Dahlia Season

Beloved friends,

It's my season! The dahlias are blooming once again. When I chose my middle name, I was looking for a flower with beautiful music. James and I had chosen our family name, Home, and my original middle name sounded flat to my poet's ear: Kristie Lynn Home... nah; I wanted my new name to have more lilt. And I wanted a flowers. I chose Dahlia. It was 1999 and the internet was in bright blossom in our San Francisco circles; it was common to create an online name that drifted into becoming the name you used most, and that's what happened to me with Dahlia. I was excited about my new middle name and used it online, so it became the name people called me, and then... it just became the name I went by. The pronunciation of the flower varies regionally; my name is pronounced DAH-lee-uh. There is likely to be a dahlia garden near you; gardens showcasing the wild diversity of dahlias are a common thing, and an hour or a few walking amongst flowers is a sweetness.

The dahlias in the image above came from the garden of my friend Karen, who is the nicest thing I ever found on Buy Nothing, hee hee! She gifted me a blanket and we feel easily into conversation. The blanket that she gifted me went into the temple, where everyone loved it so much my students fell into this beautiful practice of deciding amongst themselves who would get it for deep relaxation, offering it to whoever had been tenderest at our opening-checkin in. This community expression of care kept the nice retired midwife with the scarily large German Shepherd on my mind.

When we met we'd said "Oh, we should have tea sometime!" and after the election of our current president I felt a burning desire to deepen community. This is one of the ways that I hope that these hard times are fueling us all: to build what we wish for around us, bulwarks of connection and care. I reached out to Karen for that tea date and she's become a dear friend. I spent part of yesterday afternoon lying across the foot of her bed being while she rested in a restorative pose. On the other side of her was that sweet German Shepherd, who nuzzled me as I settled and joined my mantra chanting with a little yowl.

I am loving awareness
I am loving awareness
I am the life of the universe
All is the life of the universe
All of this is the life of the universe dancing.

When I was sure that Karen was resting well, I slipped out to sit on the deck with her husband. We chatted about their beautiful gardens: the onions he had just pulled, the new trees holding more fruit than I could have imagined their small size would support, and the dahlia bed. All kinds of colors and shapes and sizes. Their formal name is dahlia variabilis because they are so varied, so mutable. I've seen dahlias bigger than my head, dahlias that look like a spiky weapon, dahlias whose petals look like perfect 1970s blowsy beach hair, and dahlias who form balls that feel quite firm when you cup them gently in your hand.

There are a bunch of beautiful dahlias, a gift from local flower farmer Emmy Gran of Fabled Flora, dying on my dining table now. Perhaps you've read me saying before that we tend to keep flowers here as and often after they die; we like to cherish all of their phases. Recently my friend Sarah told me that she had, inspired by this, been keeping her own flowers around longer. She said that she was finding in this a powerful symbolic lesson: that "beauty isn't only young and perky". In decay, dissolution, and death there is beauty as well.

Karen gifted me some dahlia tubers this spring. I've never really gardened before and oh, I have so much to learn! I'm aiming myself at it with zest and irregularity, to be honest. I wanted to share that with you: my abject failure at growing dahlias this year. It can be so easy to present ourselves in our best, and I like to make clear that my living is vibrant and imperfect. Loving myself in my full complexity is a powerful healing.

I let my nervousness about never having planted dahlias keep me from planting the tubers for too long. It turned out to be quite easy and simply a matter of looking up what to do, which was a good lesson! Also, I could have asked for help; I'm sure Karen would have loved to come by, and there is another lesson: I could have let my insecurity be a growing-closer!

Once I got the tubers into the ground I failed them again, neglecting to water them regularly. As the summer ambled along, I planted a whole new bed for the first time and got my pots of herbs going; this called me into the habit of watering most afernoons. But when I planted the dahlias I didn't have that routine yet. Honestly, I plumb forgot them. One of the bulbs has finally sprouted, a tiny thing. No buds yet. We'll see what comes of it! I confessed all this to Karen, who smiled and said there would be more to plant next year, because each year she digs up her tubers and divides them. I find the determination and resilience of gardeners so inspiring! Plantings are always failing, lessons are always being learned. This cyclical connection to the life of the land is such a gift: the chance to begin again each year.

I've got 38 little cherry tomatoes ripening on my first tomato plant. There are piles of parsley and basil which I aim to make into chimichurri and pesto soon. I accidentally let the oregano and cilantro flower because I didn't know that if I wanted more leaves, I should have cut off the first sign of flowers to keep the plant focused on leaf rather than seed production. I sent my food-loving friend Josh home from a visit last weekend with a jar of dried oregano flowers, about which he was quite tickled.

Life is ever a teacher, and summer so full of lessons. I hope that blossom season is offering you some refuge, and send you love.

Resources

Stories about Finding Light in Darkness
The NY Times carried science fiction recommendations from writer Pierce Brown this week. (gift link) His description of what he's after with this list is itself a beautiful thing:

"For me, it is the science fiction cloaked in myth that carries the most power. Lest your mind careen toward elves on spaceships, let me clarify: I’m not talking about a subgenre here, or about cross-pollination with fantasy. For me, myth is a tone, imbued with the gravity of fate and eternal truth. Whether a lullaby of mankind’s ancient cradle or a requiem for the collapse of stellar empires, these tales sing out from the mist to remind us of our nature.

