(If you’re new to Eclosion: An Artist’s Path to Power and Peace, start at the beginning. Or visit my Memoir Hub for a full table of contents with links.)

Filling the Creative Well

Some days, being in society is just too much. While I don’t get to pull the literal covers over my head and stay in bed—as if my kid would let that happen—I do take breaks from the noise, particularly the news.

Shon and I marked our 10^th wedding anniversary while he was going through cancer treatment. In need of a deep disconnect and renewal, we honored this milestone by unplugging and hiking into the Goat Rocks Wilderness for five days, bringing only what we could carry on our backs. There, surrounded by raw beauty, we tested our strength against the mountains, taking Seren on her burliest backpacking trip yet. We split the six-mile, all-uphill hike into two days to make it possible—Seren had just turned six, Shon was one week out from his next cancer treatment, and I was dealing with chronic pain.

At our campsite that first night, we were all exhausted. After dinner, Shon and Seren escaped the mosquitos while I tidied up our camp. The two of them cuddled up in the tent as Shon told a familiar story from his childhood about the time he went camping with his dad in Colorado and they heard a ‘bear’ scratching on the tent. His dad, in a moment of brave absurdity, took Shon’s brand-new two-inch Swiss Army knife to protect them, clutching that little knife as both of them huddled in fear for hours, certain that the ‘bear’ would tear down the tent and come after them.

Listening from outside the tent where I was washing dishes, I dissolved in helpless laughter, knowing how the story ended—not with a bear, but with a branch scratching the fabric of the tent. Shon caught my giggle bug and started laughing uncontrollably. Seren laughed too, but she also wanted to hear the rest of the story. He tried to continue telling his tale and couldn’t—every time he started, we both broke down all over again, laughing until tears streamed down our cheeks, my smile plastered across my face so manically that my cheeks hurt.

We were alone in the wilderness, society miles and miles away, laughing until we couldn’t laugh any more, soaking into the moment with gratitude.

The next day we hiked up and up, above the tree line, high into the alpine, with a new lightness in our steps. Together, we reveled in the wildflowers animated with hundreds of butterflies, some settling on our toes and tickling our fingertips. We marveled at the panoramic vistas, unmarred by human development, and grazed on wild mountain huckleberries, our fingers stained purple. Seren and I climbed rock waterfalls and huge boulders simply because we could. We moved at the pace of the land itself, letting the stresses and tensions of everyday life melt away, like the glacier near our campsite. On a calm afternoon I settled into the wilderness to write as Shon and Seren filled water at the nearby stream…

Returning to nature, especially when I carry all my things on my back—especially in the untouched wilderness, far from cars and computers and distraction—fills me in such a profound way. Everything is slow. All there is to do is immerse in the connection, the calm, the beauty. Let the world around me be my teacher. Sink deeper into place, into wonder, into my love for Seren and Shon. Drink clear glacial water and submerge my feet in its icy coldness. Lose track of days and hours and minutes. And just be.

Where do you go—or what do you do—to fill your creative well?

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The Constellation of One

This poignant and supportive dream was a sharp contrast with the dreams I experienced over the following weeks. In those dreams my deepest personal fears were actualized—dreams where I drank alcohol, somehow saying to myself I was still sober since I only had a drink every now and again. This was terrifying because I know that the only power I have when it comes to alcohol is to not take that first drink. After that, all bets are off. I awoke from these dreams, nightmares really, shaken and unsure—were these only dreams, or had I actually broken the promises I’d made to myself and lost my hard-earned sobriety?

I decided to take the dreams for the prompt they were and got back into my practices of meditation, jogging, and painting which had slipped some during the summer. I found myself at a threshold of sorts—a place where all of the pieces of the work I had done over the last nine months were swirling together. Each piece a part of a multi-dimensional puzzle, and this puzzle was under incredible strain. It felt as though everything I had built teetered on the brink of collapse. The puzzle needed just one more piece to slide into place to be whole, or it was going to explode. I worried that if the puzzle collapsed, it might unravel not just the progress I’d made, but my ability to hold onto the life I’d worked so hard to create.

Or maybe it wasn’t a puzzle at all. Maybe it was my old self, the caterpillar in me that was perfectly happy in my safe, grounded life, trying hard to stay as I was, resisting the risk of reaching for the sky, resisting the imaginal cells that were building the version of myself that can fly. The strain wasn’t about finding one missing piece—it was about letting go of the safety of the known and surrendering to the transformation already underway.

After many years of doing my own inner work, I’ve come to a place where I like who I am—I feel more comfortable in my skin today than I ever have before. I recognize my own self-worth. This allows me to go out into the world and take actions that are meaningful towards creating a hopeful future. Reaching this place was hard-won, a result of years spent peeling back layers of doubt and shame to uncover a sense of wholeness within myself.

These dreams were a warning. They were a reminder that if I am to continue living this life I love, to be of service to those around me, to be part of the solution, it is absolutely essential that I prioritize my own self-care. There is no other way for me to do it. If I don’t take care of myself, I risk losing my self-worth and self-acceptance. If I lose those two hard-won cornerstones, I cannot show up for the world, or those I love. And I definitely won’t be able to show up in the artful ways that I am being called to.

About a month earlier, my mentor asked me to make art around the personal work I was doing in relation to the cancer in Shon’s body. Her request wasn’t just about making art; it was an invitation to confront my vulnerabilities and strengths head-on and weave them into a declaration of self-acceptance. Specifically, she was guiding me towards changing my attitude and taking better care of myself. She asked me to forgive my weaknesses and accept my strength, to bring together the pieces of my spiritual self through art. Her challenge was an invitation to use art to bring clarity to the chaos I was navigating, and in doing so, to integrate the scattered pieces of myself.

While creating this piece, I made a list of my values, then collaged them into the painting, within a figure made of stars, connected to the cosmos. What emerged was a painting called The Constellation of One. It is a map of sorts—of the pieces of myself that I love, the boundaries that I strive to honor, that facilitate my connection with Self, with the Divine Mystery.

Talking to my mentor while wandering outside one evening, we explored my sobriety, drinking dreams, tools, and my family. As I reflected on the garage sale dream, I realized that the tools I had collected weren’t just symbolic—they represented the practices and boundaries I had been building all along—structures I could now lean on with renewed intention. Picking them up and using them daily was an act of self-empowerment and healing. I just needed to recognize their presence and use them.

When that piece fell into place, it was like the Universe rang a bell. My mentor and I both felt it. My body flushed with tingling energy and tears fell from my eyes as the realization hit home: I will not compromise my self-worth—the belonging I’ve found in my own skin—for any unhealthy relationship that is not serving me. I would rather be by myself than hide or diminish aspects of myself to be in relation with any person or social structure that won’t allow me to be me.

In that moment, all the tension was released from the puzzle, and it became a whole, beautiful, multi-dimensional picture of who I am.

This puzzle is my star map, my universe—the tools from the dream made visible. Having this map doesn’t mean I will no longer get lost—it means that there is a way back. And when I forget, I have a compass to guide me home, again and again.

The message came back to me—the one I’d received while painting months ago: I no longer get to be small. Finally, I understood it fully. It wasn’t just about my business or my art. It was about all of me. No more shrinking. No more hiding. No more compromising my worth to make others comfortable.

I no longer get to be small.

As I peeled off fear and scarcity, layer by layer, I felt myself expand—like the butterfly emerging from its chrysalis. And just as the butterfly’s wings create ripples in the air, this personal transformation has sent ripples through my family, my art, my community—and beyond. In embracing my own power, I’ve come to understand that this work is about so much more than myself—it’s about the collective metamorphosis we are capable of when we dare to step into our fullest selves.

Together, we sit at the brink of our societal eclosion—an emergence that, like the world around us, feels messy, uncertain, and impossible. Yet within this very chaos lies the potential for beauty and transformation beyond anything we can imagine.

We are possibility—potent as only something with the potential to become anything can be.

What would your own constellation look like—the values, boundaries, and hard-won truths that make up who you are?

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Balancing Act

In many ways Shon was easy to care for, rarely complaining about his situation. Even so, the cycle of his treatments was wearing on us. Now that he was receiving treatment in Olympia, travelling to and from treatments was an easy five-minute drive. But the addition of chemotherapy, while continuing to receive immunotherapy, was hard on Shon’s body. Every four weeks he would spend two full days at the hospital, drowsy and sleeping while the life-saving poison, coupled with large doses of antihistamine and steroids, dripped into his veins.

I’d bring him home after treatments and he would go to bed, staying there for days. When he would rouse himself to join us for a meal, he wasn’t fully there—the light gone from his normally bright eyes. He didn’t engage in conversation. He was simply existing, separate from us.

During these long days, I felt my own strength being tested. As the sole caretaker, the weight of our day-to-day life grew heavier. I juggled my roles as best I could, trying to be brave for Shon and especially Seren. Inside, I still grappled with fear and loneliness. The house felt emptier, the silence louder, and his sporadic presence a poignant reminder of the fragility of our situation.

About a week or so after each treatment, he would begin to come back to himself, and to us. We were thrilled to have him back, but there was a new tension. While he was sick and in bed, I made all the decisions for our family—Shon so out of it that he hardly noticed decisions were being made. As he came back to himself, he suddenly had opinions and wanted to be part of the decision-making. This was only natural, but this push and pull of roles added a layer of complexity to our already-strained interactions. At times, I felt relieved to share the burden; at others, I was irritable, not wanting to take the energy to remake decisions and plans with him when I knew that soon he would be out of it again and everything would fall back on me.

Navigating this ever-changing landscape was a difficult dance. Once I realized how this cycle kept playing out, the back and forth of the dance came easier—I learned to make space for him as he felt better, then stepped back in to lead when my strength was needed. This part of our journey, though wrought with challenges, was also a place where we grew together.

I was proud of how I was learning to show up for my family during this difficult journey, holding steady even under immense pressure. But the human body, like scaffolding under strain, can only hold so much.

As a mural artist, I often work from tall scaffolding. Fortunately, I am used to heights. When I was in my late teens, I worked for my dad, building houses. We did most everything from framing to finishing and “safety equipment” was not part of my dad’s vocabulary. I clearly remember my dad walking across the tops of 4-inch-wide walls on the daily, carrying heavy tools and placing rafters. He was fearless and graceful. My father’s seeming fearlessness taught me to push through my own fears, though I often wondered how he carried that weight day after day. Looking back, I think about how much strength it takes to balance on those narrow beams—just as I had to find my own balance through Shon’s cancer journey.

I remember how one day, while working with my dad, I needed to get from where I was on my ladder to another part of the open roof. Instead of climbing down and moving the ladder to the other spot, which is what I would normally do, I stepped onto the four-inch-wide wall and walked twelve feet across to the other side, so afraid I would fall, but doing it anyways.

“Look dad!” I called. “No hands!” He did look, he gave me quite a look in fact, asking what the heck I thought I was doing, much more concerned for my well-being than his own.

Sometimes, when mural painting, I need to get to high areas 30 feet or more above the ground. Working at those heights is exhausting in itself. One wrong step could mean a fall, so I must constantly have part of my attention on where my feet are. Assembling the scaffolding is fatiguing on an entirely different level. Each level we add gets shakier and so much farther from the ground. Falling would mean serious injury or death. To keep my balance and get the scaffolding secured so that I can do my work, I enter a type of forced meditation: I don’t allow myself to think of falling—or anything really—other than the next step required to put the scaffolding together. This mental focus gets the job done, and I’ve never fallen, but it wears me out in a way that is unlike any other manual labor I do.

