You do not have to be good …

February 11, 2026
by Nancy Emeral
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Awareness / Dogs / Living Authentically / The Human Condition

Living with a dog is a humbling experience. They are so keenly observant, remarkably intuitive, decisive, affectionate, present in every moment, protective of their people, and, my favorite … utterly thrilled to be alive. Who of us can claim anything even close?

I live in something like the Subaru commercial poignantly featuring a family with their dog in three different life stages. Although the ad aired some years back, even now just thinking about it my tear ducts begin to swell. To the best of my memory in the opening scene a young couple is putting their adorable squirmy puppy in their new compact Subaru and driving off. Then a few years later they acquire a larger Subaru to accommodate the now grown dog sitting protectively between a baby in a car seat and a fidgeting toddler. Finally, an even larger model is required to transport the family of parents and young adults along with the gray muzzled senior dog who slowly ambles over to the car as his loving family helps him into the back. Where they go, he goes … break out the tissue.

My three dogs are in those very same life stages … Beau, the gray faced, very senior Dachshund, Zoe, the in-her-prime genetic mix of a variety of working dogs, and Moose, the Great Pyrenees puppy who is the spitting image of a clumsy baby polar bear. 

Much of my day is occupied with what I affectionately call the ‘Dog Rodeo’ … The walking, feeding, poop picking, grooming, loving on, and playing with dogs of extremely different needs. It’s a lot to do and some days I’m utterly exhausted, and yet …

We humans struggle with self-worth, disease, depression, anxiety, fear, disappointment, loneliness. Few of us escape hardships in even what might be considered the most fortunate of lives. At times the horrors of all the suffering in our collective humanity weighs heavy on my soul. But, in the cool of the early morning when I throw the big orange ball on the end of an 18” rope to my polar bear pup and see him proudly cavorting around with it hanging from his mouth, I connect to what has to be pure joy. That’s the paycheck from all the work.

My dogs have a way of calling me to a world beyond the difficulties of being human. When I run my hands over Moose’s white fluffy puppy fur or Zoe’s well muscled body I feel alive to more … To a world beyond metrics & measures, deadlines & demands, warring & prejudices, having & having not. I connect to a dimension of existence in harmony with the real world, the natural world. 

I had a dream the other night in which I was reciting a poem that has meant a lot to me for many years, “Wild Geese,” by Mary Oliver. When I woke up a rush of thoughts flooded my mind and as the sleep fell from my eyes I realized I had never ‘gotten’ what this poem was saying directly to me and it is in the very first line … “You do not have to be good.“

It’s curious to me that I have had no awareness of the personal message that, now seen, I can’t ‘unsee.’ I can only imagine that I simply wasn’t ready to let in the realization that I don’t have to “be good.” 

For as long as I can remember I have been trying to live up to an extensive set of strict internalized criteria for being a ‘good’ woman. Punishing myself when I inevitably failed and never questioning if that criteria were a good fit for me. 

In his book, The Four Agreements, Don Miguel Ruiz speaks to a process he calls “The Domestication of Humans.” He claims that the innocent child has complete trust in adults. Those adults or parental figures impact our early years by their words, expectations and example … some helpful, some not. This mixed bag morphs into a set of agreements we internalize and by which we become ‘domesticated.’ 

Ruiz writes, “During the process of domestication we form an image of what perfection is in order to try to be good enough.” I have tried.

Insidiously there have been just enough pieces of my domesticated ideal that matched my true self to mask those that did not. It’s a bit like a pair of shoes that if you wore just the right socks and tied the laces in a certain way you could get them to fit, sort of. It is possible to configure yourself so well that you actually come to believe the domesticated you, like the shoes, are a perfect fit. I’ve been good at that.

What I haven’t been so good at is sorting out what I’ve assimilated from external influence and what is truly, uniquely me … Like trying to untangle a giant-sized ball of tangled yarn. 

No wonder I have clung to Mary Oliver’s words like a lifeline, not even completely realizing why. Now I hear them as never before. “You do not have to be good.” I am taking baby steps, beginning to scrutinize my thinking and behavior. I suspect it might feel a little awkward to align myself with being robustly authentically me … Perhaps as though I am betraying some imprinting. I am going to have to be courageous even when I don’t feel that way. Which, by the way, I don’t.

Isn’t is interesting that it’s so challenging to simply be who we truly are?

Further on in “Wild Geese,” Mary writes,  “… you only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves… “

One thing I know for certain is that the soft animal of my body LOVES my dogs. Loves the joyful bliss I find simply being with a playful puppy tossing around a ball … And, when that glistening white polar bear puppy leans into my side asking to be loved on, I feel like my heart is in rhythm with the beating heart of the universe … I guess that’s where I’ll start.

Only Miracles …

January 29, 2026
by Nancy Emeral
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Follow Your Heart / Living Authentically / Mortality / Overworking

A few years ago I was cleaning out a storage space. I came across a large rectangular box that held a few canvasses. In the usual chaos of life that box had apparently been overlooked, and shoved to the back of our pole barn.

I hauled out the dusty oversize box and after a sneezing fit pulled out everything inside only to discover the box held more than stretched canvas on frames. A nervous tiny deer mouse stared back at me shivering with fright. Whiskers twitching and perfectly round liquidy, beady black eyes bulged out from the sides of her pointed little face. I quickly deduced it was a ‘her’ because all around her were squirmy, blind bundles of pink flesh.

Of course the prudent thing to do would have been to dispatch the whole lot of them … a sanitized way of saying ‘kill them.’ I found I couldn’t do it, even though I regularly set mouse traps. I couldn’t do it for the simple reason that I looked into her eyes. Creature to creature, we had a moment. 

