Floating Is A Balancing Act




Dear Starlight,
It’s the equinox. Earth’s timely moment of balance. When eggs stand up and we are suspended between death and birth of seasons, and dark and light are equal to one another.
On route to the office yesterday, I veered left and took an unplanned detour to the beach. Not a proper ocean side beach, but an upstate Hudson River “beach” littered with driftwood, murderous Japanese knotweed pods, and minuscule muscle shells reminding us that this brackish water once upon a time had oysters and muscles thriving in it.
I sat in my truck dumbstruck by my odd decision to off route myself from habit. What am I doing here? I wondered, staring at the seagulls staring at me asking me the same question.
I considered my feeling state: “floaty”. I am not accustomed to having my hands off the wheel speeding somewhere with fierce determination and looming threat. Passivity is mentally excruciating and strangely exhausting. Do you know doing less can be so difficult?
I sat there, looking at the seagulls and gray waters and pictured myself floating on a piece of splintered driftwood from the cyclonic Imbolc shipwreck I recently survived. I contemplated over stretching to grab another piece of broken wood to make an oar to row somewhere. I felt the heroism of my ingenuity flood my little nervous body. Won’t I prove to be wonderful! I looked around and realized I had no idea where to row too? Let that strategic idea go. Jetsam.
I considered balance sitting at this fulcrum point between seasons. Floating is a balancing act; moving with change versus gripping to hold steady. Panic breathing is a sure way to drown—literally.
The longer I am here, floating, nowhere known, the sooner I will learn to love the piece of driftwood that is here, carrying me somewhere. And the longer I float the sooner I will learn to read the sun, the stars, the birds and wind as guides.
Down at the rivers edge I looked at the stark black trees pencilled against the sky–slyly looking dead. We often pay no attention to these winter tree bodies. Their slender curling upward bent arms. Naked from their cover of leaves.
I heard their invitation; it is you, you need to recognize, love, and nurture–everyone loves the splendid leaves but you must learn to love the bare tree that’s standing here appearing dead tired. Let go. Let go of past seasons hues. Leaves leave so the tree can regenerate.
I looked to my feet and noticed the leaves of last lay composting as fertilizer for the tree that will one day bud again. Small yellow pops were poking their heads out of the muck.
Yellow balances gray as a complementary contrast.
At the beach I sat in my gray girl truck and wrote:
The ship tore apart
Savage torment
In darkness lost all sense
Given a broken mast
To float on
Float on, float on, float on
See some debris
Should I try
To salvage to create
an oar or sail—
Not knowing where
Where is land is island is land
Float on
Watch the sun
Seesaw up and down
See more pieces
Flotsam and wonder
Should I pick them
Let them go stay light
Someday a bird crosses overhead
Another day another one
Float on
Try to recognize
This place a place
Watch the seagulls
Watch them float
fly, float, fly,
cry, cry, fly,
float, fly, cry
How long will it take
Floating on
Lost at sea
No one can see
Me floating on
In the dark I imagine
I’m a lighthouse
A light in me
Only I see
In the dark
This light will save me
Let everything go
Hands free laid out on a tree
Floating on
Waiting is all
All I want
To be right here
In this dark sea of possibility
All I see is opportunity
Vast as the bluest sky
Which now looks like my eye
I’ve become one
With the sea
Holding me
I needed to be carried
On a life raft of splintered driftwood
Floating on
I cry still
Geese swoop down
Calling back
Rest rest rest rest rest rest
Lullaby of waves rock me
sleep a bye baby
sleep a bye baby
sleep a bye baby
You are not alone
Directionless
A special note: This coming week I will share with paid subscribers anchoring medicine and a tarot spread related to the King of Cups for navigating emotional resilience to float in moving waters, and a wayfinding guide to creatively support identifying your bare self with the tools of dendrology (study and identification of trees). Look out for an extra newsletter between now and next Sunday.
With love,





Today is my birthday. I have completed 70 revolutions around the big star. Thank you for an apt reminder of the value of the surrender to float 👌🏽It’s much more graceful than the dog paddle 🙏🏽❤️