In much the same way, the scaffolding of my life during Shon’s cancer journey grew taller and shakier with every added stressor—doctor appointments, caregiving, and the endless unknowns. Every step forward required careful calculation and an unrelenting focus to avoid a fall. Instead of a 30-minute process, I constructed that scaffolding for months on end. Throughout that time, I kept my gaze fixed straight ahead, never veering left or right, focusing solely on the next immediate step. I couldn’t allow myself one misstep. If I did, I would fall, and I might not be able to get up again.

To stay sane, I kept myself rigid.

Looking straight ahead got me through but was exhausting. While physical falls from scaffolding can leave visible scars, the emotional scaffolding of holding it together for Shon left invisible ones—scars that manifested in chronic neck pain and daily headaches. I did all the things I knew to do, both self-care and physical therapy, but the pain persisted. Stress leaving its mark once again.

Where in your life are you holding more than your share—and what might it look like to find balance?

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Valuing yourself as an Artist

My family loves being outside. One of our summertime rituals is to eat our meals at the bar on the back porch. From our seats, we can look out at the garden and orchard, the playset and swallow nesting boxes that Seren and I built a few years earlier. We let our ducks free-range, and they often join us while we eat, foraging in the grass nearby.

On this picturesque summer day, Shon, Seren and I were having a casual, sun-soaked lunch. Out of the blue, Shon asked me, “Carrie, if I were to just go poof one day, what would you do? Would you sell the house? Would you get a regular job?” I took a deep breath, thinking Really? We’re having this conversation now? While eating lunch with our five-year-old?

But this was where we were. We were having conversations about life and death all the time. And so I took another deep breath and thought about it before responding. “Well, I don’t know what I would do about the house. It would be a lot to maintain on my own. As for getting a regular job, the time and resources that I am putting into growing my business right now is precisely so that I can fully support our family.”

Another piece of the puzzle slipped into place, releasing some of the pressure I felt. I suddenly understood, at an intrinsic level, the responsibility I have to my family to be present and fully show up for my work. The work I do as an artist, a change maker, a leader—I do for my child and for myself. I remembered why I do this work: to show Seren, or anyone who needs to see it—including myself—what it looks like to follow my bliss and stand up for what I believe in at the same time. I am dedicated to creating a better world for my child, a world where all children have the opportunity to thrive. I knew this. But up until that moment, I couldn’t fully grasp the responsibility that I held for my family.

Even though I had been getting paid as an artist for a long time—even though I was already seen, and saw myself, as an expert in collaborative art—I hadn’t fully embraced my own worth. It was as if I was still waiting for external validation. I realized something fundamental in that moment: This work requires me to stand firmly in my own worth. Without a foundation of self-worth, I can’t turn my offerings into a sustainable business that can support my family, and I cannot continue this important work.

While this shift felt like it happened in an instant, it was the result of many years of work, of practice, of undoing old stories and building of skills and confidence.

Shon’s cancer diagnosis had already ignited a deeper drive in me to grow my business. Just a few months after his diagnosis, I found and hired an incredible business coach. I was ready to level up and was tired of pushing through on my own. I needed someone to help me focus on what truly mattered, to hold me accountable, and to offer their expertise so I could grow faster and more effectively than I could on my own.

Specifically, I was seeking support in shaping my newest offering, the Art in Action Mentorship Program. My coach not only helped me clarify my vision and refine my offer, she helped me see myself more clearly—as a powerful Artist with a meaningful and valuable message to share. I am not just someone who makes things. Now, I understand that I am a capital ‘A’ Artist, a Change Maker—someone whose work moves people. As an Artist and Change Maker, I am shaping the world around me.

One assignment my coach gave me, about valuing myself as an Artist and a Leader, was especially useful in helping me see this. In this exercise, she asked me to write down all the things that I did over the years that had gotten me to where I was in my practice. That included everything: learning to use tools as a carpenter, my college education, the thousands of hours spent making art and facilitating community projects, the time I spent as a naturalist and learning about the environment, about social justice and leadership, the events I organized, the books I read, the podcasts I listened to, even the time I spent away from my family. Through this exercise I realized that I had already spent more than two decades building my knowledge and skills as I worked towards that place, that moment, where I could more fully step into my role as Artist.

As I added my family responsibility to that picture, it suddenly became imperative that I show up for my work with a new level of owning my power. It became clear to me that—whether I am leading a collaborative Art in Action Project for a city or organization, working with a school, or coaching other artists and change makers to bring their visions to reality—I need to get paid for what my time is worth. If I don’t, I can’t support my family, and I can’t do this work.

Asking for money is hard. I have all kinds of reasons why I shouldn’t charge what I am worth—ingrained stories about what kind of person has money and what kind doesn’t. For so long, I did not want to be the kind that does. Capitalism is killing our planet, and I often felt I was selling out to the system when I asked for money. What I’ve learned is that the more money I make from those who can afford it, the more I can give back to others who can’t.

A year and a half earlier, while painting in my studio, I’d received a message: I no longer get to be small. Finally, facing the reality of potentially supporting my family alone, I began to understand. Getting small meant hiding my worth, undercharging for my work, playing it safe. I couldn’t do that anymore.

Charging what I’m worth became a practice for respecting the value of my work. It isn’t easy, but it means I can keep showing up—for myself, for my family, for the work.

Where in your life are you still waiting for permission to claim your full worth?

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What is

It was through acceptance of my current situation, my current reality, that I was able to move into a space of joy and excitement. For those first months, I tried so hard to process Shon’s diagnosis and what it meant for our family. At the same time, I was pushing against it, aching for it to not be happening at all.

Through every challenge I face, I learn again and again—sometimes with an iota of grace, often kicking and screaming—that acceptance is integral for healing and transformation. I couldn’t possibly move into a new way of relating to Shon’s cancer journey without accepting the reality of what was. The how of acceptance is something of a mystery. For me, it was so many little pieces. It was yoga and meditation. It was jogging and walking in nature. It was painting in my studio and singing songs. It was cuddling and laughing with Seren. It was setting boundaries and sharing my fears, my need for support, and learning to receive what was so freely given. It is this practice of acceptance that allows me to show up fully for this life.

To create a future where we all thrive, I must first accept the world as it is. That means facing the stark realities of climate change, species loss, and inequities in race, gender, and wealth—even if some days, I’d rather pretend they don’t exist. I must accept the realities of our society—both our strengths and our fragility. Only by accepting these truths, instead of turning away, can I begin to heal and rebuild. This is not easy; it requires sitting through a lot of uncomfortable feelings: grief, anger, regret.

This acceptance is not about giving up or saying the world’s atrocities are acceptable—they are not. Instead, it’s about facing the truth of what is, without pretending otherwise. Because what really is, like the pristine reflection of the Salish Sea on a calm day, is almost always much more complicated and nuanced than what is revealed on its surface.

With my newfound acceptance, I continued to face the hard things and take action towards changing them. I simply decided to let go of what I couldn’t change and focus on what was in front of me—showing up for my husband, being present with my child, letting our community hold us, and turning the meaningful work I was doing—AKA my calling—into a successful business that could create positive change and support my family, no matter the outcome of Shon’s cancer journey.

When I accept reality, I am able to discern what is within my power to change, and what is not. I couldn’t change the fact that Shon had cancer. I could change how I responded to it.

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Forest of Grief, Seeds of Hope

“As I gave power to the sound of my own voice
A way broke before me I followed my choice.”
~I Be Your Water by Sweet Honey in the Rock

Even as I was finding acceptance in Shon’s cancer journey, I found myself showing up with and for my community in new ways. That fall, I took my Climate Art in Action work offline, away from buildings, and into nature for a series of Visioning and Art in the Forest workshops. There, immersed in the forest of Squaxin Park—with roots stretching deep into the earth beneath and trees towering above—we deepened our commitments to creative climate action and decolonization.

From the founding of the park by the City of Olympia in 1905 until 2022, Squaxin Park was named Priest Point Park. For many of us in the workshop, this was our first gathering in the park since the renaming. Simply entering the park and seeing the sign announcing Squaxin Park, with both the City and Squaxin Island Tribe’s logos, was healing.

Candace Penn, Tribal Member and Climate Change Ecologist of the Squaxin Island Tribe, opened the workshop with a tribal blessing and song. Writer Kathleen Byrd shared a poem she’d written several years earlier about how Priest Point Park was misnamed. Then, Candace shared her personal experience and the profound significance of the recent Un-naming and Re-naming of this incredible park, to Squaxin Park. It was an honor to hear her words. Her vulnerability was an invitation, moving others to share their own art, grief, and anger.

The tabletops were covered in paper, paint markers, and natural materials from the forest. We used these materials to make a collaborative art piece under a nearby tree and to create art on the tabletops. People returned to the artful collaboration throughout the workshop, adding and expanding this collective work.

Candace shared insights on climate grief, helping us to acknowledge and normalize its presence and offering ways to recognize it in ourselves and others. She suggested taking time in nature as one way of coping with this grief. If you are unable to be in nature, bringing something from nature inside—dried leaves, shells, or pebbles—may help you to ground.

After delving further into climate grief, and what helps move people through grief and into action, Kathleen led us in a writing exercise exploring “What Is and What If.” Participants shared parts of their writing with the group, amazing me in how our grief seemed to transform into hope and a greater commitment to action through this writing. My words flowed onto the paper, and when I shared them with the group, they poured out with force.

What is and What if…

What is and what if.

What is and what if.

What is: I am surrounded by hopeful, creative people.

What if each one of these people said Yes to the sometimes quiet, sometimes loud, persistent voice in our heads. What if each of us said a loud, deep, primal YES! to walk through our fears and into the fullest expression of who we are.

What if there was, or maybe already is, support for this. What if the Universe, represented by those we come across in our day to day lives, was waiting, arms open to hold us, to support us in ways we can’t even imagine?

What if when we say Yes, it results in another being able to say yes.

What if this is already What Is.

Then I say Yes. Yes! YES! That my Yes will make yours that much easier to say.

After sharing this writing, we all said a great, big resounding YES, our voices reverberating through the forest.

We ended the workshop by walking to the Salish Sea together, finding a pebble, and resting our thoughts and commitments to artful action within our pebble. Tossing these intentions into the sea, we watched the ripples move ever outward, choosing to believe that our actions have the power to create ripples of change in ways that we may never know or understand.

As the ground is healed
So too the people are healed
As the people heal
So too the ground heals

Sitting alone in the forest after the workshop, I felt connected, motivated, held, and activated. A thought came, unbidden: I am finding my Voice. In the next moment, self-doubt tried to rise up. If I find my voice, I will have to use it! I’d been using my voice for quite some time, but there are always new layers to these things. New growth, new depths.

I reread my writing from the workshop, recalling the power of our combined voices. Two things felt very true.

Our voices together have Power.

My voice is the only one I have the power to change.

What is true in your life right now that you've been avoiding looking at directly—and what might open if you did?