In reality life comes to us only in moments, and all too often those fleeting seconds get swept away, gobbled up in the dailiness of activity … the doing, doing, doing. But not this time.

Oftentimes I find l am a human doer rather than a human being. I don’t like to think of myself that way. However, if I’m being really honest I have to say that I live as though all the stuff I push around, arrange, clean, buy, store, pass on is my real purpose for being here. Thankfully something happens every now and then launching me into a different reality. I’m given an opportunity to simply be. Like yesterday …

It was incredibly foggy, so thick you could scoop it up with a spoon. And, like magic, all my ‘doing’ relaxed. Happily immersed in a sea of white I was mesmerized. The dense atmosphere muffled all sound and was just other-worldly enough to have me release all thoughts of ‘doing’ and cast my cares into the fog. 

I was catapulted from the land of toil into the land of being.

Suddenly I became aware of small sounds, now audible as the almost impenetrable fog hushed those that are louder and more demanding on our ears. Decaying leaves scratching up against my foot, a vole making it’s way through the underbrush. There was a distant nuthatch chittering high in the trees, the rustle of wings from a bird on high, the soft snow delicately crunching beneath my feet. All around me the subtle, deeper layers of our living earth. 

I would like to think that it wouldn’t take a weather event for me to slow my flurry of ‘things-I-need-to-do.’ Do I have the courage to face into what it is that keeps me running, doing, working myself ragged. Could I let go? Perhaps then I’d spend more of my life simply being … 

Maybe it’s a bit cowardly but I wanted the fog to stay, impose upon me this sheltered cocoon. Then, enveloped in this protective womb I could remain in quiet and avoid dealing with whatever it is that has me running around in circles like the little deer mouse who in fact became a tank pet and ran on a wheel all night long. 

She, ‘Smeasely’, lived to be 3 1/2 years old. She provided hours of ‘dog TV’ for my Border Collie Zoe who was fascinated by the way she would pop out of the tunnels she constructed out of chewed up cardboard and wood shavings. Smeasely would hold and daintily nibble on a seed with her tiny nimble paws. She had shiny brown fur, velvety ears and pure black liquid eyes that looked so utterly fragile. She was just a common little mouse and yet, she was exquisite. Truly a marvel of nature. 

In our modern life we are constantly barraged by the urgent fury of information hurled at us through email, phone calls, texts, TV, pop-up internet ads, all making emphatic demands. We are warned to take action now or miss out. Meet deadlines. Go here, do this. Everywhere voices are screaming for our attention, and action … all consuming our precious time, our moments.

Under normal circumstances we don’t know how long we have on this earth. When our clock winds down, our time stands still. I can’t rely on a foggy day or any other external pressure to connect to the deepest parts of my humanity. I can succumb to the vortex of the madness or find a way within myself to give up what keeps me running on the wheel. 

I do know that when I approach the end I want to be able to say along with the poet that in my life, “I know nothing else but miracles …” Walt Whitman

Look Up …

December 29, 2025
by Nancy Emeral
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Dogs / Farm Life / Living Authentically / perspective / The Human Condition

Outside it’s drizzling that ‘just above freezing’ damp, bone-chilling cold that I find particularly horrible. My dreams of a white Christmas went unanswered this year and maybe that’s a perfect ending to a particularly difficult year for both our country and for the world.

I’ve tried reminding myself how badly we need rain here in Eastern Washington. Nice try, but the truth is, its yucky outside and no amount of pasted-on optimism is going to change that.

On this mostly disagreeable afternoon my dog Zoe and I went for our daily walk through our little woods. There’s a certain place where 12 old Ponderosa pines line up to form a lengthy, lazy semi-circle. Feels like a cathedral where I often stop and pay my respects. 

While Zoe chewed on some fresh green grass … (Yes, there is fresh green grass growing in the latter part of December. Go figure!) … She chewed and I let my thoughts wander among the branches seeking something that I couldn’t quite define. 

Like the gentle rain falling on my head, so did the quietest little notion fall upon my thoughts. “Look up … “ 

Our farm is situated on a hillside, a very uneven, rocky hillside. This makes for interesting views and artful natural statues at every turn. It also makes for some treacherous walking if you’re not constantly looking down at the ground in front of you. At times I feel like a bug wandering around in the dirt at the base of the giants in the forest. 

Being of a certain age does make caution important, but I was standing still and so I did look up. 

I usually learn something from changing my perspective and his day was no different. I was spellbound by what I routinely neglect to see … Every branch almost comically tufted with spiky balls of deep green needles. The exquisite frame they place around an otherwise ho-hum cloudy gray sky. And there was more …

Trees exist simultaneously in the magical paradox of heaven and earth, feet firmly rooted in the ground while continually reaching for the sky … They grow stronger with every passing year without relinquishing the necessary flexibility to withstand even the strongest of winds, a heart-stopping spectacle for anyone witnessing these massive trunks swaying wildly on a stormy day.

Trees are generous with themselves; offering cooling shade in the heat of summer, nourishment and housing to a multitude of insects, mammals and birds while enriching the soil at their feet and cleansing the very air we breathe … And, of course the most obvious: trees are a thing of beauty.

Even though tiny streams of rain were cascading down my face I probably would be standing there still if my neck could have stood the strain. 

The message was clear … “Stay firmly rooted to that which gives you nourishment and do not become brittle, hardened in thought and deed … Inevitable storms and winds of change will blow all around you, cultivate an open mind, a willing spirit … Be generous with yourself, and thereby be a breath of fresh air into the world … And, always, always seek higher ground. Look up.”

