the days are long here – dawn comes before 6, the tennis ball can still be seen after 10 – and my body + spirit are drinking in the light.

i hope your solstice dreams were full of magic.

As shakespeare said about the summer solstice, in a midsummer night’s dream, “whatever is dreamed on this night, will come to pass.”

in that spirit, and in honor of the solstice, i added a favorite print to the shoppe. may it remind you of wonder + magic.

wishing you a moment of magic in which you can see that this is so.

when i was inspired with the idea to offer my stories in the form of a story club – a regular delivery of lighthearted + delightful stories – i was thinking about parents.

children – at least the children i know – have their favorite stories.

they read those stories over & over & over.

but sometimes, you just can’t read dr. seuss again, for what feels like the millionth time.

in those moments, you really want a new bedtime story.

but it takes time to go to the library or to the bookstore, and life can get in the way.

i wanted to create a way for stories to fly into your life, no time or effort required, for just those moments.

while my stories are not children’s stories in the usual sense – i do not write them specifically for children – i tell them to the children i know and they are always appropriate for children.

but do you know who else needs a regular delivery of wonder + magic?

we all do.

in a world where we are inundated with stories of fear + negativity, we need even more stories of beauty + wonder + magic.

there is so much goodness in the world, and it is rarely a focus. instead, we hear stories of fear, of doom + gloom, of us vs them.

it’s everywhere.

it’s almost inescapable.

our spirits are nourished by beauty + love + joy + kindness + wonder.

there are examples of this everywhere, but they are rarely delivered to us. sometimes they are easy to find. sometimes it takes time + determination + focus.

in our busy, rushed, chaotic lives, it’s easy to forget that this is important.

meanwhile, examples of the opposite are delivered, basically on a silver platter – causing our bodies to contract, our hearts to close, our minds to fill with anxiety, our hands to hold things tighter.

one of the things i feel strongly about is this: we need to find ways to bring beauty + wonder + magic into our daily lives.

we need to find ways to focus on hope + possibility + gratitude. when we don’t, we suffer.

maybe the story club is one of those ways for you. maybe it isn’t.

but my deepest wish is that you find your own ways: the people + places + things that nourish your spirit, that open your heart, that remind you of all that is good + right + true in the world.

hafiz said, “stay close to anything that makes you glad you are alive.”

this. yes. exactly.

“When you sit in silence long enough, you learn that silence has a motion. It glides over you without shape or form, exactly like water. Its color is silver. And silence has a sound you hear only after hours of wading inside it. The sound is soft, like flute notes rising up, like the sound of glass speaking. Then there comes a point when you must shatter the blindness of its words, the blindness of its light.”

~ Anne Spollen, The Shape of Water

the snow is finally beginning to melt, so i thought i would share some winter photos. these were taken earlier this winter, on a snowshoe hike around calumet lake with my dad.

because i am in a matchmaking mood, i am sharing them in the form of an ode to john burroughs.

“[W]hat a severe yet master artist old Winter is… No longer the canvas and the pigments, but the marble and the chisel.”

~ John Burroughs, The Snow-Walkers

“What a wild winter sound, — wild and weird, up among the ghostly hills… I get up in the middle of the night to hear it. It is refreshing to the ear, and one delights to know that such wild creatures are among us. At this season Nature makes the most of every throb of life that can withstand her severity.”

~ John Burroughs, The Snow-Walkers

“It is a spur that one feels at this season more than at any other. How nimbly you step forth! The woods roar, the waters shine, and the hills look invitingly near. You do not miss the flowers and the songsters, or wish the trees or fields any different, or heavens any nearer. Every object pleases… the straight light-gray trunks of the trees… how curious they look, and as if surprised in undress.”

~ John Burroughs, Winter Sunshine

“If the October days were a cordial like the sub-acids of fruit, these are a tonic like the wine of iron. Drink deep or be careful how you taste this December vintage. The first sip may chill, but a full draught warms and invigorates.”

~ John Burroughs, Winter Sunshine

“Stop the words now.
Open the window in the center of your chest
and let the spirits fly in and out.”

~ Rumi

“Where round the bed, whence Achelous springs, That wat’ry Fairies dance in mazy rings.”

~ Homer, Iliad

“The wall is silence, the grass is sleep,
Tall trees of peace their vigil keep,
And the Fairy of Dreams with moth-wings furled.
Plays soft on her flute to the drowsy world.”

~ Ida Rentoul Outhwaite

“Like legend and myth, magic fades when it is unused — hence all the old tales of elfin kingdoms moving further and further away from our world, or that magical beings require our faith, our belief in their existence, to survive. That is a lie. All they require is our recognition.”

~ Charles de Lint

“Said the river: I am part of holiness. And I too, said the stone. And I too, whispered the moss beneath the water.”

~ Mary Oliver

“Dance when you’re broken open.
Dance when you’ve torn the bandage off.
Dance in the middle of fighting.
Dance in your blood.
Dance when you’re perfectly free.
Struck, the dancer hears a tambourine inside her, like a wave that crests into foam at the very top, Begins.
Maybe you don’t hear that tambourine, or the tree leaves clapping time.
Close the ears on your head, that listen mostly to lies and cynical jokes.
There are other things to see, and hear. Music. Dance.
A brilliant city inside your soul!”

~ Rumi

if you have photoshop and are in the mood to play,

here are the instructions to create your very own circles.

i should warn you, it’s quite addicting.

“It is the life of the crystal, the architect of the flake, the fire of the frost, the soul of the sunbeam. This crisp winter air is full of it.”

~ John Burroughs, Winter Sunshine

{i don’t know who john burroughs is, but i need to read his book because it seems to be full of the most marvelous thoughts about winter.}

{this photo comes to you courtesy of an old truck, sunshine, and snowflakes. i am so loving finding the magic in winter.}