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Gaia’s Acceptance

It was around this time that I painted a culminating piece in my Sea Level Rise: The Mother’s Tears series. All the previous paintings in the series had a black background, the imagery coming out of the darkness, painted with cool blues. This one though, was warm—a sunset over a natural landscape.It was a painting of Hole in the Wall, a stunning stretch of coastline along the Pacific. Hole in the Wall was the site of my last backpacking trip with Shon and Seren, before learning he had cancer.

At the time, the trip to Hole in the Wall was simply an adventure—a return to nature. Looking back, it became a touchstone of life before cancer. Drawing from a collection of photographs from this trip and my own sketches, I began to paint Hole in the Wall not as it was, but as it revealed itself in my imagination.

The natural rock formations, with their massive arch you can walk through at low tide, became my focus. As I worked, I saw the rocks transform into the shape of a woman lying on her back, her body carved from the earth itself. This new vision merged the landscape with the feminine form, as if nature itself was reclining in a state of both vulnerability and strength.

As I worked on that painting, something was shifting inside of me—something I wanted to express with paint, something I had been trying, and not quite achieving, in each of the preceding paintings in the series. I was right on the edge of this shift but couldn’t quite figure out what to do first or how to get there. I went to Shon for advice, as I often do when artistically stuck. He and Seren were lying in the hammock in the sun. “I’m stuck,” I said, standing next to the hammock. “Should I paint the woman first? Or the background? Or should I just scrap the whole thing and start over?”

It was Seren who answered. “Mama, I think you should start with the part you know about, painting the woman. Paint the woman! And then just follow your heart!”

Of course, I thought. That’s it exactly. My heart melting at the truth in her words, I leaned down for a hug and was pulled on top of them in the hammock, laughing. “Oh, Seren, thank you,” I said, squeezing her tight. “You are so wise. I could not have gotten better advice from anyone else in the world.”

This was a perfect reminder of how wisdom so often flows through those who love us. Seren is such an incredible old soul, seeing right to the heart of things. She is, without question, the biggest gift in my life.

So that is exactly what I did. I painted the woman—then followed my heart. The result is the culmination of hours upon hours of painting, a place where success blends into mastery. The woman is reclined, made from rocks, with a round, pregnant, coastal bluff belly and her braided hair lying in the shallows. The clouds are fluffy and yummy, and the reflected water feels alive. The sun sets behind Hole in the Wall, creating an incredible glow, right through her heart. The painting is called Sea Level Rise: Gaia’s Acceptance.

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Gaia’s Acceptance was scheduled to be part of a collaborative art festival on the Oregon coast that summer. The festival, organized by artist John Teply, featured John’s one-hundred-year project titled For the Seventh Generation. In John’s words: “Imagine 1,320 paintings by 1,320 artists to go with the 1,320 miles of the Washington, Oregon and California coasts. These paintings, each four feet in length, when put together end to end, and in geographic order, offer the viewer an opportunity to walk the Western coast.”

That summer, Seren and I planned a road trip to Oregon, just the two of us, for the festival. Not only was I showing Gaia’s Acceptance, I was also scheduled to give a talk on the Power of Collaborative Art. By then, I’d been speaking on stage for years, but this felt different—more personal, more vulnerable.

I was nervous about traveling alone with Seren for work. What if she needed me when I was in the middle of my talk? How would I keep track of her and make sure she was safe? I know single parents must do this all the time, but it was a new revelation for me. And I didn’t know if Shon would recover from the cancer. Maybe our future would end up being just Seren and me. Even though I didn’t want to think about it, it was a possibility I couldn’t ignore.

When I meditated on how it would work if I were a single mom, I thought of how Seren has always been part of my artwork, helping me paint murals or playing in the studio while I work. This time, I was speaking on stage, but there was no reason she couldn’t be part of that too. As I developed my talk for the event, I remembered the poems she’d written and shared during the Climate Art event we hosted earlier that spring. I asked her if she’d like to be part of my talk; would she like to share a poem about the ocean on stage? She liked the idea and began thinking about an ocean poem.

As I began planning our trip, I reached out to my friend Naomi in Oregon, asking if we could stay with them. She gave an emphatic Yes! Our families had been friends for years and Naomi and I were pregnant together—Naomi with her second child while I was pregnant with Seren. They’d moved to Oregon a few years earlier. Being far away and not on social media, their family didn’t yet know about the sharp turn our lives had taken. When I told her about Shon’s cancer diagnosis and treatment, I shared that we’d be coming in raw—that I was simultaneously leaving Shon home alone during his cancer treatment for the first time and sharing a very vulnerable talk at the Seventh Generation Mural Festival. I really had no idea what emotional state I would be in. There was a good chance both Seren and I would need extra support. She responded with such empathy and compassion, welcoming us with open arms and the willingness to hold us in whatever ways we needed.

During our trip, Naomi and I connected deeply at their home in Corvallis, sharing hard and beautiful aspects of our lives, as our kids jumped on the trampoline or played in the nearby river. On the day of the festival, the four of us piled into our car and made the hour-long drive to Lincoln City. I’d practiced my talk repeatedly before leaving for Oregon and felt confident. Even so, there were butterflies in my stomach. I gave them the recognition they deserved—a recognition of the Universe being with me—welcomed them in and thanked them. I turned the music up loud and sang “Into the Wild,” and “We Rise,” feeling these songs as the call to action they are. Later, on the beach, the kids played in the waves and built sandcastles, while I sang to the ocean, finding myself calm, willing, and ready.

When I stepped onto that stage, a real stage for the first time since before the pandemic, with a huge screen behind me showing images of my work, my mouth went dry. I paused, taking a drink of water and then a deep breath. Once I began, everything flowed. I felt a deep connection with the audience, even receiving a standing ovation. As my talk ended, I shared Seren’s wisdom in helping me paint Gaia’s Acceptance, then invited her onstage. Seren came up and recited her poem:

I love the grass
And I love the trees
And I love the oceans
And I love the seas

It was short and sweet, and the audience loved it. Even though she was only on stage for a couple of minutes, she was part of it. We were a team. This felt so important during that uncertain time in our lives.

One unexpected outcome of the festival was John telling me that my painting was getting a lot of attention. Another artist said it was the favorite of the event. Considering the number of paintings in the festival, this was quite an honor. While their words fed my ego, the more important outcome was accomplishing through painting a similar sense of unfolding, of layers that are not immediately visible, as I had achieved with The Butterfly Effect.

I wondered what else would come out of this trip. Would it ripple out into the world in untold ways? Would it result in tangible outcomes for my work, for my family? What came to me was the sensation of a strong connection to the Great Mystery, to the All that Is—a curiosity, a wondering, a loosening.

It was hard to leave Shon, but it was so good for Seren and me to take a break from his treatments, to connect with friends and nature and art, with each other and ourselves. Before leaving, I made sure Shon was set with food, rides, medications, and people checking in on him. He had space to let the side effects from the treatment move through his body in peace. Mostly he just wanted to sleep. And Seren and I got a much-needed break.

What part of your life is asking you to follow your heart—even if you don’t yet know the outcome?

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Medicine

When we met with Shon’s oncologist, Hootie, after learning that the first treatment didn’t work, he recommended a much more intense regimen—six months of chemotherapy and immunotherapy administered over two days, every four weeks at the hospital.

The immunotherapy was already proving to be hard on Shon’s body, and the trips to Seattle were grueling. On treatment days, we had to be there early in the morning, often leaving Olympia by 4 a.m., and staying at the hospital in Seattle late into the night, with Shon completely out of it due to the high doses of antihistamine he needed for his body to accept the immunotherapy. That meant having someone stay with Seren that entire time. Without family nearby, we had to rely on our chosen family—our Fam-Oly—to support us. Asking for and receiving that support was hard—and resulted in much tighter bonds within our community.

I was grateful for the support, but there was another layer to my fear of losing Shon—one that felt selfish to name. I’d been almost feverishly investing in my art business for months, knowing I might become the sole provider for our family. Each workshop I gave, each project I completed was building the foundation that might have to hold all three of us.

If I failed, I’d have to get a “real job” and give up my art career—give up all I’d worked for.

Before Shon began his first round of treatments, we had asked if Hootie could remain Shon’s primary oncologist, but that Shon could receive the treatment in Olympia. Hootie rejected this. We knew Shon was getting the best care possible by working with the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance, so we didn’t argue. But after experiencing the grueling, multi-hour commute himself, Hootie reconsidered and agreed that Shon should do the new treatment in Olympia. We would get an Olympia oncologist to administer the treatment and Hootie would continue to oversee Shon’s treatment.

It wasn’t good news, but we were relieved to be done with the commute and committed to seeing his treatment through.

Back in the car, Shon driving home, I needed to check out. Just for a minute. I opened my email, scrolling without really seeing, then stopped. A few months earlier I’d offered a Climate Action through Art workshop online. When I shared it on a climate website, the response was overwhelming—way more people tried to sign up than I had space for. I’d written to the organization, asking if they would send me the contact information for everyone who’d tried to sign up, certain that they would say no.

Opening their reply, I blinked in shock. Not only did they say yes, they sent me a document with the contact info for over 2,000 people interested in my work.

I looked over at Shon’s profile as he drove. He looked calm, steady. I looked down at the email again, my heart beating faster. It felt like a sign, like the Universe was holding us, reminding me that even in the midst of this cancer battle, there was abundance to be had.

That night, Seren fell asleep in my arms as we cuddled in her bed. I carefully disentangled myself from her, then smoothed back her hair. I thought about the email—2,000 contacts for people who’d signed up for my workshop. They lived all around the world. Most were strangers. I thought about the web I’d been building since The Plastic Whale Project, of the extra work I’d put into my business this year. I kissed Seren’s forehead, just like every other night.

We had a long road in front of us, and I didn’t know where it would lead. But in that moment, I let myself believe it might be okay.

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Running Towards

One day in early June, while out for a jog, something shifted. For so many months, I ran to escape—I ran for pure survival, desperately trying to move through the fear of losing Shon, and what that might mean for our family. I would imagine the congealed emotions flowing out of my brainstem, my brain processing each thought so that I could release them as I ran.

But on this day…On this day, it was different. I left my house and hit the trail, deciding to cross over the bridge and jog around the nearby school. As I jogged, I felt a new opening inside of me—an opening in the center that called me forwards. I felt liberated. Excited. And ready for whatever was next in my life. For the first time since Shon’s diagnosis, I felt a glimmer of hope—something to reach for beyond the daily weight of worry. I had a vision of something inspiring to work towards, something that pulled me out of that constant fear and planted me deep inside of hope and action.

What I was moving towards was a piece of my growth as an artist and change maker. It was a deeper understanding of my role in the wider world. It was a remembering of my part in the tapestry of life and a growing understanding that by fulfilling this role, I would also be of service to my family.

I felt clarity, a knowing of what I am here to do: Create art, and cultivate space for others to engage with art, to co-create experiences that open people to new possibilities, inspiring them into action.

When I got home and had lunch with my family, I told Shon that for the first time in months, I felt like I was running towards something instead of away. He gave me an odd look, and I wondered what was going on for him, but I let it drop since Seren was there.

That evening, I asked him what came up for him when I shared about running towards something instead of away. He said that he had no idea that I’d been jogging to run away and to process. He just saw it as running: “You know, for cardio and stuff.” I couldn’t help but laugh, because for me, it wasn’t just cardio; it was processing, healing, and survival.

