Hope from the Heart of the Valley

Welcome to Fall’s Official First Day!
Seasons just keep changing, with or without my permission. Or my opinion, which is that it’s all going too fast. Nevertheless, I welcome Fall, my favorite. No other seasons need apply. To be fair, I still offer summer a chance.
Summer in the Northwest offers a carnival of perfect choices for outdoor adventures. The weather is fine for months on end, at least when there’s no big wildfire blowing smoke our way. We’re all about camping, biking, climbing, hiking to admire waterfalls at the base of tall purple mountains and bright ocean sunsets. You may have seen the postcards.
To savor the summer season, my husband and I get out on our bikes nearly every day for the five months we’re not dodging rain drops. We love these meandering loops through Corvallis, the small college town that is our home of fifty years. Its name means “heart of the valley” in Latin. Our daily excursions are an antidote for an overload of worries for the world. As we weave through town, I imagine being a needle, my threads silently connecting people I don’t even know in our in our community in the Willamette Valley and beyond.
Then again, sometimes I’m not so silent. Bike lanes require ringing a bell or making a sound when passing. I was recently reminded that change comes from the little things, the minutiae of everyday life. So I launched my own little good will campaign during my morning bike ride by heartily singing out “On your left!” when I pass people from behind, sometimes wishing them a beautiful day as we roll past. This makes my heart smile. There’s rarely time for them to respond, so my wish for them feels like a gift without strings.
But something was a bit different on a ride a little over a week ago. I’m in my groove, threading my way along the river as we navigate a relatively remote and narrow part of the bike path. I haven’t seen anybody in the park so far that morning. As I pedal along, I see ahead of me an American flag, appearing out of nowhere. I get closer and see that it’s being carried by young man who’s jogging while wrestling the flag on a long, heavy pole.
“On your left!” I call out loud in best my singsong greeting. The flag bearer responds, but I can’t make out his words. A minute after speeding past I register the absurdity of the scene. Why would a lonely runner be lugging a heavy flag with no audience, going nowhere? By the time I retrace my tracks, he’s gone. Odd, I think.
Almost a week later. I make the connection. My flag-bearer non-event happened a day after the shooting of Charlie Kirk, someone I’d never heard of before.
I think back on that strange scene. I had belted out my customary warning, “On your left!” A hostile reaction to me as a “leftie” wouldn’t have been a surprise, given the strained national climate.
But that hadn’t happened. From the fog of memory comes the voice of a polite young man with the respectful tone of someone addressing an elder, “Thank you Ma’am,” he responds, adding “I’m sorry.”
As I remember that moment even now, a tilting world is set upright again. Upright. Not right wing. Not left wing. Just aright. From inside to out, from kindness from one person to another person and back again. All right.
Old-fashioned civility. It has a history of setting things right. Maybe it’s just a small beginning, but it’s an offering, from where I live, at home here in my heart, smack dab in the very Heart of the Valley.
My autumn wish for you: May your life bring you peace where it’s unexpected. May we all find hope in the little kindnesses, beginning with the good manners and kindness that holds us together.
Minutiae
Ordinary times with quiet mornings like now, coffee in hand and sunlight on back
Quiet! Coffee! Sunlight!
These guests
I welcome each day
without fanfare, and they join
a minutiae of miracles,
muffled by major momentous news
or maybe recalled in some misty montage
buried in the slow lane
where nothing is being solved or resolved
and nobody is taking photographs
—SgB 25
Pink Fog of Nostalgia

Welcome, Summer!
The mantra began in my brain last week. Or perhaps it was an obsessive loop. Please come, Summer! It began to morph into a prayer.
Context: Summer Solstice 2025. Once again cool, rainy weather had outstayed its welcome, at least in my mind. While our daily temperature in Oregon held steady in the 50’s and 60’s, a heat dome blanketed most of the rest of the continent.
I had thought about the national heat wave as a concept and then turned it into a guided fantasy so my toes would stay warm. I truly did not know how serious this was at the time, and I honestly do care, but a part of me was jealous. Just a teensy little whiny part.
While I impatiently waited for sunshine to warm the air, I also found my mind replaying the soft sultry summer nights of a “little Dixie” youth. Running barefoot on a perfect lawn. Drinking iced tea all day long while sunbathing by a pool or lake. Any pool or lake. Wearing scanty summer clothes (sans sweatshirts) well into the night. Diving silently into warm, inviting water for a midnight float.
Then other images arose. Stinging Black flies. Waking up at 3 am, shoulders on fire from all the lake time with only iodine and baby oil for protection. Hearing tornado sirens in the middle of the night and crouching in the southwest corner of the basement, holding my breath while listening to the radio for an all-clear. Sweat trickling down my back when exercising any time after 6 am. Chiggers.
Chiggers! I forgot the chiggers! In North America they’re most prevalent in the hot and humid southeast and Midwest. These tiny invisible mites who form a hole in the skin and chew up tiny parts of your inner skin, causing irritation and swelling. The red, pimple-like bumps itch like nothing else and last about a week, at least twice the length of a mosquito bite and far itchier.
Suddenly it occurred to me that I probably never actually ran barefoot over the grass even once because of those chiggers. And that I have long blessed my good fortune in escaping them by moving to my forever home across the country.
I’ve been appreciating the nostalgic moments of life review as ramblings drift in and out of contemplative moments. It’s then that I realize that most everything I think I remember may or may not be absolutely true. Reality. It has a way of dispelling the fog of romanticized recall, somewhat like the DDT “fogger” I think I remember chasing in those sun-warmed safer and simpler years.
I make a note to myself about the pink fog machine of nostalgia. And for just a minute I pause to fill with appreciation for the home I have right now, wet or chilly or domed with heat. Just as it is.
Today. Gratitude. Home Base.
May you live this summer from that solid footing.
SgB.
Blessing Your Heart