It’s mere days away to a new year. I know January 1st is really just another day as 2026 replaces last year’s calendar on the wall. Maybe this is a year to reacher higher, be a better me. Maybe you will do that too. 

To any and all who read this, may the new year bring you the good gifts of health, wisdom, loving companions and cheer …

Feeding Wolves …

December 18, 2025
by Nancy Emeral
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Family & Legacy / Living Authentically / The Human Condition

My freshly cut Christmas tree is sparkling with tiny white lights. Every short needled branch boasts feathery birds, crystalline balls, handmade bird houses, and an odd assortment of miniature teddy bears, bells, and shiny stars collected over a lifetime. It’s gorgeous. 

Candles and strings of lights illuminate a shelf in our great room and a felted wreath hangs in between winter coats and hats on a clothes rack by the door. In the center of a table pine cones from our woods fill a donut-shaped cast-stone birdbath top safely inside from ice and snow that could threaten to crack it in two. Scattered throughout the house familiar artifacts of Christmas signal festivity.

I’ve done all the holiday prep I usually do and can’t help but notice I’ve been drawing more upon on a historical routine than my current state. Something is off. I don’t feel the sustained light-hearted joy I’m accustomed to at this time of year. 

It’s not as though it’s all been a drag. There have been uplifting moments. Plugging in the Christmas tree lights, pulling out cookie recipes and creating our year-end greeting card have brought genuine smiles to my face. And yet …

I’ve needed to go into my sanctuary, the woods. The place where I can usually still my thoughts and simply be. Surrounded by stalwart ponderosa pines and watchful owls, chittering nuthatches and endearingly comical quail I have a chance to get to the bottom of this pervasive, curious emptiness inside.

While standing in the utter quiet of the snowy morning in the middle of the trees I remembered something I had read in The Week about Taylor Swift’s wedding plans at her $32 million mansion. Apparently they “could end up splashing some $1.2 million on landscaping for the big day.” That level of wealth for landscaping confounds me when all around many are hungry and homeless.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not begrudging this amazing rock star’s fortune to spend however she chooses. That’s her business and her right … I’m just perplexed. My feet were getting cold by the time I began to understand at least a little of the gray cloud that has been hanging over me …

There’s an overwhelming amount of things I can’t make sense of as this year winds down; wildly inappropriate deportations, children with guns, starvation in the Middle East, warming oceans, divisive politics, bold disregard for the dignity of humankind. It’s a wonder I, or any of us for that matter can even sleep at night. 

In truth I don’t have to look far for the disparities between myself and countless others. I sit in a warm home with plenty to eat and more stuff than I could ever need while many are cold and stomachs are empty. A small change of circumstance or minor shift in my DNA might have me perched on a street corner holding a tattered cardboard sign.  

I assuage some of my ‘guilt?’ by creating bags to hand out to the homeless and their pets with emergency provisions. I realize that is a drop in the bucket when an ocean of change is needed. Yet, perhaps it makes a small contribution to someone in need. 

Is it possible to make things better for our fragmented humanity and the health of our planet? Or, are we destined to continually be the warring race repeating the mistakes of our forebears over and over, shattering the lives and habitats of all living creatures?

Years ago I slipped on the ice and broke my right wrist. Being very right-handed to the point of having little capacity to do much of anything for myself the following weeks were interesting. More had broken than my bones. 

My injury provoked and brought to the surface issues in my marriage needing to be addressed. The bones mended long before the rift that was cracked open in my relationship. Through excellent therapy and a lot of hard work we found our way through. The pain provided a path to healing and we took it. I wasn’t easy, it was damn hard. Love was the fuel to see the process through. 

As I look around our nation and beyond I see a shattered human family, every bit as broken as the bones that snapped in my wrist. Could it be the outdated paradigms that feed malignant hostilities must shatter before change is possible? How much worse does it have to get? And, what is the fuel that could provide the energy to do the hard work of healing? 

I do despair and wonder what the days and years ahead hold … these somber thoughts are wreaking havoc in my usual optimistic nature. I’m doing my best to temper the aching hollowness inside with strings of white lights sparkling around all the holiday trimmings. It’s no use. I’m losing the battle and reminded that ‘what you resist tends to persist.’

I’m familiar with resistance. I’ve been here before, many times actually. By now I feel I ‘should’ know that throwing my energy and willpower to overcome discontent never works. 

I ‘know’ to face into what is right before me and quit trying to put a bandaid on a gaping wound.

I ‘know’ to surrender to reality no matter how uncomfortable.

I ‘know’ to do the part only I can and am willing to do … and let it go. 

Ruminating on the horror is pointless. Sounds simple enough. If it were I’d be a master by now. But, I’m a mixed bag as I suspect we all are. The discordant inequities so obvious in the world live also inside … light and dark residing within, garishly highlighting the glitter alongside the suffering so obvious in this holiday season.

There’s a story handed down from Native American tradition about the two wolves living in each of us … one of goodwill and one intent on harm. When asked which wolf will win, the Cheyenne elder responds, “The one you feed.”

The Presence …

November 24, 2025
by Nancy Emeral
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Follow Your Heart / Mystical Connection

A few miles from our home is a highway that leads to a retail area with practically everything we need. It’s easy. It’s also frenetic. I’ve yet to drive on that road without cars and big-ass trucks cutting me off and tail-gating so closely they could easily connect to my bumper with a zip tie. Taking that route I’d be agitated by the time I arrived in town. Thankfully there is another way.

