I loved being isolated in wilderness, canoeing, backpacking, finding the perfect camping spot to watch the sun go down. To wake early just to enjoy a paddle on the flat lake, to sip coffee at the water’s edge, or to have earned a deep sleep and fall into it under the stars. Algonquin Park is only two kilometres from my home now. Since I can’t paddle or hike into it these days, I figured living close by was the next best thing. It seemed to make sense to Kelly. As I told this story for the nth time, it rang even more true. I’ll move to town eventually and that will be fine too, but for now, as I become even less able-bodied, living in the refuge of nature is a gift.

A few things came up, and surprisingly, the one that fit was breath. It was so interesting and exciting to explore how the breath might get through a solid wall of aversion. Picture the big bad wolf who could blow walls down with his breath. Mind you, brick stopped him from blowing down the third house of three little pigs. The unconscious is notoriously illogical with its imagery (cue any recent dream). Our collective unconscious is rich in symbolism involving wolves and breath. Anyway, say the instructions, trust what the depth sends up.

At a meditation retreat years ago, I experienced some resolution of unacknowledged grief around my mother’s death. I grew up knowing my mother was dead, but there was always a sense of secrecy and shame about it. Things like suicide are kept from children. Everyone around me knew this secret. It was strange way to grow up. On the other hand, death isn’t a big scary thing for me; it’s a familiar one.

Tall skinny pine tree-tops stood in silhouette against the illuminated thin clouds — like minute hands pointing to noon on a clock. I was moving slowly. So slowly that each time I rounded the dagoba, the sun was in a new position relative to the tree tops. Which really meant that the earth was rotating relative to the sun and it felt oddly linked to my walking. Both grand and minuscule motions were rotating in harmony as I walked and each time I came around to find the earth had moved a little further. I felt light and grounded and part of the whole clockwork of the universe.