When life tightens its grip, what pulls you forward instead of back?

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Six months into Shon’s journey with cancer, we received the news that not only did the first round of treatment not work, but that the mass in Shon’s lungs had grown. As I often do when upset, I found refuge in nature. I remember with crystal clarity leaving my house, walking down the driveway, and crossing the street, thinking about how damned hard the past six months had been.

As I stepped off the road and onto the path, I thought, Why Shon? Why us? Why ME? As I took my next step, time slowed, and my vision condensed. I was about to step onto thin ice over a deep, dark, frozen lake—if I took one more step into Why me, I would fall through the ice and drown in the frigid darkness—a frozen lake of my own internal demise, a place of darkness and self-pity. A place where the world is stacked against me. Instead, I called on the skills I’d built through meditation. I let go of the thought Why me, and chose to Trust.

I don’t get to know why these things happen. Why me? Really, why not me? Why anyone, for that matter. Those questions are not for me to brood on. If I do, I get stuck in the swirling abyss of self-pity. And when I’m in self-pity, I am no good to anyone, least of all myself.

What I did know was that the previous six months had been excruciatingly hard. And that this cancer journey was only just beginning. I couldn’t live my life and fully show up for my family while mired in fear. I continued walking along the trail, one foot in front of the other, feeling a sense of relief and power: I’d recognized and avoided the trap that is self-pity.

Within twenty steps, I heard a voice in my head, my voice, asking, “What if it didn’t have to be so hard?”

I let those words sink in, words that seemed to come out of nowhere and everywhere. What would it be like, I wondered, if Shon could have cancer, we could still be in a pandemic, our climate could still be spiraling out of control, and a million other things that make me want to scream could still be happening, and it didn’t have to be so hard?

In that moment I made a choice. I chose to Trust that we were right where we needed to be, and that no matter what, I was going to be okay.

My journey to Trust was long, winding, and ultimately one of the best things I’ve ever done for myself and the world around me. It is a crucial practice that I must return to again and again, as it is all too easy for me to fall into self-doubt.

Years ago, I met with a spiritual advisor of sorts who saw my potential and what was getting in the way. I distinctly remember her saying, “You’re not ready to Trust.” And she was right, I wasn’t—I was still trapped in scarcity and fear.

As I continued to work on my own spiritual, emotional, and mental growth, I got curious about Trusting. What did that even mean? My meditation practice includes prayers that I’ve created over time—prayers not bound to any religion, instead coming from my heart. After getting curious about Trusting, my prayers started to sound something like: Please help me to Trust. There I stayed for a long time, wanting, but not quite able to Trust.

When I asked for help Trusting, I could feel myself on the edge of something life altering. I began to wonder what it would be like if I shifted my prayer from “Help me to Trust” to “I Trust.” This two-word shift felt dangerous and precarious, as though I stood on the very edge of a crumbling cliff, unsure whether to step forward or pull back. I was afraid that I couldn’t really do it. That saying “I Trust” wouldn’t be authentic or true.

One day I got brave. That morning, sitting in meditation, I called up my courage and made a choice. In my prayer I said, I Trust you to work in my life and the lives of those I love today.

The shift that happened inside was infinitesimal…and infinite.

Life began to flow in a new way. Things that seemed hard before, suddenly came easier. My work took on a new richness, as did my relationships. Opportunities seemed to be everywhere, and my business grew.

From then on, each day I chose to Trust in my concept of a higher power—what I think of as the Universe, the One Song, the All That is, the Great Mystery, the Divine Wow—and in myself. I’ve come to believe that I am in collaboration with the Universe.

At the same time, life just kept right on life-ing. Hard stuff still happened. Projects fell through. We entered a global pandemic. I had difficulty with a family member. The difference was that I now had an expanded capacity to cope with whatever came my way.

When Shon got cancer, my Trust faltered and fear took over. When I made the choice to Trust once again, six months into Shon’s cancer journey, life did get easier. All I did was open myself to the possibility—the possibility that maybe, just maybe, life didn’t have to be so hard. And it wasn’t. I accepted what was and found ease. I was still worried about Shon and it still sucked to witness the treatments ravage his body. But instead of future tripping on what might happen, I shifted my focus to what we had right then.

Shon was receiving the best care possible. We had access to an incredible team of doctors. We had excellent health insurance and weren’t going to go into debt to treat the cancer. We had money coming in from our work. We had a home we loved, a supportive community, and a child who brought light and joy to the smallest of moments.

The time the three of us spent together felt so precious. Simple moments like gathering bigleaf maple leaves, bigger than our heads, golden with fall color, while ambling along amidst the falling leaves, were joyous and sweet. I reveled in the nights when Shon’s body wasn’t shaking with fever and chills, wrapping myself around him, cocooning his warm body with mine. I chose again and again to be present with what was—to let go of my need to control what I couldn’t.

A song by Gone Gone Beyond was my mantra during this time. I played it over and over again, singing along with all my heart, trying to absorb the chorus, “It’s out of my control, so I’m gonna coast, for a little while.”

Yes, he had cancer. But that wasn’t the whole story, and I was no longer going to let the closeness of his mortality stop me from loving the life we had. When I accepted the reality of the situation, everything shifted. And it wasn’t so hard.

In that one moment of acceptance and Trust, I began to transform into a new version of myself. Or maybe I uncovered an aspect of Self that always was. I connected to Spirit and let go. I accepted what was. What I got in return was freedom—freedom to move through that moment with a modicum of ease.

And so I kept walking, each step landing on solid ground.

Where in your life might things soften if you released the “Why me?” and chose Trust instead?

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Grief in Color

Music has always been a core component of my experience—of my identity. I remember lying in bed as a child, Guns and Roses flowing through the floor vent from my older sister’s room as she played “Sweet Child O’ Mine” over and over again. My brother listened to death metal, giving me my first recording of DR—full of inappropriate lyrics I can still recite by heart. In high school, in the late ‘90s, in Bismarck, North Dakota, a friend introduced me to the music coming out of Olympia, Washington. Through the Riot Grrrl movement, I discovered music that changed my life: Heavens to Betsy, Sleater Kinney, Bikini Kill, Bratmobile, and so many others. They fueled my early transformation, exploring feminism, racism, and social change through righteous anger.

In sobriety, I had to let go of much of my righteous anger—as a recovering alcoholic, stewing in anger, righteous or not, is a dangerous place for me to be.

Now though, I was deep in grief. One of the places I took this grief was to my studio, where I scheduled three evenings a week to paint, after Seren went to bed.

This studio time looked different than it ever had before. In recent years, most of my paintings were uplifting, transformative in the realm of claiming and reclaiming the power of the divine feminine. It had been a long time since I painted myself ripping my heart open with the pain of vulnerability.

Over the previous couple of years, I discovered so much amazing music—music that was transformative and positive, that I could groove to while I painted. I began incorporating music into my studio time in an entirely new way. In each session I dropped into my body through drumming and singing. I sang a few songs ritualistically, including “Into the Wild” by Shylah Ray Sunshine and “We Rise” by Batya Levine. They were anthems to claim my power, to transform our world. They were words I needed to hear, and more so, words I needed to say.

To this day, “Into the Wild” is a favorite song for me and Seren to sing together. I would drum. I would sing. After a while, I would paint. In my grief, my entire color palette shifted—from warm to cool, from light to dark.

The new painting series I was working on came to me while on a run. I literally ran back to my studio, images of the earth crying, and the seas rising flickering through me. My pencil flew across the paper as I started to sketch. The Universe gifted me a creative outlet to cope with my fear and grief. The series is called Sea Level Rise: The Mother’s Tears. In it, a woman—the Earth, the Mountains, the Sea, the Mother—lies weeping on the horizon. Her tears enter the sea, causing it to rise and drown her sorrows. This is her grief, her fear, her healing, her love. The earth is on fire, and she drowns the flames in her tears.

When working on these paintings, alone in my studio at night, I somehow transcended the fear and overwhelm that were my constant those days. I was lifted out of my worries. At the same time, the creative process allowed me to move through emotions brought on not only by the crisis my family was facing, but the global climate crisis.

The grief I was painting didn’t belong to me alone. It was of fire, of floods—of a world unraveling before my eyes. The act of painting kept me present, moving me forward one brushstroke at a time.

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Climate Grief

As I painted my grief at home, I was still working with the Thurston Climate Action Team. TCAT was where the Chrysalis Project began, and I was their Lead Artist and Community Engagement Expert—often working with young people, supporting their climate clubs and actions.

The Thurston Youth Climate Coalition reached out that spring, asking for support for their upcoming protest. They needed paint and brushes to make signs, something I could easily provide. I’d worked with most of them before, a few during the Chrysalis Project. I was continually impressed with the creative actions they were taking for the climate—actions with specific and doable steps for our community and local governments.

After dropping off the art supplies, I interviewed the students about their work as climate activists to help promote their upcoming action. I’ll never forget our conversation. One activist shared that adults often told her how much she inspired them. Her response: “We aren’t doing this to be cute or inspiring. We are doing it because we don’t feel we have any other options. We are genuinely terrified about this.”

Another talked about the mental health crisis that climate change was causing.[1] “When I learned about the climate crisis, I was suicidal for months. Having community and taking action together is the best way to come to terms with the climate crisis. To acknowledge the problem and do something about it.” What she was describing—climate grief—was heartbreakingly familiar.[2] I’d heard versions of it from other young people, too.

Still another showed how much they already knew about the problem. “Getting involved in climate action can get you out of your bubble. Then you’re exposed to the fact that there are solutions that we can implement now. We have the technology. We have the money. What we lack is the political will. We are here to push our elected officials to have that courage.”

Creating art collaboratively is one of the biggest gifts the universe has given me. I love facilitating groups through the creative process, from design conception to art installation. But what keeps me coming back is the transformation. It’s the aha moment. The light in someone’s eyes when they get it. Seeing others take that light into their own hands and share it is extraordinary. I couldn’t help but be inspired by those students, even knowing that’s not what they wanted—all they needed from me was some paint. They had the rest of it. My heart warmed with pride seeing them use creativity in a way that supported their own well-being while showing the rest of us what courage and community looks like.

Stepping into my studio to paint Sea Level Rise: The Mother’s Tears was a much more solitary experience—one that required an entirely different type of vulnerability. I was trying to do something with paint that I hadn’t done before, and it took many attempts before I painted the one painting where my vision fully came to life. I kept returning again and again to following my curiosity.

What if I put this brush stroke here? How about if I add leaf stamps in this way? This work was incredibly personal, and my old fears would sometimes creep in. It’s just me after all, with my paints, brushes, and canvases. And music, of course, always music. Sometimes, though, like when I received the ideas for this painting series, I know I’m not alone, and that is pure magic.

[1] According to the American Psychological Association, two-thirds of young people today are experiencing climate grief. https://www.apa.org/monitor/2021/03/ce-climate-change

[2] Climate grief is the emotional response to the loss and anticipated loss of ecosystems, cultural practices, identities, and landscapes due to environmental changes and degradation. https://www.climateandmind.org/what-is-climate-grief

Where do you put your grief—so it can move, instead of staying trapped?