Running parallel to the fast-paced highway is a road that meanders through a ravine cut many years ago by the Little Spokane River. It takes longer to get where I’m going due to frequent braking for turkey and deer crossing the road. They are drawn there to munch on the lush greens along the river. I don’t mind. I’m accustomed to leaving margins of time for most every activity anyway. The important thing is that I arrive at my destination intact mentally and emotionally. 

Instead of stressing about avoiding unhinged drivers in fast moving traffic, when on this alternative route into town I am otherwise occupied. My thoughts meander like the twists and turns before me. 

The other morning while waiting for a rather large turkey family to cross the road I had a moment of insight. Pieces of my life formerly scattered around my mind like those of a jigsaw puzzle yet to find their place in the picture, found their spot. And, that took me back to early years.

I’m sure other’s had a different experience, but I hated school, especially elementary school. I was incarcerated in a room with 20 or more unruly, untrustworthy kids who gossiped, teased, and were mostly cruel. It smelled of library paste, urine, chalk dust, pencil shavings, and sweat. An older woman stood in front of us and droned on and on until we prisoners were released for gym, (code for getting hit with balls of all sizes) and eventually to go home. Why bother?

In those days I found as many ways as I possibly could to stay home. The most successful was to feign a stomach ache. This worked well with my perpetually depressed mother since I believe she herself often had stomach troubles. 

Once the school day began and it was too late to go anyway my heart took flight. I gathered, slowly to keep the ruse going, paper, scissors, tape, crayons, cotton balls, cardboard, and anything else that caught my fancy. As soon as I was established on the living room couch surrounded by everything I needed I went to work. 

My favorite things to create were various landscapes, lands of my imagination that held my heart together in urban metropolitan Chicago. One that took precedence over all others was what I called, ‘Lilac Land.’ On a sheet of cardboard I constructed rivers, hills, and trees with lilac bushes tucked in between. This conjured paradise was where I kept myself whole when all around me were rivers of asphalt, concrete and mountains of apartments and places of business.

The memory of those days played vividly in my thoughts as I waited for the turkeys to cross realizing that I haven’t changed all that much. I still create landscapes for the imagination, now with paint on canvas. I find the home of my heart in the quiet natural spaces where trees, birds, brush and wildflowers flourish far away from densely populated urban environments. 

As the last turkey crossed the road a chill ran up my spine. It occurred to me that I now live in Spokane dubbed, The Lilac City … On a small farm very much like that landscape of my dreams I created when I was so very young.

One might say, “So what? Coincidence.” That’s a point of view. Another could be Carl Jung’s notion of synchronicity: coincidence which is meaningful. What we pay attention to and that which holds significance is deeply personal and as varied as the strands of our DNA.

I pay attention to something I have experienced as a flow of energy that has been running through all of my life. This mysterious companion has accompanied me throughout all of my often inept journeying as I attempted to realize the ‘implanted vision’ of my youth. A generative force like a river to renew, soothe and nourish the soul … A presence that met me at birth and I believe will remain until my death.

The closest I’ve ever come to an existing understanding of this enigmatic force is the ancient Chinese Taoist concept of the Tao … the ineffable source of all things … ’The Great Way’ through which all things move. 

Alan Cohen wrote of the Tao, “It is a mystery to the intellect but knowable to the heart. It is life itself.” I have known this mystery in my heart. As an American-born Westerner I simply think of it now as ‘The Presence.’ 

I never quite got over my dislike for the mandatory school years. High school was a living nightmare. It wasn’t until the very different experience of university that learning became desirable. I had choice and dove into what I wanted to study. 

We don’t get to choose where we are born, or the family we are born into. For many of us we simply find ways to survive with our hearts and souls mostly intact until we have means to make our unique way into the world. 

Most important is to keep pursuing our dreams no matter how many times we arrive at what appears to be a dead end … To continually reach for that which was planted in our tender souls when the world was young … To remain open to The Presence and cultivate patience.

How long does it take to realize a dream? As a Hasegawa Zen master said, “It may take you three minutes, it may take you thirty years. And I mean that.” 

Unintended …

October 9, 2025
by Nancy Emeral
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Abstract Art / Follow Your Heart

I can’t speak to another’s artistic process. Even my own is difficult to put into words, an elusive, other worldly energy fueled by whispers on the wind that echo inside my mind and manifest in a physical reality. A puzzling delight.

I look for answers in the woods as the world is waking up. In the cool breezes of the early hours where deep wisdom is offered up from swaying tree branches while birds sing the songs of dawn.

This morning my thoughts were occupied by the phenomenon of chance. Is there intention in that which is random, accidental … is ANYTHING accidental? 

A few weeks ago I was beginning to sense the unmistakeable call to paint. At first it’s small things … being newly captivated by the artful, almost sensuous way the lines form in the tall grass, the brilliant color in summer leaves, the sculptural clusters of fallen, ordinary pine cones, the staggering light rays highlighting every bit of fluff as it filters through the Ponderosa Pines. 

The world becomes more alive, calling me to come closer, listen, be still as deep inside I feel a familiar, beckoning restlessness … an exquisite awareness on the edge of being almost painful.

I’m not naturally a patient person. I’m a doer. But experience has taught me to wait until the creative energy is saturating every cell of my body. Then I know it’s time to get to the studio. 

Many times over many years I’ve pushed ahead of inspiration and nothing good has ever come of it. I’ve ended up with an off-center, irritating piece that I quickly covered over with a healthy coat of gesso. 

I’ve learned that you can’t force the flow of creativity that comes from a much purer place than the mind and will … a fragile energy planted deep in the heart of an artist to be respected and nurtured.

