Compassionate Ground
On Running, Breathing, and Returning
Mini Lined Heirloom Journals arrived in the shop over the weekend, and the arrival of September means a calendar full of upcoming classes — sign up below if you’re in NYC. Paid Subscribers, another Colorway essay landed for you on Sumac.
The days that start with movement outside remind me of the hum of living. Feet on the ground — calm, serene, alive — I breathe fresh air into mind, body, and lungs, opening to the day.
Breathe in the wide sky. A blue horizon, near-cloudless, the serene gaze of sunlight and the revival of oxygen. I feel the peaks and fall of the seasons as I run, taking breath after breath, putting one foot in front of the other. Time spent running, breathing, writing, bird finding are meditations, paths to ground into life. With each practice, strength forms in the act of returning.
When I’m writing, I’m writing; when I’m running, I’m running. I’m less concerned with metrics, not concerned with the number of pages I can fill, nor am I aroused by tracking the expanse of miles I can run in a week. Instead, I’m curious to learn and love the process. I crave the visceral, tangible effort of the practice: the morning, the evenings, the returning, the daylight, embodying stillness and pacing, my lungs opening and closing. I feel more alive when I’m in the process, feeling both the moment and the aftermath, seeing progress tracked in the impacts of the practices compounding. Breath, step, day: each forming, strengthening, growing, shifting. Like anything growing, rarely is the fruit of the practice bloomed immediately.
When I look to nature, it teaches me to allow for multitudes. It shows me how to embody and live a life that is wild, wide, steady, strong, stunning, and adaptable enough to change. How to stand strong, spine like a tree, how to break like a wave crests, how to rise again like sunlight. How to look to the light beams that cascade through the trees and bask in them, or see bird, stone, challenge, resistance, each other, and give generously. How to keep going.
“Like running,” Natalie Goldberg writes, “the more you do it, the better you get at it. Some days you don't want to run and you resist every step of the three miles, but you do it anyway. You practice whether you want to or not. You don't wait around for inspiration and a deep desire to run. That's how writing is too. One of the main aims in writing practice is to learn to trust your own mind and body; to grow patient and nonaggressive.”
The nature of practice is effort and ease. To be dedicated, and kind with ourselves. To create a practice that’s sustainable, we need some ember within us, some starlight of motivation to return to, to love deeply, and follow — some guiding force that we learn to tend to, and nurture, and remember, and listen to, in the face of life’s inevitable resistance. A place within us to build on compassionate ground.
I don’t force myself to write, breathe, or run, but I do tether my inner intention to steadiness — do savor the joy of practice when I can feel it. Instead, I tune into the feeling of sunlight and wind, the calls of gulls and the shoreline, the sensation of running each on cement and hillsides. I pay attention to the process, tune in to the impacts over time: the way I stand up stronger, straighter, and softer after running, writing, and breathing. Tides move in and out; I break down and gather myself back together, watching the waves of the mind equal to currents along the shoreline, bringing body, landscape, and breath back together again. Earth, breath, step, page, remembering the ripple effects of these practices, returning to how they feel days, weeks, months, and years after. “My work is loving the world,” Mary Oliver writes, I remind myself, again and again, that we are of the world, too, and our work is loving ourselves in the process.
Classes and Experiences:
From the Studio:
Let’s Work Together: Creative Life Sessions
Creative Life Sessions are here! Imagine: one on one session for you to support yourself, guide your creative practice, and focus in. Together, we’ll transform your blocks into expressions; generate a grounding, foundational practice; reconnect you to the innate creativity within you; remind you of your intentionality and capacity; restore your mind, body, and breath into your best friend and creative ally; bring your ideas into actionable steps and tangible ideas; and shift your perspective wider, to encompass a grounded and inspired creative view.
Nourished By, Nourishing:
Motherwort and lemon balm, again, on repeat. Oat muffins turned into bread pudding with waning fruit. American Fiction, dusk walks, and cooling evenings.
