Reflections | Bettering Nature

Nature is always speaking to us, but she doesn't shout.

She whispers through patterns and connection all around us.

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More Isn't Always Better -- Regardless of What You're Told

There's a commercial that still makes me laugh. A comedian sits cross-legged on the floor with a group of kids — the kind of heart-to-heart circle that makes you lean in. He asks them about more. And one little girl, utterly sincere, explains it perfectly: when we like something, we want more. We want more. She's not wrong. That's what gets me every time. The wanting is human and alive and true. But watch her face. She hasn't finished loving the first thing before the wanting

Mar 214 min read

There You Are: Returning Home When The Ground Shifts

Life has a funny way of getting in the way of itself. One minute you're living it on your terms. The next, you're living on its terms. This happens to most of us more regularly than we'd like to admit. And if you're anything like me, someone who resists a changed plan unless I'm the one doing the changing, you feel every single instance of it. The smaller disruptions? Those tend to bring out my fighter. The advocate who problem-solves, pushes back, finds another way. But some

Nurturing Nature

Mar 53 min read

Believe what you want

The words arrived as a dismissal, the conversational equivalent of a door closing. We'd been discussing a recent event—nothing abstract, nothing theoretical. I was sharing what I'd witnessed directly. They were holding tight to what they'd heard from sources they trusted. When our accounts didn't align, there was no curiosity about how two people might experience the same situation differently. No room for "tell me more about what you saw." Just this: believe what you want. T

Connection

Feb 275 min read

Confirm Humanity

I found myself staring at one of those CAPTCHA boxes the other day. You know the ones - click all the squares with traffic lights, type in the wavy letters, check the box that says "I'm not a robot." Confirm humanity to continue. We do this constantly now. Prove we're human to access a website, send an email, make a purchase. Multiple times a day, we confirm to computers that we're not automated. But here's what struck me: We've become incredibly robotic in how we actually en

Connection

Feb 126 min read

The Question Underneath the Response

There's a choice we don't talk about much when hard things happen. Not the choice between action and inaction — that one gets plenty of airtime. I'm talking about the choice that comes before that: What do we do with what we're feeling? We can let it fragment us. Or we can build something with it. Both responses are authentic. Both come from real feeling — grief, fear, anger, all of it. But one fragments — breaks down, depletes, leaves voids where structure used to be. And on

Connection

Feb 44 min read

When Did We Stop Seeing Each Other?

I keep seeing glimpses of something I deeply want to believe: that we're more connected than divided, that communication could bring us together. I see it in moments when someone reaches across difference with genuine curiosity. When people hold their convictions strongly while still extending compassion to those who see things differently. When someone says "I don't agree with you, but I hear you." Those moments remind me it's possible. And then I watch how we actually commu

Connection

Jan 254 min read

The Cost of Certainty

I was telling a friend how I had started adding more protein to my diet. Before I could even finish explaining - alongside the fiber and good fats I've always prioritized - he laughed. "Oh, so you're on the protein train now!" I felt myself pause. The protein train? The one where people are consuming 130, 150, sometimes 200 grams a day? Where protein becomes the entire conversation about nutrition? 🌿 Before you stop reading because this sounds like a nutrition piece - it's n

Connection

Jan 196 min read

When Systems Break

On January 2nd, I got an email with the subject line: "Already struggling with your New Year's resolutions?" Day two. Thirty-six hours into the new year and someone's marketing algorithm had already decided I'd failed. It made me laugh at first. But then I kept thinking about it. Because if something genuinely matters to you—if you're truly connected to it—does it fall apart in two days? Real resolution doesn't require constant willpower. It emerges from connection. From know

Connection

Jan 93 min read

Coming Home to Ourselves

This reflection is a companion to last year's post about grief and finding light in darkness. Today marks thirty-five years since my dad died. A lifetime, really - and yet the weight of it lands as if it were yesterday. It's strange to think I've now surpassed the age he reached. He had just turned 58. Time does odd things with grief. The sharp edges soften, but the shape remains. And on days like today, I find myself thinking not just about loss, but about what happens to us

Connection

Dec 18, 20257 min read

Every Moment, An Invitation

I was checking out at a store recently, still wearing a fleece I'd just had on for an appointment. The cashier complimented it, and I found myself telling her something I'd been rejoicing in for the past month: "I've had this for twenty years, but I've only worn it a handful of times until this season." For two decades, I looked at this fleece as a jacket—something for crisp autumn days when the weather required outerwear but hadn't yet demanded a real coat. The problem was,

Connection

Dec 10, 20256 min read

When Connection Becomes Transactional

As I write this, we're entering the season that's supposed to be about connection. Thanksgiving dinners, holiday gatherings, year-end celebrations with family and friends. Norman Rockwell paintings showing tables full of laughter, homes filled with warmth, communities coming together in joy. This is the time, we're told, when we belong. But here's what I've been noticing lately - a pattern in how conversations actually go, or don't go. A friend suggests I watch a video about

Connection

Nov 21, 20256 min read

Looking for What's Wrong: When Verification Replaces Experience

In the past few days, two seemingly unrelated experiences had one thing in common - which led me to a bigger question about who decides what's real anymore. First, an article about detecting AI-generated content. Look for em dashes, it advised. Blue diamond bullet points. Particular word patterns. I've used em dashes for years. I hunted down those blue diamonds because I love color. My word choices have always been unconventional. Then a talk show caller insisted some public

Connection

Nov 17, 20254 min read

The Exhaustion of Pretending: Why "I Don't Know" Feels Like Failure

Halloween is dead. Well, not yet, but I'm already grieving it. It's October 29th, and I'm making breakfast thinking about how much I'm going to miss this season once it's over. I do this every year. Start mourning Halloween before it's even happened. And the big box stores aren't helping. I went in early October and half their glorious 10-foot ghouls and macabre displays had already been shoved aside for Santa and his relentlessly cheerful elves. Can we not? I love Halloween,

Nurturing Nature

Oct 29, 20257 min read

What Engagement Reveals: The Resources You Can't See From a Distance

A few months ago I wrote about discovering resilience when a summer storm knocked out our power. But that same storm also took down seven trees in our backyard - and facing that challenge taught me something different about where real strength actually comes from. We faced a choice about how to respond. We could have left the fallen timber where it lay, avoiding the overwhelming task of cleanup. We could have hired a crew to come in, clear everything efficiently, and restore

Natural Wisdom

Oct 24, 20254 min read

What Team Are You Really Playing For?

I was staring at a team building poster the other day – you know the kind, with bold letters declaring "There's no I in TEAM." And while I nodded along with the sentiment, something else caught my attention: if you rearrange those same letters, you can spell "Me." That realization stopped me in my tracks. Not because it undermines the value of teamwork, but because it illuminates something we often miss: teams need individuals who feel valued, who have purpose, who find meani

Connection

Oct 15, 20257 min read