When the time was right I went to my studio where I had prepped a big square canvas with a fresh coat of gesso. I was unsure where the paint would take me, but fairly certain it would be some kind of adventure. I wasn’t mistaken. 

I got out the tub with my favorite tools and began perusing jars of paint. I noticed the lid on a full jar of golden yellow looked as though it might not have been screwed down properly since I last used it a couple of months ago.

I picked up the jar and it slipped out of my hand. The lid flew off and at least half a jar of bright golden yellow paint splashed on the pristine white canvas and spilled onto the floor. 

I admit I wasn’t in a ‘Zen’ place all composed and chilled … I definitely had an, “Oh Shit!” moment. But it didn’t last long.

I took a deep breath and sprang into action managing to mop up the floor and scoop up a little of the paint on the canvas. However, it quickly became clear that I was going to be working with a warm palette. I have learned to bow to higher authority. 

Painting has been an in-my-face tutorial in front of and beyond the canvas. A teacher in the art of living and being true to myself. 

Being determined by nature I am practiced at throwing the strength of my will toward a pursuit. That comes easily to me. What’s more difficult for me is to muster the courage to simply show up as I am. All too often I’ve tried to force myself into what I ascertained to a better person. It’s always, always gone badly. 

When I stand before a canvas and connect to the energy within I let the paint take the lead. It’s then I hear my own true voice and I know who I am. 

That day in the studio a few weeks ago the paint did lead the way and over a few hours “Molten” was born. It’s hot, dramatic and almost looks like a lava flow … An accident?

Molten 40×40

I Choose the Blues …

August 19, 2025
by Nancy Emeral
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Farm Life / The Human Condition

I like blueberries. No, I actually love blueberries. If I were forced to have only one fruit for the duration of my life I would ‘choose the blues.’ 

Everywhere I have lived I have planted blueberry bushes, and sought out u-pick farms to satisfy my craving while waiting for my own plants to mature. That takes years. If you’re fortunate enough to move into a home with an existing mature patch, which I did many years ago when I was living in the Puget Sound area … instant delight. There among sturdy old bushes I effortlessly enjoyed handfuls of luscious fat, deeply blue berries. 

When I moved from that home I tried to replicate that healthy fruitful garden. I purchased 10 young plants from a local grower mixing it up with early season to late season bushes thinking to have many months of blueberries. I planted. I watered. I weeded. I waited. Slowly, year by year the little bushes grew new shoots raising my hopes when they finally produced a few berries. Then we made the big move from the damp coastal climate across the state to sunny, hot, dry Spokane. 

After investing years into these tender bushes I wasn’t about to leave them behind. My husband Dan and I dug each plant up and captured the massive root balls in large squares of burlap tied carefully around the base of the plants. We then hauled the 10 bundles in my Honda Element to our newly acquired rocky hillside farm. We dug a massive trench, heeled the bushes in, and carefully tucked them in with straw. I crossed my fingers and hoped they’d survive a much harsher winter only weeks away. 

It was a lot of work to move that blueberry patch, but the memory of being able to pick handfuls of berries from my own garden was still alive and well deep inside and I didn’t want to start all over again. 

In the coming spring I carefully removed each of the bushes from the trench. I planted them in 10 good sized holes dutifully lined with chicken wire to prevent ‘Death from Below,’ aka: pocket gophers. I had heard horror stories about these furry rodent devils and it didn’t take long to become acquainted with them. With their sharp little claws they tunnel undetected under your garden and kill your plants by eating the tender roots to ground level unless you install a barrier like chicken wire that they can’t chew through … I have been at war with them since we moved here 10 years ago. 

I expected that I would have to be patient for a few years for some berries. Once again I waited with little to no results, doggedly convinced that these slow growers just needed time. That didn’t stop me from thinking about what more I could do to get the berries coming. I made assumptions, and as Juan Ruiz states in The Four Agreements, “Never Make Assumptions.” Oops. 

My first assumption was that these were ‘West Coast’ varieties not able to withstand the very intense solar heat in Eastern Washington during July and August. No problem. I hung an enormous orchard shade over a cable running above the center of the patch. The long strings holding the shade taut continually got tangled up when the ‘tent’ flapped violently in the wind. Not ideal, but if it would keep the sun at bay I’d weather the mess. The bushes were growing, albeit at a snail’s pace so I didn’t give up.

My second assumption was that I knew exactly what it took to care for the bushes. I had lots of experience to draw upon and did what I had done before on the other side of the mountains. I put in drip lines and turned them on every few days like I had done for years. I fertilized, I weeded, I propped up branches with Y shaped supports carefully trimmed from tree limbs. I hung bird deterrents. I talked to them, I begged them, I pleaded for mercy. The bushes stayed alive, perhaps, however, a little spindly and still no fruit. 

At the beginning of last summer, 9 years into the project, I began to think about accepting defeat. Maybe it was time to throw up a white flag, surrender to the gods and concede that these bushes could not thrive in this climate. It was a mismatch and I needed to let go. Period. And, as chance would have it, my neighbor told me that she gets her blueberries from ’11 Acres,’ a u-pick farm in the local farming community just a 15 minute drive from our house. 

Over that summer I, along with my son and daughter went to ’11 Acres’ several times for blueberries. We ate our fill while we picked flat after flat and filled not only our bellies but our freezer as well. It was a bumper crop and it was heaven. No matter how much was picked the bushes were still loaded with berries. 

This spring while I was swirling a blueberry smoothie in the blender I got to thinking about last year’s experience at 11 Acres. First of all, their bushes were thriving in bright sun without any shade. Secondly, the long branches loaded with fruit hung at will without propping looking more like miniature weeping willows than bushes, and yet all remained intact. Thirdly, and perhaps most importantly, every time we went to ’11 Acres’ I came home with soaking wet feet. The bushes were mostly flooded with water. 