For the most part, the heroes of these novels inhabit dark, decaying worlds. Their epic journeys through that darkness have often helped me find the light. Here are a few of my favorites."

What a beautiful expression of what I love about science fiction: hope, possibility, change. Most of these are classics, so I've read all of this list but one – and you know I bought that one immediately; The Stars are Legion). Of this list, Ancillary Justice is a particular favorite, along with the entire Imperial Radsch trilogy it belongs to; powerful meditations on consciousness, gender, and culture. Literature is a comfort in dark times, and an inspiration for building a better future. I hope these can offer both.

Nourishment and Joy
Once, Jennifer Lynch and I were standing at a bar getting a drink while waiting for Will Oldham/Bonnie Prince Billy to sing and a guy said to us, "Are you friends or sisters?" She grinned at me, turned back to him and said, "Maybe a little of each." My heart nearly burst. We went on to live together for 13 years and came to call each other family with ease. Jennifer is one of the dearest of humans in my life, and I am far from alone in saying this. Jennifer emanates love of life and wisdom; she is a great light. We've shared home, more dancefloors than I can count, and once stayed up all night another way – supporting our house sister Judith in laboring to birth her son.

We both work with the body-mind, with living and with joy and nourishment – in different ways with similar mindsets. Jennifer's way centers on food. For the dozens of retreats that I held before I set to sea, Jennifer blessed us with her food. Every time multiple people told me that Jennifer transformed their idea of what healthful food could taste like. She brings reverence and lightness to cooking and eating, makes it artful and easeful and playful and sacred all at once. She dances with seasonality, old and modern eatingways, and makes "dietary restrictions" feel like interesting parameters rather than limitations. Those meals people raved about on retreat? I was trying to make the work the widest possible range of dietary needs, so they were vegan, free of grains other than rice or quinoa, free of refined sugar – and exquisitely pleasurable and sustaining for our intensive yoga practice. I truly cannot warmly enough recommend Jennifer's work to you.

I'm telling you this today because she's offering her skills to the world in a new way right now: "I’m here to help you adjust to new dietary needs or other transitions, form good practices, and improve sourcing and skills." In short: want support for nourishing your body that nourishes your heart as well? Jennifer Lynch, friends. It'll change your life and your health for the better.

On Hearing and Being Heard
My dear friend Elle Oura asked for advice about best practices for warm inclusion of folks with hearing differences in group settings. Her spiritual community is preparing for retreat and several members have age-related hearing loss, which everyone wants to keep from being an impediment to connection. I've worked often with folks with hearing loss and was glad to share my experience, from which she prepared a set of guidelines which she suggested I share here. Thanks to Elle Oura for this collaboration

Practice thoughtful communication. My friend Dahlia who helped me put this list together calls it “give preciousness to voice.” Some examples:

1. Get someone’s attention before you begin speaking with them…Say their name and wait for acknowledgement.  
2. When you are speaking to a person, look at them. Make eye contact if possible.  
3. Enunciate every word - by making each word distinct, we naturally slow down and listeners have time to process our words.  
4. Speak slowly 
5. Project your voice
6. Only one person speaks at a time
7. The group develops a shared visual signal (often using hands) to indicate “I can’t hear you” or “speak up” and everyone in the group can and should use it.  
   1. This is because people who are hard of hearing get tired of asking people to speak up over and over; a shared hand gesture is easier to use.     
   2. Everyone in the group should use the hand signal.  For example, if someone is mumbling, define it as a kind signal for anyone to use that gesture.  This can take the burden off the people who are hard of hearing to always be the ones to take action.  
8. Minimize background noise / background music. 

Resistance

I've recommended Amanda Nelson's work with Amanda's Mild Takes before; she's on TikTok and Instagram and has a really grounded view of the horrors taking place. I am particularly fond of the relief and inspiration I feel each Tuesday after seeing the post she does of "Donald Trump's Ls for the Week", an overtly mocking roundup of all the failures and retreats made by him and his administration. It reminds me of what is possible. This week she made a great post she summed up as "So what can we DO? for newbies".

One of her answers is to get involved in the 2026 midterms. She gives clear, actionable information, specific to people living in both red and blue states. The comments are also full of common questions with great advice!

Her other answer is to focus on an issue you care about and get locally active. I took my first step in this today by messaging PT Gleaners to join up. "PTGleaners has been gleaning excess fruit from local trees since 2008. From July-October teams of volunteers pick fruit from backyard sources to give to schools, food banks, non-profits, and senior centers." One of the organizers joined a yoga class this week; she said that Port Townsend is so effective in this that the USDA has people here to observe. I'm excited about helping get food from trees to tables! If you're local and want to connect to glean with me, reach out!

Where are you stepping up? I would absolutely love to hear what you're doing to care for that which you love in this time where we are called to step forward!

Speaking of Stepping Forward
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