Author Archives: amy j howton

i’ve never liked the idea of obedience. always feeling it as laced with patriarchy and dominance. yeah…nope. and…i’d say that i’m practicing obedience these days. obedience to God. to Spirit. to Love, Life, Truth. i still don’t really like it. today, it pissed me off. this week was beautiful, magical, a week of sacred surrender.Continue reading “obedience and rage”

i woke this morning to snow. with childlike wonder, i scurried around the house, opening all the curtains and gasping each time the wintery landscape was revealed. winter wonderland. i love it. and i’m so grateful. it’s as if mother earth knew precisely what my soul needed today–a day of quiet and stillness. there’s beenContinue reading “wildness”

yesterday: inauguration. artists and poets and leaders boldly telling the truth of who we are as a growing-up nation. “unfinished”, in the words of poet Amanda Gorman. in the truth-telling, clear dissonance emerged between our aspirations and reality. and into this gap, they breathed possibility. they stirred life. and proclaimed the dream. the power ofContinue reading “proclaiming the dream”

“The world is selling safety all the time. By marketing fear.” –Peter Block at what cost do we choose safety? safety. our world tells us that safety and security are found externally. the other piece is that safety is found internally. a deep-down well within ourselves where solace and peace are always available. when thingsContinue reading “safety”

laughter. the best medicine. i’ve long believed in this. back in the day, as a crisis counselor working with survivors of sexual and gender-based violence, i was often in awe of how much laughter there was in trauma care. in the darkest moments of a person’s life, how easy it was–how healing!–to find such pureContinue reading “hell yeah, laughter”

the elder from South Africa looked at us snd wept out of rage, she said. and then turning to my dark-skinned sister the rage melted into sadness it is so good to see you, she said. and tears flowed. in these soul to soul connections, words do not matter.

i awoke this morning and got that today was a day of solitude. a day of carefully turning inward. what a week. on Epiphany, an attempted coup by white nationalists + the rise of Black leadership in Georgia; volatility growing amidst increasing political divides + calm organizing amongst peace-makers and spiritual activists; meg returning toContinue reading “the land’s workin’ me”

in college, i asked a boy i loved, “what do you see when you look in my eyes?” “me”, he replied. it was the most loving and hurtful thing– the most true.

Last week, my dad stopped by unexpectedly to drop off Christmas gifts, masked. As he cracked open the door and hollered into our home what he was doing, sadness overcame me. I grieved touching and hugging on him; I grieved our sacred family traditions; I grieved for my children, for my beloveds, for me, forContinue reading “christmas 2020”