While sucking up my smoothie it dawned on me … I had been operating on assumptions; too much sun, weak branches, the varieties of bushes couldn’t produce in this climate. I was stuck in what I ‘knew’ and had been modifying solutions to the problem based on previous experience. I was blinded by what I ‘knew’ and I had almost admitted defeat. 

Right then and there I made a command decision … I threw out what I thought I knew and went with what had been right in front of my eyes while eating handfuls of berries at the u-pick.

Instead of relying on meager drips I decided to water the bushes everyday directly from the hose with as much water as the ground would absorb. I gave up the props for the branches and I let loose of the orchard shade.

Turns out that the sun wasn’t a problem or the varieties of the bushes … I hadn’t accounted for the amount of water needed to penetrate the dense mineral-strong soil in this arid climate. Adding to that, the hot dry summer winds sweep over the land acting like a dehydrator sucking moisture from tender leaves. Water, and plenty of it is the hero.

This morning I ate my fill of blueberries from my very own garden while moving the hose around to water the bushes. The branches, laden with fruit are hanging like weeping willows without breaking. The birds come and help themselves but there’s enough for all. 

Maybe it’s a fluke, just a good year perhaps, but the result is undeniable and stunning. I wonder what else I ‘know’ that just ain’t so …

“The trouble with most people isn’t that they don’t know anything, it’s that they know so many things that ain’t so.” Mark Twain

Like a Boomerang …

June 30, 2025
by Nancy Emeral
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Farm Life / Follow Your Heart / Living Authentically

5:35 am and already I feel like I might be running late. The forecast is an unseasonably hot day, could reach 100 degrees. In Spokane where we live, this is expected in July or August, certainly not in June. I have 2 choices as I look to the day ahead; grumble, complain and feel sorry for myself, or just get to work doing whatever I can to keep all living things in my care as hydrated and comfortable as possible in the scorching heat. A no-brainer really … why make what might be a rough day even tougher with a bad attitude. I get out of bed and get started.

In the main I take care of our small farm and run our household. The chickens, dogs, and garden involve a daily routine that even in moderate weather occupy a good portion of the day. Today I know I’ll be  going at it all day long. Good thing it’s work I’ve chosen and work I love, all of it …even the yucky, stinky, back-breaking, sometimes heart rending, exhausting, mundane day-to-day chores of caring for beloved pets, plants and wild things. That’s farm life. 

How did a girl from Chicago end up with her elbows in buckets of chicken manure compost? Gotta be passed down through the blood of my Eastern European farming ancestors that runs through my veins. 

The time passes swiftly. By 10:30 the sun is blazing, I’m sweating, hydrating, and pushing to complete watering the garden before my hard stop at 11:00. By then the sun beating down on me is just too much, and if I stay out longer I’ll be worthless for the rest of the day. 

I’ve learned that it’s mostly all about water here in the high desert. Plants will grow and thrive, IF you can get water to penetrate the compact granite soil to nourish their tender roots. Coming from the rich damp soils of the coast as I did 10 years ago, it’s taken me a while to fully appreciate how challenging it can be to keep plants hydrated. Mulch has become my gold standard. 

Adding to the challenge summer temperatures came early this year … an entire month early. That translates into cramming several weeks of spring chores into days and it’s been taxing. In spite of it all I’m not complaining, just saying what’s so. Everything I’m doing, I’m doing by conscious choice born from what I love. 

That’s the secret to work isn’t it? Work chosen from the heart of what we love. Then no matter what the task or how difficult or exhausting it can be, at the end of the day there is a sense of fulfillment. 

If anything suffers in my life, it’s housekeeping. UGH. I love to cook and that I do with excellence. Cleaning? Not so much. I hope no one calls the health department for an inspection … I doubt we’d pass.

My energies go to the world beyond human created walls, the ‘real’ world. The world where creatures and all living things are in touch with and kneel before the forces of nature. On my small farm I am privileged to know the healthy, natural routine of the dailiness of true life … Where beauty and brutality exist side by side and somehow orchestrate a symphony of meaning that whispers, “You belong here …” 

I have no way of knowing if this current weather pattern is the new normal, but it really does’t matter. I am aware that I have at best only a little impact to effect change in the forces that bring heat waves, high winds and drought. But, I can do my best and most of all be willing to adjust to change. 

Even so isn’t it hard to let go of the way it ‘should’ be? I guess it’s only human to want to keep certain aspects of our lives static, and resist the inevitable shifting and changes brought on by forces out of our control. When it comes right down to it, a lot if not most of life is out of our control … that’s the good news and the not so good news.

Good news? Absolutely. I’m under no illusion that I know how things ‘should’ be. I have no future vision, no omniscience. How could I possibly say what ought to be. That’s something I’ve learned working with nature. It shows you your proper status in this world and that teaches humility before that which is indomitable. 

Humility is only one of many perks of farm life. Another … almost everything can be put to use. A farm is the epitome of recycling. The ‘dirty’ straw that I collect after cleaning the chicken coop goes on a pile where it rests for a full year. During that time the microbes and bacteria in the manure work their magic and turn refuse into sweet, (it actually smells sweet!) nutrient rich soil and organic material that nourishes the plants in my garden. 

There are countless uses for tired pieces of field fence, broken bricks, worn wooden boards and posts, and cracked clay pots that would otherwise end up in the landfill. Add some in cable ties, PVC pipe, a few tools and a heap of ingenuity, wave your magic wand and presto! The magic of recycling … nothing goes to waste. 