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Asking for Help

I may be an alcoholic, but even more so, I am afraid of vulnerability. Fortunately, I had spent the previous eight years in practice. In that time, I learned that the only way for me to heal—the only way I could overcome the shame that I carried with me—was to bring the shame into the light and share it with others who would listen and understand without judgment. Shame can only survive in the dark. I learned that I need other people. I learned how to ask for help.

Shon’s cancer was a new kind of experience—one I felt completely unprepared for. I was incredibly afraid of losing him, of Seren losing him. I knew that I needed to show up for both of them during this time. And I couldn’t show up for either of them if I didn’t first show up for myself.

Even though it was the last thing I wanted to do, I reached out for help. I asked for help from my closest friends first. They held me with such tenderness. With such love. It gave me the courage to share with others what was happening in our lives. I knew there were countless people who would want to know what Shon was going through. Though I had stopped scrolling through social media a few years earlier as a self-care practice, social media seemed the easiest way to reach many of the people who cared about us. When I did share the news of his cancer, we received a massive outpouring of love.

Reading those responses, their messages of love and support, broke me open, leaving me raw and exposed. This was a new level of vulnerability. A new expansion of allowing myself to be loved. I read the notes until I felt I might burst, then put my phone down and walked into the woods. The movement of my body, breath flowing in and out, the cold air on my skin brought me back to myself. We were so loved. It was a lot.

People were incredibly generous throughout our cancer journey. They gave childcare, rides to Seattle, time, advice, money, food, counseling. They looked after our ducks. They repaired our water lines. They wore masks. They meditated, checked in, and shared their stories.

A dear friend of mine who owns True Self Yoga in town gifted Shon and me year-long memberships—worth several thousand dollars. I felt my chest tighten at this generosity. Like it was too much. Like we weren’t worth it. Gratitude and shame braided together, hard to separate.

Opening myself to receive this support was hard. Where I once would have shut this out emotionally, I allowed the love to come in, right to the center of my being. It was there, with my heart laid open in new and very uncomfortable ways, that I experienced a transformation. By asking for help, sharing the hard stuff while respecting the emotional boundaries and capacities of others, and allowing their generosity in, I discovered a new level of my own self-worth.

Learning to receive didn’t make the fear go away—it did mean I didn’t have to carry it alone.

Where might you let yourself be supported right now?

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Falling Apart

I was at the edge. I didn’t know what was next. On the surface everything looked okay. Inside I could feel myself screaming. I needed to escape, to run away, to feel something other than fear.

Of course, I did. As I began to come back together over the days and weeks and months ahead, I was remade. Grieving was a necessary step towards accepting the reality of what was, so that I could show up with my full self. That day I took a step towards acceptance of what was. And let go of what I wished was.

I grieved. I found a safe space and allowed myself to become undone.

This is what it feels like to melt down inside of a chrysalis. This coming undone, where you don’t know if you are dying or being remade. This is part of the magic. You cannot become a butterfly without this complete undoing. You cannot be remade without first being unmade. You cannot be found, unless first you are lost.

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Running Away

This is how I made it through the day: I awoke, cared for my child, practiced yoga, meditated, went to work, prayed, walked or jogged in nature, spent time with Seren, reached out to a friend or mentor, connected with Shon through shared foot rubs and conversation on the couch, ate ice cream, went to bed, woke up and did it all over again.

There was this huge, overwhelming part of myself that simply wanted to run away. Run from the fear, from the uncertainty, from the pain. And so I ran. I ran through the woods near my home. As I ran, I looked straight ahead. I imagined myself running far, far away. And I imagined myself processing this new reality with every single step.

This was my biggest fear: Shon would die. I would get drunk. Seren would lose both parents.

Shon was the one who was always supposed to be there, no matter what. He was my failsafe—the one who made me feel okay about having a child, even though I am an alcoholic. I knew that even if I drank, she would have him. Now I wasn’t so sure.

I had no plans on drinking, but no matter how much time I have, I am always one drink away from getting drunk. I know people with 20+ years of sobriety, who have gone out and gotten drunk, sliding right back into active alcoholism, losing all they worked for to a disease that doesn’t give a damn who it takes down. What if he died? What if he died and I got drunk? Who would take care of Seren? I was terrified that we would both leave her now that Shon had cancer.

I could not get drunk. And so I ran.

At my core, I knew drinking was not an option. No matter how overwhelming things became, I had to remain sober—for Seren, for Shon, for myself. Sobriety had saved my life, but the fear and stress didn’t magically disappear just because I made the decision to stay sober. It lingered in my body, begging for release.

The woods became my sanctuary. I ran through the trees, breathing in the crisp air, trying to ground myself in the present moment. The pounding of my feet on the earth gave rhythm to my scattered thoughts. With each step, I felt myself processing the new reality, letting the shock absorb into the ground below me. The trail became a lifeline, a place where I could fall apart and still move forward, one step at a time.

When I ran, I imagined every stride was bringing me closer to peace, to clarity, to some semblance of control. I couldn’t control Shon’s diagnosis, but I could control whether or not I took a drink. I wouldn’t run away. But I could pretend, just for a bit, that I was leaving my life behind.

It was escape. It was how I came back to myself.

With each mile, while I just wanted to run away, I was also running toward my recovery, my strength, my commitment to Seren and Shon. I was running towards being the mother and partner they needed me to be, even in the face of uncertainty, even if I couldn’t see it at the time.

I ran. I meditated. I spent time in nature each day. I reached out to others walking a similar path of recovery. And I got real present with what recovery was for me.

When have you needed to fall apart in order to begin again?

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“Carrie, when I tell you something is wrong with my body, I need you to believe me.”

We were driving south towards Oregon, Seren in the back. Shon had been telling me about pain in his joints for several months. For several months I brushed those concerns off as exaggerations.

No matter how much I grow and learn, I still find myself pulled into old familial stories. This was a story called “Suck it up and get to work.” It’s another version of, “We don’t get sick.” These stories, passed down in my family, were rooted in survival for my ancestors and are very difficult to shake.

Shon and I had grown distant over the past year. Seren, thriving in outdoor preschool, was the focal point of our hearts. Though Shon was always an active, loving parent, I was still her primary caregiver, while working part-time for TCAT and keeping several collaborative art projects in motion at once. Shon was working at Evergreen, now as the supervisor of both grounds and construction, with a project list a mile and a half long.

The pandemic was wearing on us, and even with our varied workdays, our interactions had become transactional: Who’s getting groceries, cooking dinner, fixing what’s broken, making sure the laundry gets done, doing all the little things that needed doing to keep our home and family going. Each day was the same, right up until bedtime when he’d lie in bed on his phone and I’d read a book by the fire, then to sleep, only to get up and do it all over again. This trip to meet friends in southern Oregon was a lovely respite from the monotony.

There was something about the way Shon spoke that made me pay attention. I saw in that moment how I was disregarding his concerns about the pain in his body. I felt embarrassed by my disregard and honored that he was willing to be so vulnerable. I knew it wasn’t easy for him.

I owned up to brushing off his concerns and promised I would listen in the future. I started to pay attention. And just in time.

On that trip, Shon started changing his diet to reduce the inflammation in his body. Even though our Naturopath couldn’t hear anything abnormal, Shon noticed a slight wheeze in his lungs when he laid down in bed at night and insisted that our Naturopath refer him for an x-ray.

That x-ray marked the beginning of a long and terrifying journey. It showed abnormalities in his lungs and led to a CT scan. We were sent to Seattle to see a pulmonologist and rheumatologist.

The pulmonologist didn’t receive the results of the CT scan before our visit and couldn’t hear anything in Shon’s lungs either. He sent us on our way with no news, but as we were eating lunch before heading home, Shon’s phone rang. It was the pulmonologist. He’d received the scan and was so concerned by what he saw that he insisted Shon come back to the hospital for another scan that very day.

The scans revealed a mass about the size of a large orange in his right lung. This led to a bronchoscopy, and eventually, the phone call.

He had cancer. In his lungs. In the middle of a pandemic that attacked the lungs.

Even though we knew it was coming, hearing the word “cancer” felt like a death sentence. My whole body froze. The question mark was replaced with a period. An ending. But instead of lessening our uncertainty, it rose to a fever pitch because we didn’t know what came next.

Shon took to the Internet to learn about lung cancer. When he told me what he found, I could sense the panic radiating from him. He read that he had less than five years to live. Less than five years to watch our daughter grow, to do all the things he hadn’t yet done. As he shared this with me, he broke down—racking sobs shaking his whole body—letting the fear out. I watched him crumble and fear began to grip me too. What if this really was the end? But now was not the time for me to fall apart. I held him, stroking his hair. I loved him. I told him I was with him. All I could do was stay present, hold space, and somehow stay strong when everything felt so damned fragile.

After dropping Seren at preschool the next morning, I came home to an empty house for the first time since the diagnosis. I walked inside and all the fear that I’d set aside the night before boiled up to the surface, overwhelming me, crashing through me in a riptide that pulled me to my knees. I called a friend as I sobbed on the kitchen floor, terrified, feeling like I was coming undone. I hadn’t even realized how afraid I was until I made that call and said the words.

Eventually, we were able to meet with an oncologist. We were warned that many oncologists aren’t very personable or positive, instead tending to focus heavily on statistics. Shon’s oncologist, who said to call him Hootie, was not that way at all. Hootie was always very positive and danced around the statistics. In fact, he never gave us a single statistic, even when we asked. We learned from Hootie that Shon didn’t have typical lung cancer, but a type of lymphoma that happened to be in his lungs. The fact that it was in his lungs was rare, but it wasn’t the death sentence Shon thought it was. Instead, it was a slow-growing cancer that tended to respond to treatment. We came up with a plan, putting off the start of treatment for a couple of months due to the emergence of a new Covid strain, then began the treatment regimen in January of 2022.

Those first few months were…hard is an understatement. We were scared and felt isolated. Many of our friends and community had started to gather again, but we felt like we were thrown right back into the beginning of the pandemic—surrounded with so much uncertainty and unable to gather for fear that Shon would get sick. If he were to get an infection in his lungs, that infection would be all too likely to kill him.

What has your body—or someone you love—been trying to tell you?

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I No Longer Get to Be Small

After The Chrysalis Project: Transforming Together I took the concept into my studio, beginning a new painting series: The Chrysalis Series. Within this series, I discovered a place of ease within my studio painting. Finally, I was released from the incapacitating fear I once felt when making my own art. The relief of this release left me joyous, light, and excited—when I wasn’t in my studio, I couldn’t wait to get back and paint more.

It was while working on this series, simply following my curiosity from one brushstroke to the next, listening to incredible live music, that I received a message that I can only describe as flowing through me from the One Song. Every cell in my body felt like living energy as this message resonated through my entire being.

I no longer get to be small.

Time seemed to stop. In that single instant of the Infinite Now, I was changed. It was clear that something was holding me back, something that I needed to move through. I knew I needed to expand beyond my limiting beliefs, but I didn’t know how—I didn’t even know what was holding me back. What did this message mean, that I ‘no longer got to be small’? Did it mean I was supposed to take my work to a new level? Grow it into something huge? Or did it signify I needed to grow on the inside? To reach deeper into my own authenticity?

