Walking North

[The Stage is on Fire] is a page-turner in which, much like life, there are no easy answers and yet each step of the journey yields insight and hope. This work of heart must not be missed!

Melanie Faith

Creative Writing Teacher, Essayist & Poet.

Katie Steedly’s first-person piece [The Unspeakable Gift] is a riveting retelling of her participation in a National Institutes of Health study that aided her quest to come to grips with her life of living with a rare genetic disorder. Her writing is superb.

The Society of Professional Journalists

In recognition of receiving the Dateline Award for the Washingtonian Magazine essay, The Unspeakable Gift.

I thank you … It is the authenticity of your “class notes”; and it is the delicacy and skill with which you present the nuances of classroom life and the actuality of your students’ and fellow teachers’ lives.

Maxine Greene

Philosopher and Education Scholar

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Walk long enough and we all trade places. – Mark Nepo

I have always loved the poem “Footprints in the Sand.” It’s message resonates with me. The poem tells me: we are not alone. Though the poem speaks directly to a relationship with God, I believe it can also have a wider meaning. We are carried at moments in our life. We carry others sometimes, too. In that, there is universal balance between generosity and need, bounty and lack, isolation and interdependence, lost and found, clarity and confusion, and strength and vulnerability,

What I know for sure about moments when I am carried.

I treasure moments when I am carried. I am carried when I am a hot mess of anxiety and sadness and I can see through to the other side. I am carried when I can collapse under the weight of worry and I am enfolded in loving arms. I am carried when fear is overcome with knowing. I am carried when I feel safe: really safe and secure.

What I know for sure about moments when I carry.

I treasure moments when I carry. I carry when I am open and compassionate. I carry when I am being my most authentic and truthful self. I carry when I stand in my strength and let my light shine. I carry when I don’t wait, I simply lead. I carry when I trust.

In search of balance.

I am learning that my journey is about finding balance. I believe life’s cracks are where the light gets in. I believe that moments when our steel is tempered make us stronger. I believe there is truth to the wisdom that change is constant and this too shall pass. I believe we are all walking North and finding our way. We are asked to find balance. Balance between doubt and faith. Balance between silence and noise. Between leaping and staying. Between carrying and being carried.

https://kitt.global/june-1-walking-north-mark-nepo-the-book-of-awakening/