Perhaps the real treasure found in the heart of farm life is that whatever you grow, there always seems to be an abundance to share. For me it’s eggs, flowers, pumpkins, and canned goods from ripe red tomatoes and plump sweet berries. 

However, it seems to me that whatever work you do, when you do it from the deep love born into your heart when you were nothing more than stardust, goodness follows. This goodness simply begs to burst open and flow into the world around you.

Years ago my daughter was going through a difficult time in her life. In the community where she lived there was a place called The Pantry. On a specific day of the week she could go and get some life-sustaining food. Even over the phone I could clearly hear the excitement in her voice when she came home with a bag of fresh produce and eggs.  

In her honor I pack up little cartons of eggs that my husband Dan delivers every Wednesday to our local food bank. I have chosen my chickens for many qualities and one thing that is very important to me is the color of their shells. Whenever a carton of eggs leave our farm they look like Easter eggs … dark brown, light brown, pinkish, aqua, soft olive green, and white. 

I get tremendous pleasure putting these colorful treasures together. While I am hoping these colorful eggs lift the spirits of another in need, it’s really a gift I give myself. That’s the curiously circular thing about working from the deep heart of that which we love … the gift comes right back to you, like a boomerang. 

Whatever your circumstances, giving back, no matter how small you might think your offering to be, it is a reliable way to bring joy into your life … Like my credit union’s motto says, “Do good, feel good!”

One by One …

April 30, 2025
by Nancy Emeral
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Awareness / The Human Condition

It was one of those mornings when everything just seemed to be falling into place … The sun was shining, the coffee was just right, I had on my favorite jeans, my slice of bread came out of our finicky toaster perfectly, and the dogs went through their morning routine without a glitch. With list in hand (I’m big on list making) I set out for town to run errands.

Even on the streets of Spokane everything was going my way. I hit green lights, check-out lines magically opened up, and before I knew it all items on my list were checked off. Quite agreeable in every way except for one annoying little problem … My too long hair kept falling around my face getting stuck in my glasses, and caught in my mouth. 

Unruly hair is a small thing to be sure, but irritating none-the-less. A fly in the ointment of my lovely morning. Then it hit me. I have been tolerating this hair aggravation for a while now, putting up with it until, like this particular morning, it had become unbearable. This is a familiar pattern. I’ve been here before and if my history holds true when exhausted of forbearance I might perhaps act rashly … Oftentimes with varying degrees of success in eliminating the annoyance. Sometimes I’ve made things worse. 

In general I don’t pay much attention to hair. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad it’s on my head as long as it’s well behaved. I’m willing to wash and comb it out, the sum total of my preening. All is good as long as I can pull it through the hole in the back of my ball cap or tuck it behind my ears. Beyond that I just don’t care, until it becomes a nuisance which it was on that day.

This aversion to fussing over my hair most likely comes from my early elementary school days when in general I looked like a scarecrow. Mom wasn’t much for grooming and left to my own devices I had hair sticking out at all angles from my self inflicted pony tail, and bangs that angled down on one side of my head. I wasn’t terribly skilled with scissors. Add the large space that was then between my two front teeth and the look was complete … total scarecrow.

The truth was that it simply didn’t matter to me then anymore than it does now. I had better things to do like create imaginary worlds in a hidden corner of our Chicago area backyard. What good would tidy hair be when involved in important mud, stick, stone, branches and water construction? 

I haven’t changed all that much. I’m still creating with stone, found objects, and now words and paint. I get so deep into dreamy possibilities I push aside irritations as long as I can until they scream at me as my hair did the other day in the car. 

My last errand was the pet store to get yet another harness for my growing Pyrenees puppy, Moose, who at 5 months old just weighed in at 63 lbs. He’s a big boy. All done with shopping and ready to go home another clump of sadistic hair blew in my face. That did it. 

Suddenly I remembered a walk-in hair salon just a few stores down from the pet store. I made a deal with myself. If I walked in and could get in to get a cut right away I’d do it. Sure enough, the gods were smiling on me and no one was waiting. The receptionist led me to a chair and said she’d get the stylist from the back.

As in most salons in my limited experience the stylists here were on the young side, well groomed with perfect make-up and fashionable hair-cuts. Then my stylist came out … She was a bit older, on the chunky side, fairly disheveled and nails so long I didn’t see how she could hold scissors. Her hair looked a bit greasy and was tied up in a knot on the top of her head so tightly it looked like she might not be able to shut her eyes.

Even though I’m not that particular about hair, I feared I’d end up with the same look as my 8 year old scarecrow days … And I could do that at home. Stay or bolt? I swallowed hard and stayed.

Turned out that Jen was a veteran stylist, had been doing hair for 38 years. Up close I saw that her hair was wet, not greasy. She was pleasant, competent and, as I found out while talking with her, pretty worn out. She was in the middle of packing up and moving, without, I imagine, a lot of extra time on her hands. Jen gave me a terrific cut and some pointers on gardening and canning. The next time I need a a hair-cut I’ll make sure I get one from her.

On the drive home I felt truly ashamed. I had judged a person based solely on a glance at her physical appearance. The instant I saw her I concluded she was incompetent, unkempt and the very last person I’d want even touching any part of me. Yes, she was a bit overly casual, probably due to the stress of moving. Regardless, she wasn’t unclean as I had, in a blink, decided she was. I was wrong, so wrong.

I don’t suppose it’s possible to eliminate snap judgments. I do think it’s possible to pause, step back from my instantaneous assessments made without sufficient information … To question my thinking. If ever there was a time to reign in hasty, unsubstantiated judgments that time is now.