I know it looks like I’ve done some big things, and I have. My work is nothing if not big. And the impact it has had on my personal growth and the world around me is staggering. But I still have my own struggles. For years, I carried two fears that loomed over everything I did: the fear of truly being seen—of stepping into the spotlight and owning my voice—and the fear of giving away what I do. I worried that if I shared my process or ideas, someone else might take them and make them their own, leaving me diminished or invisible. These fears, rooted in a sense of scarcity and vulnerability, were holding me back, keeping me small when I knew I was meant to expand.

Spiritual transformation can happen in an instant; it can take time for our emotional, mental, and physical selves to catch up.

In this case, it took a year and a half until my emotions could fully process that message. It was a painful time, filled with discomfort. It took going through a global pandemic, showing up for my inner work, and my husband getting cancer before I found myself in full alignment with that message.

I no longer get to be small.

What part of you is ready to grow beyond the limits you carry?

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Art as a Tool for Community-wide Change

One week before we went into lock-down for the Covid-19 pandemic, I began working for the Thurston Climate Action Team (TCAT). I took the job as a way to connect more deeply with climate action work in my local community. Notably, I was not hired as an artist—I was hired for my organizational skills. We even talked about this in my interview, since we’d had some artful collaborations in the past. I assured TCAT that I could do the job without turning it all into a big art project. How wrong I was.

When we went into lock-down, TCAT, along with so many others, scrambled to re-envision all our work and move it online. We decided to begin with a series of online workshops, each focused on a different climate topic. I hesitantly offered to do a workshop on the Power of Collaborative Art, keeping in mind that we all knew that art was not what I’d been hired to do. They agreed and so I began planning the workshop.

As often happens, this single workshop began to grow and evolve in my mind, transforming into something much larger. It took on a life of its own as it morphed into a full-scale virtual Art in Action Campaign.

At the time, our local jurisdictions of Thurston County, Olympia, Tumwater, and Lacey were in the process of writing a climate mitigation plan. TCAT was leading the public effort to ensure it was a strong plan that would meet steep targets.

I knew that the Art in Action Campaign spinning in my head and heart had the potential to pull the words of the plan off the page—where plans often get stuck—and translate them into action. There I was, with this fantastic idea for how to make our work impactful, and it was by doing the exact thing I said I wouldn’t do in my interview. Knowing rejection might be what I’d get, I pitched my idea to my team at TCAT, sweaty hands and all. And they said yes. They agreed that this Art in Action Campaign was our best option to continue our important work and make an impact during this challenging time.

As I’ve grown my collaborative art practice, it has become increasingly important for me to bring stakeholders into the design process. In addition to getting feedback from my team, I scheduled sessions with educators and youth climate activists. Together, we co-created what became The Chrysalis Project: Transforming Together.

During the Art in Action Campaign, I held online workshops with over 200 youth and adults. In these workshops, we explored the power of art to create change. We examined the critical moment we were in—a triple crisis consisting of a global pandemic, a racial reckoning, and the climate crisis. We used the chrysalis—a place of transformation where a caterpillar becomes a butterfly—as a metaphor to understand the personal and societal changes we were undergoing during this pivotal time.

Together we created visions of what we wanted to be when we emerged from our individual and societal chrysalides.

When I held workshops for The Chrysalis Project, my body came alive with emotion—my throat tight and tears welled in my eyes, threatening to fall as I shared my vision. It was through this project that I began to share my belief that we really could have a different world—a world where we ALL have a chance to thrive. Saying this out loud was a giant leap into the unknown.

How dare I, with all my imperfections and uncertainties, claim that things could be different—that they could be better? How dare I profess to have, if not a plan for getting there, at least a piece of the puzzle, and a willingness to create a space for the vision to unfold?

As I stood there in front of the camera, vulnerable and trembling, I realized that daring to believe in this vision wasn’t just about me—it was about inviting others into a collective act of courage. Through collaborative art and leadership, I was creating a space where people dared to see themselves as part of something larger, as integral pieces in building this world we all longed for.

Those workshops were not only vulnerable for me. Every person who envisioned themselves within a chrysalis, dissolving into imaginal cells, and reshaping into something new. Every person who penned a letter, capturing their presence and emotions during that intense time. Every person who channeled their art to forge a vision of a future where we all could flourish. Every single one of them stepped into an act of bravery.

They allowed themselves to feel what they were feeling, to connect with others in those feelings. They expressed themselves creatively and dared to dream of a different world. They stood in their power and demanded that our elected leaders do their damned jobs and lead.

Using items from their homes, participants painted, wrote, and collaged visions of vibrant futures—not just of survival, but of thriving communities and ecosystems. They then flipped their artwork over and wrote letters to local elected officials on the back of their creations. In these letters, participants shared where they were and how they were feeling during those early days of the pandemic. They shared the actions they were already taking and pledged to deepen their commitment to climate justice.

Participants then asked, and in some cases demanded, local officials take bold climate action—to pass and implement a robust, transformative Thurston Climate Mitigation Plan. They took their letters, with the artwork on one side, folded them, put them in envelopes, addressed them, and mailed them to their city mayors, council members, and county commissioners in all four of our local jurisdictions. These were powerful calls to action with an undeniable impact on our elected officials.

In an early workshop, one adult participant photographed and emailed his letter and drawing to his commissioner. The response he received was moving: “What a very kind and uplifting note! Thank you. I’m going to print this butterfly (did you draw it?), frame it and refer to it on camera and display it in my office & on FB. Yes, climate action needs to progress along. I will do my part.”

This was an incredible response from a conservative county commissioner, underscoring the transformative power of the campaign. His commitment was the first of many potent responses from elected officials.

The Thurston Climate Mitigation Plan was finalized that fall. It was, and is, a very ambitious plan, aiming to reduce emissions 45% below 2015 levels by the year 2030, and 85% below 2015 levels by 2050. For elected officials in some jurisdictions, voting to approve this plan could have jeopardized their political careers, so it was not an easy sell. TCAT continued to advocate for passing the plan, rallying behind the ideas and visions that came from The Chrysalis Project.

In February of 2021, the Thurston County Commissioners met to vote on whether or not to pass and implement the plan. When it was County Commissioner Tye Menser’s turn to give testimony, he stood up and pulled a letter out of his pocket. He told the people gathered there that he had carried the letter around for months as his guiding light. It was a letter from The Chrysalis Project, written by a high school climate activist. He then read this letter as his testimony as to why Thurston County should adopt and implement the Thurston Climate Mitigation Plan.

That night not only did the county commissioners vote to adopt and implement the plan, they also declared a Climate Emergency for Thurston County—a resounding victory for our community. In part due to The Chrysalis Project: Transforming Together, all four of our local jurisdictions adopted the plan and three of the four declared a Climate Emergency.

The Chrysalis Project was a profound reminder of the power of art to inspire action, forge connections, and create lasting change—especially when communities come together with purpose.

This was the second time one of my Art in Action Projects directly influenced government decisions. This outcome reinforced why this work matters so deeply: It creates opportunities for people to not only see, but to experience new possibilities. Moments like these—the sudden shift of insight in the room when I work with a local government agency, the sharp intake of breath in a mentee who steps through a block and embodies the possibilities of their art—keep me moving forward. It is why, despite the knots of anxiety I sometimes feel, I push myself to speak on stages, sharing stories of collaborations and art that have sparked change in individuals and on community-wide levels.

Doing this work keeps pushing me to grow more and more. It is rarely easy, and sometimes doubts creep in. Other times, there are moments of pure synchronicity and bliss, where my path is clear as a pristine mountain stream. At those times, I know: When we face our fears and work together, we have the power to transform not just ourselves but the world around us.

What is one thing that unexpectedly changed you?

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Growth, Grace, and Social Justice

We were fortunate to have an incredible outdoor preschool on our block. Over summer break, Seren’s preschool teacher shared that a new family had moved in next door to her. They had two young children, and the mom was an artist, so one day, Seren and I picked a big bunch of fresh kale from our garden and went to meet the neighbors.

Darishma opened the door and I introduced myself and Seren, welcomed her to the neighborhood, and offered her the kale. I tried to hide my surprise that she wasn’t white. We live in a pretty white area, and my ingrained expectations just assumed another white family had moved in. I was surprised further at how welcoming she was, more so than any other stranger whose door I’d knocked on just to say hi. She invited us right into her home to have tea and meet her children. As artist moms, we had a lot to talk about.

That fall, Darishma’s son attended preschool with Seren and we quickly became friends. One afternoon Seren and I, along with another mom and child, went to Darishma’s house after school to have tea while the kids played. We were talking about elementary schools, and I asked if Darishma’s children would be going to our neighborhood school. Darishma shared that she wasn’t sure about the school because the son of one of her friends, a kid who was not white, had attended the school and was treated horribly. His teacher regularly put him in time-outs where he wasn’t even allowed to read books, among other things, for the slightest transgressions. It sounded blatantly racist.

I’d heard other negative reports about the school, but nothing to this degree. A new principal, who prioritized social justice, had recently started at the school and I was hopeful things might change. I could also see that even with the new principal, Darishma was concerned, and rightly so, that her children would be targeted.

Darishma mentioned that she was thinking about going to talk with the new principal. I felt called to say something, to help in some way, but my stomach was in knots. What if I said the wrong thing? I looked around at my two friends. I was the only white person in the room, with two powerful, charismatic women that I looked up to. It was an opportunity to take a risk and connect on a deeper level. Even though my body flushed hot with fear and uncertainty, I was more afraid of staying silent, so I spoke up. I offered to go with her to talk to the principal, as her backup. Such a small thing that felt huge in the moment.

I don’t remember the rest of that conversation—just that one moment is highlighted in my memory. Later, Darishma texted me, thanking me for my support and calling me an ally. She didn’t have to reach out, but she did. She allowed me to see how much my offer meant to her; how this small act of support could impact others and shift how I showed up in the world. It was one of those simple life moments that created a monumental shift in my perspective.

Often, those of us who care deeply about justice shut people down for not being as far along on the spectrum of unlearning and relearning. We forget that it is a journey for all of us— that not so long ago, we may have been in the very place we’re criticizing now. As author and activist Ijeoma Oluo so beautifully articulates: “We aren’t very good at getting people from A to Z, but we are really good at discarding people for being at G instead of at X. But how do we get someone who is going to their first protest to not only come to more, but to use that experience as the beginning of a journey to a deeper understanding of the issue they are protesting and how they can be a part of systemic change? Right now, while it’s an emergency (because it will always be an emergency), how are we planting seeds of empowerment and revolution in every person who is just now beginning to see that maybe these systems don’t have their best interests at heart?” [1]

Darishma exemplified these words when she offered me grace for where I was at in my own social justice journey. Then she took it a step further and let me know she saw my effort and appreciated it.

Often, I still don’t know what to say or how to act. I have so much to learn and unlearn, and I make mistakes. But I keep trying. I keep showing up in my personal and professional life. I keep expanding my knowledge and pushing myself to do or say things that feel right, even when I am scared and uncomfortable. Even if it means I upset some people, I must stay true to myself. I must stand up for what I believe in, even as my own beliefs shift and expand. At the same time, I do my best to offer grace for where others are on this journey, welcoming them along with love and kindness—just as Darishma did for me.

This is a piece of what it means to be an artist in this world. To show up. To be seen. To take risks. These small actions are a way of creating, and of creating change.

The surprising thing is how good I feel about myself when I take such a stand, or offer such grace, and how it keeps resulting in deeper connections—with myself and with others—and stronger community.

