yule Log Cake for winter solstice but that's about it so far. It felt like the right time to try out a spring cake. It was a little late for the Spring Equinox because I decided to make it for an Easter...
Reflections on TCMF Restore & Resilience Retreat 2024
Last year I had the opportunity to attend the Tommy Corral Memorial Foundation Restore and Resilience Mental Wellness Retreat at Stronghold Castle in Oregon, IL. It was one of those synchronous experiences that I happened to stumble into. The timing of the event was perfect as I was going through a difficult time in...
A Life of Love and Grace
Inspiration from a Biography of Fred Rogers Growing up in a strictly conservative home, there were strict limits to what our family was allowed to watch on television. We were probably a decade behind the times when we finally upgraded from the boxy old TV set to a new-fangled flatscreen. Our TV time was limited to a...
Healing Through Writing
The last six months have been the most intense period of personal growth I have ever experienced. I can truly say that my self of last summer would not even recognize the person I am today. It has been a transformative time of healing and growth. Although the externalities of my life look a lot like they did last...