Still Lake Listening

01/09/2026

The plum you're going to eat next summer
doesn't exist yet; its potential
lives inside a tree you'll never see
in an orchard you'll never see,
will be touched
by a certain number of water droplets
before it reaches you, by certain angles
of light, by a finite amount of bugs
and dust motes and hands
you'll never know. The plum you are
going to eat next summer will gather
sugar, gather mass, will harden
at its center so it can soften toward
your mouth. The plum
you're going to eat next
summer doesn't know
you exist. The plum you are
going to eat next summer
is growing just for you.

~ Gayle Brandeis

01/08/2026

Check your email inboxes and your PO boxes. for the January/February newsletter!

01/07/2026

01/04/2026

May we have your input? Each month, Still Lake offers no-cost listening sessions related to folx impacted by issues of injustice, marginalization, or unique circumstance. We notice that we are unsure of where this is best offered to start the year. Do you have a suggestion? We welcome your comments below, or your private messages! Thank you for sharing in the sharing! 💙

01/02/2026

We're noticing the invitation to allow our Attention to rest purposefully, generously, and with loving care as we dream into what 2026 may have for Still Lake.💙Here are a few of the things we'll attend in the months ahead:

🌱We're going to school! As part of our ongoing learning, we'll work toward certification in Internal Family Systems Therapy (IFS) for spiritual companioning. 'So excited!

🌱A mini-retreat focused on menopause and spirituality is in the works. "Our former identity may have been a kind of numbing, an unconsciousness, an anesthesia that has kept us safe but has also kept us from really feeling.
When we start to wake up through menopause, the waking up feels disproportionate in response to what's happening. Things are hitting a place in you that is deeply unheld and hurt and afraid." ~ Red School

🌱We will, as ever, rest our attention fully on you. You, and listening with you for what your life is saying, is our heart work. One-on-one and two-on-one sessions are the Lifebreath of this practice.

🌱We'll continue our no-cost care of grief circles, Harmony Sessions (more on January's offering soon), and community choir-ing, too.

01/01/2026

Rest your attention
Rest
Attend
A calendar flip need not be cause for
punitive
fixfixfix
dobetterbebetter
striving straining grinding
Rest your True Heart
curious
loving attention
On the who-what-how-Now
Is there Wonder for this moment?
And this,
and then this moment?
Notice openly
With abandon
Daring
without guile
to see What Is.
Daring
with Abiding Mercy
to rest.
To attend.

~ A named longing for the turn of the year from Sandra and Michelle

12/25/2025

Winter arrives as a threshold.
The noise thins. What has been waiting beneath the surface steps closer.
In the long nights, the outer world grows quiet enough for the inner one to speak.
Dreams thicken. Memories drift closer to the surface.
The past and the possible sit at the same table, sharing breath.
This is the season of the hearth and the in-between.
Of firelight and listening.
Of stories told to remind us of who we are.
In the old myths, winter was never an ending.
It was the time when the gods went underground.
When seeds were carried into the dark.
When the soul followed, to learn what could not be learned in the open field.
There are things that only reveal themselves when the land is bare.
When the noise falls away.
When the body is allowed to slow into its animal knowing.
Winter teaches a different kind of courage.
Not the courage of striving,
but the courage of staying.
Of keeping the fire.
Of trusting what is forming beyond sight.
So if you feel quieter now, more inward,
more porous to memory and dream, know that you are not lost.
You are walking an old road.
One that leads through shadow
and back again
carrying something precious
you could only gather in the dark.

~ Brigit Anna McNeill

12/23/2025

12/22/2025

😄ps: We 💙💙💙long stories!