Where in your life are you being called to show up with courage—or to offer grace, to yourself or someone else?

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[1]

Ijeoma Oluo: Behind the Book

Did This Radicalize You? Really??

“Let this radicalize you rather than lead you to despair” - Mariame Kaba…

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2 years ago · 277 likes · 6 comments · Ijeoma Oluo

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Change Starts Here

When Seren was two years old, I—along with most of our country—learned about the horrible treatment of children and families at the US-Mexico border—families simply trying to find a safe harbor within the storm of their lives. As they crossed into the US, children were separated from their families. They were held in cells—cages really—ranging in age from infants to seventeen-year-olds. Many were not having their needs met. They were not receiving the love and human touch they needed to thrive.

Holding my own child in my arms—nursing her, loving her, watching her grow and develop—while simultaneously witnessing the treatment of these children and families at the border horrified me. I didn’t want to live in a world where families fleeing violence and danger were then torn apart. I wanted so badly to go to the US-Mexico border to protest, to do anything that I could to help those children and families. To do something.

Going to the border wasn’t feasible at the time and I spiraled downward into the place of “not enough.” I felt guilty for what I had. I had so much: a house, land, relative safety. I didn’t feel that anything I was doing was enough for this situation. It was only by chance that I was born where I was, to the family that I was. It could have been me desperately trying to find safety for my child.

I shared my feelings of guilt and “not enough” with a mentor. She pointed out my limitations, reminding me that I can’t take on every single issue. Instead, she suggested that I focus on something I could change—surely meaning myself—and trust that other people are out there doing the things I’m not.

How was I supposed to trust other people to do what I could not? It seemed like an easy escape. But I did my best to believe it, because I was miserable and that was not helping anyone.

During this time, I was asked to present to a group of teachers who were studying climate change and working to incorporate climate curriculum into their classrooms. I did a short presentation on the power of collaborative art and led them through an exercise exploring their hopes and fears around the climate crisis.

One of the teachers from the workshop approached me afterwards and shared an idea brewing within her. She wanted to create a migration parade for her school that would incorporate learning about the migration of species, particularly pollinators and birds, and human migration. She taught second grade at a bilingual school where many of her students had immigrated from Latin America.

Together, we created a parade celebrating migration. I worked with two second grade classes on bringing art and science together to create positive change. We explored the importance of migration, how it is essential for different animals and cultures. Many of the students did not yet speak English and had survived their own crossing of the US/Mexico border. A few bravely shared their stories with the class.

We chose to focus on two species, rufous hummingbirds and monarch butterflies, both of which migrate between the United States and Mexico. We worked together to create costumes for the parade as we explored obstacles that both animals and humans face when migrating.

This pilot project initially involved just two classes, in the hope that the entire school would participate in coming years. However, the enthusiasm of other teachers led to the whole school joining the inaugural year’s parade. Community members came together to provide music, show solidarity, and observe our march. The parade route snaked through the school grounds and extended onto nearby sidewalks. To deepen the educational impact, we integrated an obstacle course into the parade route symbolizing real-world migration challenges. Many students wore clothing representative of their cultures, connecting the parade to broader themes of migration and belonging.

As we marched along, the students chanted over and over again:

“¡La migración es un derecho humano!
¡La migración es un derecho animal!”

Migration is a human right! Migration is an animal right!

I discovered that while I couldn’t go to the US-Mexico border to help children and families there, I could work with children right in my own community—children who had migrated themselves, or whose classmates had migrated—to express pride in their cultures, to uplift their stories, and to show the importance of migration.

This project did not change any laws. It did not directly change what was happening on the border. But it changed me. It gave me a sense of purpose. A sense of being part of the solution. It meant that I could keep doing the work.

And if it helped just one of those students find healing or a sense of belonging, a new understanding of the rightness of their migration story, or a new level of compassion for others who migrate, then it was a huge success.

This pattern shows up time and again in my life—there is some huge, overwhelming, global problem that I feel passionate about. I do what I can on a global scale, but the issue is so large that I feel like less than a drop in the bucket, and I begin to spiral. When things feel too big, I remind myself to pull back in—to community, to family, to my body. That is where I am most potent. And sometimes, an opportunity presents itself right in my community—a local manifestation of a global problem, one where I can make a larger impact.

Just as the monarch butterfly’s migration relies on each individual butterfly’s contribution to a much larger journey, each local action contributes to a broader transformation.

Where does change start for you today?

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Seeing by Starlight

We named her Seren Alma.

Shon was a bit sad that I’d called out Seren’s name during her birth—he’d wanted to choose it together. I offered to change it, but he liked the name; said it was already hers. Seren—pronounced like serenity—is derived from the Welsh word for star. Alma is Spanish for soul. She truly has the soul of a star—ancient yet illuminating the world around her with joy and light.

Shon took the first couple of weeks after Seren’s birth off from work to be with us. Friends brought us meals, washed dishes, and nourished us with company and care as we learned how to care for our newborn.

One morning, Shon carried her off into the woods without telling me. Anxiety spiked when I noticed they were gone, receding when they walked back into view. It was important to Shon that he establish his role as Seren’s parent—to show that he could take care of her on his own. I was truly grateful for this, simply asking that he let me know before leaving with our newborn.

We saved the umbilical cord to plant under a tree later and prepared my placenta as medicine. With my history of emotional ups and downs, I was worried I might have postpartum depression and knew eating my placenta could help. Some years earlier I’d prepared a friend’s placenta for her—boiling, drying, grinding, and encapsulating the medicine of her body, so she could reintroduce those vital hormones and nutrients.

This time, Shon and Jen were in charge. We marveled at how the blood vessels in the placenta resembled a tree, with deep roots and spreading branches. The ritual of making medicine felt rich and ancient, further connecting me to the Elk who kept watch from the forest. I took the capsules until they were gone, and while I was sleep deprived, I was also happy and grounded, falling more and more deeply in love with my child every day.

When Seren was seven days old, we dipped her tiny baby toes into the icy waters of Kennedy Creek, anointing her in the waters of the Pacific Northwest. She immediately screamed and curled her feet up. Perhaps this is why she is a water child, years later telling us that when she swims underwater, she feels like she is flying and knows herself better than at any other time.

We received the keys to our new home when Seren was four weeks old. We’d been working to leave Delphinia behind for months and finally began the next part of this arduous task—packing, moving, and cleaning. With Shon working full time and me unable to lift much, we couldn’t have done it without the help of so many friends and family. Both our moms came to visit, thrilled to meet Seren. They helped with the move, the baby, cooking and cleaning. My mom stayed for an entire month—a huge help and a joy watching her and Seren bond.

It was also a lot having both moms visit. I was still trying to get a handle on breastfeeding—I had so much milk that my breasts were painfully, even absurdly, engorged, so swollen and veined I could hardly recognize my own body in the mirror.

I sat nursing Seren on the deck while Shon’s mom helped him unload boxes from the back of his van. She paused to coo at Seren, who unlatched from my breast with a pop to look around. Milk shot out of my breast, hit Seren in the eye, spraying all over the deck, narrowly missing my mother-in-law. Finally, I got a cloth over my breast to catch the milk, wiped the milk from Seren’s face, and looked sheepishly at my mother-in-law.

Ah the joys of becoming a parent.

I was also trying to get back to work, but with little success. My intention at the time was to start an Artist Mama blog, to inspire and connect with other artist moms. I wrote just one entry and never published it. Having a baby is often all-consuming, which is likely why I had such a hard time finding other artist moms online. This is what I wrote:

That last line—“I haven’t made art since she was born”—hit me hard. Caring for a newborn is HARD! The idea of being a mom and an artist was unimaginable at that time. Considering I was only six weeks post-partum, I probably could have been easier on myself. As a friend later wrote to me, “I mean this with love: Psh. You made SEREN.”

When Seren was just a few months old, in late 2016, I was sitting in meditation while she slept in my lap. This was during a time where it felt like the whole world was falling apart, kind of like it feels right now. I sat there, meditating on how, amidst all of the hard things in this world, how could I be the best mama possible for her? As I sat there with this absolutely precious little being in my lap, my mind clear and my heart connected, I heard these words:

The best thing you can do for her is to stand up for what you believe in and follow your own bliss at the same time.

With that message resonating through my entire being, the way forward suddenly appeared. I didn’t get to just be her mom and be with her all the time—a luxury that many mamas don’t have, but that was available to me, at least for a while. That wasn’t what Seren needed. She needed me to go out into the world and show her, show myself, and anyone else who needed to see it, what it looks like to stand up for what I believe in, and to do so while doing what I love. For me, that meant taking part in the environmental and social justice work that is so needed, and doing so through the context of collaborative art.

With crystal clarity, I found ways to continue to do my work while nurturing my baby, stepping more fully into my role as artist and change maker. As Seren grew, her needs changed. Sometimes she would come to work with me—sleeping in my lap while I typed up a proposal or strapped on my back while I painted a mural or sculpted with metal. Sometimes my mom would visit and help care for her. We were part of a nanny share for a while, and she went to an outdoor preschool. I found ways to do my work, and she thrived by having a community of people to support her.

I was still Seren’s primary caregiver, so even though I had some hours dedicated to work, I couldn’t work as many hours as artists without kids. Sometimes the sharp sting of jealousy would strike—jealousy of artists who could spend all their time on their art practice. It felt like I was getting left behind and would never be as prolific, or make as big of an impact, as those other artists.

But I kept at it. Every year I made more art and completed more projects—murals, sculptures, collaborative Art in Action Projects, community engagement work. I continued learning and studying ways to be a better facilitator, a better leader, a better ally. I practiced my craft and continued to learn about climate change and climate justice. I kept making art. I kept growing.

Even though I couldn’t work as fast as some artists, my résumé and portfolio increased tremendously. I grew as an artist, as a leader, as a change maker. I grew not despite having a child, but because I had a child.

Before Seren, before sobriety, before Shon, I wasn’t as hopeful about humanity’s future. When Al Gore’s documentary about global warming came out in 2006, I went to see it with Shon and another friend. They were crushed by the movie, sharing their shock and fear for humanity out loud as we drove home through the dark. I was not empathetic—of course we were killing the earth. Hadn’t they been paying attention? Instead, I told them it wasn’t that big of a deal. The earth would survive, even if we didn’t. At the time, that was what was important to me. The earth. Not the people on the earth. I’m not sure I believed that we deserved to survive with all the damage we were doing.

My perspective shifted over time, as I changed—growing into someone capable of loving herself and therefore others. And even more so after having Seren.

Life takes on a different meaning with children—a different intensity, a fragility. Today, I want nothing more than to usher in a world where my child, and all children, have the opportunity to not only survive, but thrive.

What has helped you find yourself in times of exhaustion or change?

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Birth of a Star

Shon and I celebrated my thirty-seventh birthday on August 16, 2016, with dinner out and a walk along the Salish Sea, my belly uncomfortably large, and both of us deeply in love. A few days later we attended a partner pre-natal yoga class together, Shon and I connecting deeply as we practiced relaxing, opening poses in a room full of expectant couples. At the end, the yoga teacher, also pregnant, asked each of us to share how we were feeling about our pregnancies.

Ready.

Ready to become the mother I didn’t think I would get to be.

