Before anything grows, roots go down. Not to be seen, but to be stable. Sometimes our discomfort comes from trying to “rise” without rooting first. In other words, we sometimes aim to expand before we have set a wide base for ourselves to use as a platform for our potential growth. Then our "rise" feels more like a stretch beyond our capacity, rather than an easeful expansion of what is already underneath us, or central to our core. A tree puts forth a branching system that c

It is still deep winter here in February in Minnesota. The ground is asleep under a blanket of white. The sap is not yet rising in the trees. The birds are quieter, accept for the occasional woodpecker’s drum. And the light remains soft, even though we gain minutes by the day. There is a stillness in the natural world that’s easy to miss if we’re generally maintaining the same busy routines all year. Our focus has gone elsewhere, now that the major holidays of winter have pas