SHOW NOTES

Listening to Winter

In this episode, I share a spoken reflection on winter, embodiment, and the quiet clarity that comes through work and presence. This piece grows out of recent hands-on restoration work at Cambridge Cemetery and reflects a seasonal shift toward slowing down, listening, and letting the body lead.

The spoken reflection is paired with video, including time-lapse footage from the cemetery work. If you are listening through the podcast and would like to experience the visual version, you can find links below.

Watch the spoken-word video:

YouTube: https://youtu.be/qzUuhvGSj-4

Read the written essay on Substack:

Substack: https://bit.ly/4bLE6Mi

Watch the full, un-narrated time-lapse of the cemetery work:

YouTube: https://youtu.be/6AWn71k2Kwk

This reflection is part of my ongoing work with Vital Healing, where I explores embodiment, presence, and the slow return to what is real through breath, movement, and time on the land.

Thank you for being with us on this Vital Healing journey, as we find our way back to ourselves and back to each other.

This week’s reflection comes out of some recent work along Piney Creek, where we put up two wood duck boxes and filmed parts of the process as it unfolded. The piece follows the work as it happened, choosing placement, adjusting along the way, clearing space where needed, and tending to what the creek had carried in during high water.

The spoken word is paired with a time-lapse video for those who want to see the work alongside the words.

Links

• Read the full Substack essay: https://bit.ly/3LtnAWM
• Watch the accompanying video on YouTube: https://youtu.be/bIqLO4wrCG0
• Join our free monthly online breathwork session: https://bit.ly/4qZUiPe

Thank you for being part of the Vital Healing journey, as we find our way back to ourselves and back to each other.

Learning to Rewild with Barn Owls

Moving Away from Control and Back Toward Balance

Description:

This episode is a spoken reading of my latest Substack essay, Learning to Rewild with Barn Owls.

The piece grew out of recent work building nesting boxes on the land. While researching bluebird and wood duck boxes, I came across plans for a barn owl box and began learning more about how barn owls live, hunt, and support balance in an ecosystem.

Building the owl box from reclaimed wood became part of a larger reflection on rewilding, stepping away from constant control, and allowing the land and the more-than-human world to participate more fully.

A quiet time-lapse of the build is available in the companion video.
https://youtu.be/c4OpoCTxnjg

Links:

📖 Read the essay on Substack:

https://bit.ly/49vPt8J

🎥 Watch video version:

https://youtu.be/3Yw1F9_xxxM

Join the Monthly Breathe (live breathwork gathering):

https://bit.ly/4qZUiPe

This episode is a Christmas Eve offering.

It centers on A Christmas Carol, the film The Man Who Invented Christmas, and the story behind the story.

More than that, it explores how change happens in a human life, not through force or correction, but through reconnection, memory, and love.

This episode is meant to be listened to gently. Whether you’re walking, resting, or sitting quietly, you’re invited to let the words land at their own pace.

Read the full essay on Substack:

👉 https://bit.ly/3Y3VR1B

Visit the website:

👉 www.vitalhealing.org

Monthly Breathe:

A live monthly breathwork gathering focused on grounding, presence, and nervous system regulation.

👉 https://bit.ly/4qZUiPe

The Walking Pilgrim App:

Soon to be released! 33 Day walking meditations app rooted in breath, embodiment, and simple presence.

👉 https://www.walkingpilgrim.com/

Thank you for listening, and for walking this path together.

This episode explores my journey through anxiety, years of depending on Xanax, and a fear of flying that kept me grounded for nearly two decades. It's about how the right practices can help us find our way out of patterns we thought we'd carry forever.

Explore how Breathwork, walking meditation, and time in nature slowly built the foundation I needed.

• Playing Native American style flute and learning to make mistakes without shutting down
• How anxiety shaped my body and my life before I understood what was happening
• Discovering breathwork in 2019 and what it opened up
• Qigong, walking meditation, and rewilding my mind through time in nature
• Stepping away from Xanax in late 2024 after thirty years
• What self-care can actually looks like when it includes both tenderness and courage

PRACTICE: Begin with something small. A breath deep into your belly. A slow mindful walk. A warm bath that helps your body soften. These are simple things that don't ask you to perform, only to listen.

WORK TOGETHER: If something here resonated and you're curious about working together, I offer exploratory calls. We look at where you are, what you're navigating, and whether breathwork or embodied practices might be the right support for your path.

Schedule a call: https://bit.ly/48DM7jm

LINKS & RESOURCES:
📖 Read the full article: https://bit.ly/4a7qudO
🌬️ Join monthly breathwork sessions: https://bit.ly/4qZUiPe
🌐 Learn more about Vital Healing: https://www.vitalhealing.org/
🚶 Walking Pilgrim App: https://www.walkingpilgrim.com/

Winter has a way of slowing everything down, and this episode follows the rhythm of that season. I read the full piece titled What Winter Is Teaching Me, a reflection on letting go, tending the land, and learning to trust the quiet work that happens beneath the surface.

In this story we visit the oaks and beech trees that hold their leaves long into the cold months, and flow the still water shaped by the beavers along Frenchs Creek.

I share more about the birds and wildlife that show up in this season, including some simple ways to support native species in your own area. We talk about bluebird boxes, wood duck boxes, and how habitat work on even a small scale can make a real difference.

If you feel drawn to participate in this kind of care where you live, you will find helpful links and resources below.

Wood Duck Box Plans

Eastern Bluebird Box Plans

Cornell Guide to Nest Boxes

Connect and Go Deeper

Monthly Breathe Session

Vital Healing Substack

Walking Pilgrim App Updates

Thank you for listening and for being part of this work of tending our inner and outer landscape.

EPISODE 4: The Return from Babel - Finding our way out of the Machine.

Paul Kingsnorth's "Against the Machine" opens a window into the modern impulse to measure, optimize, and control everything.

This episode traces that pattern from the Tower of Babel to our lives today and offers a way back through breath and presence.

IN THIS EPISODE:

• The Machine as more than technology: a restless engine of control that shapes our entire civilization
• The ancient pattern from Genesis to today: building towers, measuring worth, forgetting we're human
• What the Machine cannot hold: breath, presence, love, and the truth of being human
• How confusion keeps us divided while missing the larger pattern
• Finding our way back through the body, one breath at a time

PRACTICE:

Place one hand on your belly.
Inhale slowly through your nose, letting your belly expand.
Exhale twice as long as the inhale. Feel your shoulders drop, jaw soften.
Try this three times and notice what shifts.
Every word begins here, in this quiet exchange between body and world.

LINKS & RESOURCES:

Read the full article: https://bit.ly/4pwEkuE
Join monthly breathwork sessions: https://bit.ly/4qZUiPe
Learn more about Vital Healing: https://www.vitalhealing.org/
Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/7ofzKHTnyUQ
Walking Pilgrim App: https://www.walkingpilgrim.com/

CONNECT:
If this episode resonated with you, I'd love to hear about it. info@vitalhealing.org

When Convenience Stops Being Enough

Based on the essay available on Substack

This episode explores a truth many of us carry quietly. We live with more convenience than any generation before us, yet something in us still hungers for depth, belonging, and a way of living that feels human.

Through historical accounts of settlers who chose to remain within Native communities, the story looks at what happens when freedom and connection live side by side. Their experiences reveal something about our own longing to feel part of a world that nourishes rather than numbs.

We follow this thread into the present and ask what it means to return to ourselves in a time marked by speed and distraction. The episode ends with a simple invitation to step outside, slow down, and reconnect with what feels real.

Read the full essay:

Substack When Convenience Stops Being Enough

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