The rest of the night was a post birth haze. Jen holding Seren while Constance tells me I’m bleeding and need to take Pitocin, but she only has it in an alcohol tincture. Me deciding to take it, rinsing the taste of alcohol from my mouth immediately. The awe I felt gazing at Seren’s perfection—her face, her eyes, her perfect nose and toes—while nursing her for the first time. Ravenously devouring the plate of fruit, cheese, nuts, and olives Jen handed me. Almost passing out on the composting toilet Shon brought into our cabin while Constance checked over and weighed Seren. The three of us lying in bed, Seren skin to skin on Shon’s chest, fading off into sleep as the others leave. Seren waking almost immediately, as we began the first of many sleepless nights as parents.

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Creative Waters

Standing high on scaffolding at the WET Science Center, my tool belt slung low over my hips, accentuating my round belly, I steadied myself. Reaching up with my impact driver, I screwed in the last bolt that would support the frame from which One Water would be suspended. Feeling strong, I descended the ladder to find my collaborator for the WET Science Center looking at me with something akin to awe, saying, “I will never forget you up on that scaffolding, using power tools while pregnant.”

I smiled, remembering how just a few months earlier, I couldn’t picture myself doing a single Art in Action project while pregnant. Now, I was swimming through the waters of not just one, but three large projects, all focused on water, while our baby swam in the waters within.

Two of the projects were hanging installations, each for a separate water education center. Jointly, I shared workshops with over 2,000 people, mostly at middle and elementary schools, all of whom created art for one of the projects. I’d come home from those workshops, sinking down on the futon couch in our cabin exhausted, feet swollen, and quite pleased with myself. It felt so right to be co-creating art about water with our baby living and growing in the waters of my body.

As the weather warmed and I wrapped up those projects, I moved on to the painting of a large-scale estuary mural for the Puget Sound Estuarium. This was a particular treat as my dear friend and collaborator Annie painted with me. Annie was the same brilliant biologist and artist I worked with on the Plastic Whale Project, and she was pregnant too.

It was a tall, exterior mural, requiring multiple levels of scaffolding. Setting up the scaffolding while almost eight months pregnant blew my earlier exhaustion right out of the water. You should have seen us up there with our round bellies—feet braced on the planks, continually realigning our centers of gravity as we drew large paintbrushes across the wall, back and forth, brush stroke upon brush stroke, laying down layers of green and blue that brought a translucent quality to the water as it deepened from estuary to open ocean.

This work, difficult as it was, steadied me as the drama at Delphinia kept getting more tangled and yet, somehow stagnant at the same time. I am not a patient person by nature, and with the nesting impulse on overdrive, I was long past ready for a resolution with Delphinia. I kept leaning into patience with Shon, waiting for him to make a decision about how to move forward—I may have been carrying our child, but Delphinia was his first baby. As the weeks and months wore on, the stress of our living situation only got worse, and I was very worried about bringing our child into the world in the midst of this stress. With no conclusion in sight, I decided I couldn’t do it anymore—I was not going to subject myself and my baby to living in that uncertainty any longer. The time had come for me to take action.

When Shon got home from work that day, I held his hand and looked into his beautiful hazel eyes. Then I gave voice to the reality that had been building inside of me for weeks: I couldn’t live at Delphinia any longer. I told him how much I loved him, and that I wouldn’t ask him to give up Delphinia for me, but I couldn’t stay. I needed to be somewhere more stable when the baby came. It was time for him to make a choice.

Shon had poured his heart and soul into Delphinia for almost two decades. He’d nurtured the land and his relationships there. He’d built a wood-fired kiln and one of the cabins with his bare hands—if the stories are true, he built that cabin wearing only shoes and a tool belt. He maintained the buildings and put in a well. His ceramics studio and kiln were there. In many ways, Delphinia was his identity. Giving it up had to have been one of the hardest choices he’d ever faced.

He chose our unborn child. He chose me.

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Preparing to Open

With the decision to leave Delphinia made, we turned our sights to buying a house. Shon’s job at Evergreen gave us the income we needed to get a home loan, something neither of us had really thought was possible before. And so, as we began untangling ourselves from Delphinia, we also began the house search.

Prices were high in 2016 and after living on such idyllic land for so long, it was challenging to find places that we really loved and fit our budget. We visited house after house with our realtor. Each time, as we walked the land and checked out outbuildings for potential studio space, he’d ask: “Don’t you want to look inside?” If we didn’t like the exterior, we wouldn’t bother with the house.

I so wanted to be settled into our new place for the birth, but that was looking less and less likely. My due date got closer and closer as we rejected home after home and I kept reminding myself that we just needed one house. Just one.

Eventually, we made an offer on a beautiful old home with a funky floor plan, on two acres of land. It had a shop, studio, and additional building that the owners used as an antique store. We’d initially crossed it off our list because it was out of our budget. But, desperate for a place to land, I came up with the idea to turn the antique store into a rental, so that we could afford the higher mortgage. With Shon and my carpentry skills, we made a plan to purchase the property and remodel the antique shop.

The negotiations on the house took forever, and my goal of being settled into our new home before our baby arrived wasn’t going to happen, so we set about readying our cabin for the baby’s arrival. Since our midwife didn’t want me navigating the steep stairs after the birth, we removed the wood stove from the main floor to create space and brought our bed downstairs to the ‘living room.’

It was high summer. I’d finished up my major projects a couple of weeks before my due date. Shon was working as the supervisor of construction services at Evergreen, a temporary position he applied for when the previous supervisor retired. It was a nice bump in pay but kept him very busy. I spent my free time practicing prenatal yoga, swimming, and getting ready for the baby’s arrival.

Shortly before my due date my women’s circle hosted a Mama Blessing for me, ritualizing my transition into motherhood. Each woman brought meaningful beads and strung them together to make a birthing necklace—a symbolic, yet tangible offering of their presence and support during the birth. I sat like a queen as they took turns coating my belly and breasts in plaster, sharing birth stories and advice, pouring love into me as they made a belly cast, adding a red paper heart at my request.

I was ripe with anticipation, filled with the wisdom of mothers.

Where in your life are you being asked to create space—for something new, something tender, or something that needs stability to grow?

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Shon and I were lying skin to skin, light and shadow playing across our bodies as the sunlight filtered through the treetops onto our bed in the loft. “What do you think about trying to have a baby?” As his words seeped into my relaxed brain, a long dormant yearning began to uncurl inside me.

Getting sober had its costs. One of the most excruciating things—at least for that first year—was letting go of the possibility of having a child. I could barely hold myself together, much less care for a baby. As I put my energy into my recovery, and then becoming an artist, a different vision for our lives blossomed—one where we traveled together and made art, free from the responsibility of parenthood.

Shon was now working a stable job at Evergreen State College. As he witnessed how I was transforming my own life, he felt ready to be a parent in a way he hadn’t before. Two paths lay open before me—the freedom of travel and art, or the unknowns of parenthood.

As I lay there, curled in his warmth, my initial longing was tempered with uncertainty.

Now my uncertainty came, not from being an active alcoholic, but because my career as an artist was beginning to take off. I’d recently completed two large-scale projects, both requiring travel, and was beginning to believe I could make it as an artist—maybe even with a capital A. I remembered standing beneath my latest installation, Project Wetlands—shimmering and dancing lights refracting through the upcycled plastic bottles as river otters played beside it—feeling a new kind of elation.

Even with my recent success, I was far from having a stable career with a reliable income. I tried to imagine completing a piece like that one at Northwest Trek Wildlife Park while pregnant, or with a child at home, and couldn’t. Instead, I saw the image of a friend who’d sold his art supplies because he just didn’t have time to be a parent and make art.

As I thought about becoming a mom over the next few weeks, I looked for examples of successful artist moms. I didn’t know any personally and even the internet came up empty.

I wasn’t convinced I could make it as an artist and a mom, but in just two years, sobriety had remade me in ways I hadn’t expected. The shame I’d carried around for years dissipated as I found my self-worth—my self-talk shifting from “I’m stupid” to “I did a stupid thing,” from “I suck” to “I’ll do better next time.”

For the first time, anything felt possible.

We were still living at Delphinia but had moved from the Root Cellar to the Meadowview—a slightly larger cabin—a few years earlier. There we lived with the birds—deep in the woods, the cabin perched on stilts overlooking the meadow on a steep forested slope.

I’d been working hard to right the harms that I had done to others over the years, including amends to our land mates. At the same time, I charted a new trail through our woods—a faint path you had to know, to follow. On my daily forest walks, I passed the same tiny creek and towering redcedars, noting the changes as we moved from one season into the next. As my relationships with both humans and land healed, I began to accept Delphinia at a deeper level—finally I felt I belonged.

As I walked the trail with new openness, I set aside my conflicting visions of the future and chose what was in front of me—I chose the possibility of becoming an artist mama.

It had taken my brain a while to get on board with having a baby. My body, on the other hand, was apparently ready. Not long after opening myself to the possibility of a child we became pregnant.

Shon and I were excited—and a little terrified—each of us responding in our own ways. My attention turned inward, feeling every shift and change. Shon looked outward, imagining how to make our home a place where our growing family could thrive.

Even as I was finally falling in love with Delphinia, Shon was becoming more frustrated. The community had been spiraling for some time—few people were willing to live in the rat-infested farmhouse or put in the emotional and physical work to keep the place going. The only other member—let’s call him the Thorn—consistently blocked proposals, preventing work being done on the land.

With the prospect of becoming a father, Shon decided the time had come to transform Delphinia into something that could work for us long-term—something more than illegal, ramshackle cabins and constant arguments with the Thorn over seemingly simple matters.

Shon and I had been exploring how to make Delphinia our dream home for years. We’d even drawn up plans for a small house on the edge of the garden, overlooking the meadow. I envisioned our child playing on the swing under the ancient apple trees. But there was so much in the way of making that home a reality.

With a baby on the way, we started thinking bigger. Could we shift Delphinia so that it would support the community and result in a home we loved? Maybe turn it into an artist retreat center? With this vision in his heart and mind, Shon came up with a plan to buy Delphinia.

His proposal sparked a huge feud—the Thorn turned Shon’s proposal into an all-out war, reaching out to anybody who’d ever lived on the land, misconstruing Shon’s proposal and painting us as villains. Lines were drawn. People chose sides. Threats were made. Mediation was fruitless. Lawyers were hired. Emails were bitter and hurtful.

My gut reaction is to retaliate when I feel I’m being attacked. But that wasn’t how I was living anymore. I’d spent so much energy the previous year cleaning up messes I’d made while drinking—no way in hell did I want to go through that again—so I refused to give in to that need to lash out. But I didn’t yet know how else to act. For his part, Shon continually tried to be honest and clear, not talking smack about others or responding in kind.

Walking through the farmhouse to my studio one day, I heard Shon’s name through the door of the Thorn’s room. I paused, hearing the Thorn exaggerate and twist things we’d said. I turned and walked back out of the house, onto my forest trail, breathing deeply, trying to shake off his words like the trees drop their leaves.

After a particularly nasty email, I closed my laptop with a snap.

I was done.

I asked Shon to leave me out of emails with Delphinia. Instead, I did my best to support him as he waded through the negativity, refocusing my energy on my recovery, my work, and my changing body.

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What quiet, internal turning is reshaping you right now—and how might you honor the change you’re carrying?

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