Hello, Friend! “Bless Their Hearts” was a phrase I often heard from my elders as I was growing up in the Bible Belt. The expression was often employed to describe benighted folks like the heathens who we sent missionaries to convert. Or perhaps Catholics, who simply didn’t know better. I moved far away, but the phrase migrated with me. As a know-it-all twenty something I peppered it into my conversations, usually in a slightly superior tone. This made it easier to offer my scathing judgements and still appear to be a nice person. For a while this meant anyone who was not in the hip counter-culture created and populated by my generation got their hearts blessed. Gradually humbled by life and my own imperfections, I stopped blessing their hearts too. Sometime during the last three election cycles I’ve noticed my old sarcasm coming to the rescue. A sense of superiority can easily be camouflaged itself as humor, I learned. I’ve blessed the hearts of great swaths of politicians who seem clueless. I called it a coping strategy. Today I’m a bit embarrassed to admit to any of it. Let’s just say it didn’t reflect my higher self. It also doesn’t serve the world when I stay for long in a shell of self-protection and sarcasm. There’s something to be said for that in normal times. Which these are not. What most of my friends and clients most need now is a way to soothe their own nervous systems. This is something I frequently forget to do for myself, despite my best intentions. Over the decades (with the help of therapy) I’ve come to realize how little self-soothing was on the agenda for me when I was a baby. No blankie. No thumb-sucking. No favorite binkie or plush toy for me. This was a point of pride for my parents. Then, last summer, along came grandbaby Juniper, the little spirit who captured my heart. Almost since birth Juniper has been a prize-winning self-soother. When things have been too stimulating or she’s tired, she naturally pats herself softly on her cheek or chest. She often dozes off immediately. As she has grown into herself during her first year, her love pats have become more intentional. It looks like she’s blessing her own heart. With their simplicity and trust, babies have a way of busting ironic adults like me. A while ago I decided Juniper had something there and maybe it wasn’t too late for me. I began to watch her exact movements, imitating them at first in play. One night of insomnia I tried patting my heart, Juniper style. And, presto! I discovered a whole new level of self-blessing. Here’s her technique, in case you could use a little more rest or self-love in this anxious time. Place your right palm over your heart. Feel it beating. Then place left palm over the right hand, patting the hand (and the heart beneath it). Repeat. Add slow, mindful breathing. When was the last time you truly blessed someone’s heart with no trace of irony? When was the last time you blessed your own heart, knowing you deserve it? You can do it now. I’m pretty sure Juniper would say you’re welcome. Let this Spring be a time of Self Blessing. |
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The bud stands for all things, even for those that don’t flower, for everything flowers from within, of self-blessing, though sometimes it is necessary to reteach a thing about its loveliness, to put a hand on the brow of the flower and retell it in words and touch it is lovely until it flowers again from within, of self-blessing. (from St Francis and the Sow by Galway Kinnell) |
photos by Liz-e and Ben |
Swans, Time, and Change

Late February, 2025 Hello, Friend! I recently spent the afternoon with more than a thousand tundra swans. They migrate from Alaska to a wildlife sanctuary here in Oregon every year to warm up. This has been true for millennia. Time has not significantly changed this rite. It has always been simply the natural order of things. There’s something deeply soothing about watching nature’s immutable patterns, given all the random changes and confusions in our human world. And then there are the gorgeous swans themselves, in all their storied grace. The eternal kind of beauty offered by the natural world is a balm. Changes in the world of humans can break your heart. But Nature’s beauty still has the power to knock you out. And wake you up. My desire to protect the natural order is strengthened when I focus on this. I feel a deep responsibility to stand for those that can’t protect themselves, like the swans. When I remember thi I’m not willing to give myself over to the turmoil of the day. Instead I’m deeply motivated to put down some speed bumps to slow down a bit of the craziness. On my way home from the refuge, I decide to do something to break through the shocked reaction that has kept me frozen this past month. As a life coach, I know to focus on achievable goals and take a steady approach. So I make an action plan to do something every day. I decide twenty minutes is enough time to write a post card or make three phone calls. Who do I call? To begin with, my representatives in the Capitol. Who to write? I sign up again with Vote Forward to send letters to reluctant voters. And what about donations? I turn to my list of environmental and humanitarian organizations. I’m still working on answers, and they seem to come one at a time. The last question, Where and when will I spend my money? is answered simply on Friday Feb. 28th. I can support an Economic Blackout for the day by buying nothing online or in person. If enough of us participate it can send a message to corporations and government that the needs of everyday working people are important. More about that here. What about you? What answers are arising for you? Sometimes the smallest actions have big consequences, especially when taken together. As for me, every time I send a letter or make a call I’ll be thinking of those swans. And there’s comfort in knowing I’m doing my own small part to protect nature’s timeless and immutable way of reminding us what really matters. Keeping the faith, |
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Becoming
Sudden
an explosion of swans,
cracks the sky, each day
a thousand strong and louder
a white regatta of pillows
drifting down, honking
and whistling their location.
A lamentation of swans
crying from grief and exhaustion
landing for the day
an arabesque of swans in glissando,
sweeping the surface and settling
to feed at dusk.
Heads down. Tails up
And then shifting again
Into a sail of swans
Slipping smoothly into shadows
and silhouettes, seeking other
swan kin before tucking heads.
Changing for the long dark night
into at tranquility of swans.
—SgB 2025