I believe thoughts matter. They travel unseen through the world like radio waves and I don’t want to add to the pervasive negativity and insanity in the news, on school campuses, and on the street. The good news is that I have access to the health of my mind. I have a choice to be a positive influence. Even if it seems like a small thing in the face of what look like insurmountable challenges, imagine if one by one we turned toward compassion and generosity of spirit … A groundswell of goodwill working toward a better future for all. Perhaps you think I’m a dreamer … 

“Imagine there's no heaven

It's easy if you try

No hell below us

Above us, only sky

Imagine all the people

Livin' for today … Ah

Imagine there's no countries

It isn't hard to do

Nothing to kill or die for

And no religion, too

Imagine all the people

Livin' life in peace … You

You may say I'm a dreamer

But I'm not the only one

I hope someday you'll join us

And the world will be as one

Imagine no possessions

I wonder if you can

No need for greed or hunger

A brotherhood of man

Imagine all the people

Sharing all the world … You

You may say I'm a dreamer

But I'm not the only one

I hope someday you'll join us

And the world will live as one”

“Imagine” by John Lennon

From Afar …

March 20, 2025
by Nancy Emeral
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perspective / Self-Care

Through a twist of fate an adventurous news anchor, Bradley Jackson, is recruited to do a live broadcast aboard a sub-orbital flight around Earth. After escaping Earth’s gravity she, and the other two passengers playfully float through the capsule, all enjoying the exhilarating liberation of weightlessness. 

Bradley is no stranger to human conflict. She has witnessed firsthand and reported on some of the worst of humanity. Seeing the whole of Earth from the vast expanse outside her window she is captivated, and a rare softness crosses her face as she relates her experience to the people on the planet. “After two years of the pandemic and now a war in Ukraine, it’s incredible to look down and see how connected we all are.”

The scene is from the third season of Apple TV’s, “The Morning Show,” portraying vividly how a change of perspective can make a meaningful difference. 

It’s been a habit of mine, when I get bogged down with ground level hardships, that I imagine I’m sitting on the Moon. Sometimes I feel like the entirety of humanity is in pain, or causing harm as though all of us have lost our moral compass. For a different point of view I go for a walk in the woods and when, at times the turmoil is too intense I moon-sit.

I picture myself perched on a moon rock surrounded by total silence. In that frigid, barren landscape nothing of the ‘stuff’ of daily life is present to distract my focus. In complete isolation what do I see? How do I feel gazing upon the blue planet of my origin? … Our planet is one whole entity and it is breathtaking. 

Before me a stunningly beautiful orb in elegant proximity to the sun hangs in space. I see glowing, crystalline blue oceans and vibrant green lands. The deserts are a warm relief against the cerulean seas. All this under swirls of marshmallow white clouds. I begin to have that same smile and star struck look on my face as Bradley had while spellbound by the unified, undivided Earth, far from the dissonance of ground level problems. This is why I came, to get a different perspective.

Another way I shift my attention from the in-my-face chaos lies in one of the attributes I understand is given to eagles in Native American culture … The eagle symbolizes taking the long view. While riding the currents high in the sky this powerful raptor sees with perfect clarity up to a mile away. 

Being gravity bound it only makes sense that in the main our collective vision is limited to the push and pull of ground level maneuvering; the economy, who’s in power, disease, hunger, war, human rights, poverty, education … The list goes on. It’s different when I’m riding on the back of a magnificent bird. Strong wingbeats free me from the pull that holds me to the ground, and carry me into the heights. The wind whips around my face, clears my senses and I have a chance to see as the eagle sees. I get a change of perspective.

I need that shift in my thinking to cope with the fragmented, chopped up political maneuvering and the damage done to the planet by human incursion. I need to take the long view when confronted with rain forest demolition, melting icebergs, polluted oceans, over-population, animal extinctions, and agricultural chemistry … Only a few of the consequences of our short sightedness.

Our ineptitude and lack of respect for our mother planet has negatively impacted the once pristine eco-systems. Voices threaten doom right around the corner. Maybe that’s true. Maybe it’s mainly our lives that are in danger if we keep misbehaving. To quote George Carlin, “The planet will shake us off like a bad case of fleas … ” Certainly correction is needed and I doubt we will be the ones to do it. 

People, stars, and planets move through space at different speeds. What is a lifetime for us is merely a cosmic wink. Even trees whisper this truth to listening ears … Weathering all long before we are born and continuing on after we are gone. If the Earth is cast into another ice age, or wiped out by nuclear warheads there is reason to believe that over geologic time life will regenerate. It will find a way to flourish once again, our bones nourishing the growth of a re-awakening planet. 

I understand that Earth has existed for 4.5 billion years. My puny human brain can’t really grasp that amount of time. 4.5 billion is beyond my comprehension. Yet, the immensity of that number seeps into my soul bringing with it a sense of quiet peace. Our goldilocks planet will most likely reconcile the horror of human created damage in cosmic time. 

In light of that far reaching perspective I’m content to be an infinitesimally small dot making my gravity-bound way through life. When I can see clearly I am at peace trusting the ultimate fate of humankind and this blue planet to the formidable forces in the universe. In the meantime I will do all I can to have a positive impact on my world, however small that impact may be.

When I do get mired down in the difficulties of the day, I remind myself that a better perspective is possible. I will listen to the trees, soar on the wings of a mighty raptor, or perch on a rock in the barren lunar landscape with a breathtaking view … And, there’s plenty of room for others, perhaps I’ll meet you there.