Artist’s Note 🌿

As I fell asleep three weeks ago,
Slipping into liminal dreamspace—
I saw children walking
Barefoot
Down an empty highway.
A storm rolled in kicking up dust, dust,
And more dust,
Blinding and choking and shoving
Back.
Some sat and waited, curling up on pavement
And it became their tomb.
Some said “We must continue forward,”
And inched and crept and stood,
Though it was the hardest thing they had done,
This standing,
And all at once the storm broke open,
Bright new day upon shining, gritty faces.

This week has been the storm
I think,
Yet, I smell the faint sharp air
And I dig in my heels:

The bright new day is coming,
And I will rise to meet it.

❦ Heather

Thank you for reading these feral Contemplations, an archive of pastoral psalms, visual art, and adventure. Contemplations is a subsidiary of the Heather in the Blue Mountains newsletter.

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**If you enjoyed this creative ramble, please consider checking out some of my other work. 🌿

Or, learn more about all this? 🌾

Even as I typed those words last month about legacy, encouraging us to look at the long game, I could hear the voice of the Inner Critic. 🌿

You think you make anything of value? Who are you kidding.

Oh, I know it well, that little demon. And as a fellow creative, I bet you know it, too. That niggling voice of doubt, that aching uncertainty that your words, your art will ever be Good Enough. You weren’t, after all, trained in XYZ, there’s so many other artists/writers/professionals who are so much better at _____ than you are, and besides, it’s all been said/done already. I’ve heard it all, from students, from peers, from coworkers, from audience members after performances during my musician days, from Johnny’s grandmother down the street and the shy young man ringing up my mid-morning coffee. I’ve even heard it from myself more times than I can count, and usually right when I’m about ready to level up into something Big.

It’s a lie, and I’ll tell you why: You are YOU and you’re right where you need to be.

Are you a perfect replica of anyone else in your town? Your state? Your country? Do you have the exact same life experiences as anyone else? No. Then you can’t leave the work of creating to anyone else. Even if a thousand artists have painted the same view of El Capitan in Yosemite and you are number 1001, your version is going to shimmer with the weight and the glory of every hardship and blessing it took to get you to that moment. You can try to white-wash your work and erase your unique fingerprint all you want, but you’ll be unsuccessful. Writers and artists alike spend so much time and money on classes and workshops and seminars to learn how to paint like Alan Lee or write like Flannery O’Connor (as random examples), and come away disgruntled and disappointed because their work is just. not. the. same.

Of course not. You are you. You can’t live their lives and wear their skin anymore than they can yours.

And it’s Okay. In fact, it’s better than Okay.

Your own voice and creativity is not something to be scared of or to dislike. Your creativity is beautiful, poignant, and carries the echo of Heaven. It’s a wonderous gift given by a joyful Father, who delights every time you take a tremulous step and use it. He’s up there cheering you on like the voice of encouragement you maybe never had and always wished for.

Your art is a gift.

Treasure it. Hone it. Enjoy it. Creativity is contagious… pass it on.

Newly Released Work 🌱

• I recently added two new columns/sections to the newsletter: the first is called “Pen-Scribbled Stories” and it’s the repository for my more experimental and speculative poetic fiction. The second is for my more “regular” poetry, psalms, and the like, called “Contemplations.” Existing subscribers can add one or both sections to their account from the ‘manage my subscription’ page:

Manage My Subscription

• My ginormous painting, “Sword of Truth”, was unanimously selected by the Arts committee and the City Council to hang in the council chambers for 2026! This is an incredible honor. You can buy prints here in my Shop.

• “Sword of Truth” and another of my paintings titled “Joyful Carp” appear in Wandering Lights Magazine’s inaugural issue.

• My painting “At the Fish Ladder,” featuring my sons, will also be appearing in Pure in Heart Stories at the end of April.

Onward with Courage… 🌿

I don’t want to leave you having only glossed over the importance of passing on our creativity and tie it more firmly to the previous discussion on legacy. Think of your unique creative voice like a priceless heirloom; it’s one of the few things in life that’s meant to outlive us. I treasure the prints and original artworks I received from my Grandmother’s estate, but it’s more than just artwork, it’s her story, too. She turned to art later in life and found purpose in it, and her willingness to share that part of her life with me left a lasting impression. Without realizing it, she passed on the blueprints I would need to find my way here, an artist in my own right.

We pass on what we value. Our creative gifts should count among those, and yours is no exception.

I’m so glad you’re here.
❦ Heather

**If you enjoyed this newsletter, please consider checking out some of my other work or purchasing something from the shop. 🌿

If you’re new here, see what this is all about. 🌾

Artist’s Note 🌿

River rushing by, the same and yet different
Water careening and pushing against
Boundary lines;
I consider the last year,
The last two years,
The last five years,
And the wild girl who looks back now from the mirror-glass
Challenging and edging up against
Hidebound notions,
A spark alight, the same and yet different.

Blue sky and bird song
Mingle
Steam rising from the cup
Fragrant prayer
And praise for the waking
Of sleepy earth and bramble
Of dormant dreams
Of the person I should have been all along.

HE meets me in the space between river splashes,
In the crinkle of last years’ vegetation,
On the cusp of the dying and the now and the not yet,
And it is Good.

❦ Heather

Thank you for reading these feral Contemplations, an archive of pastorale poetry, visual art, psalms, and adventure. Contemplations is a subsidiary of the Heather in the Blue Mountains newsletter.

Subscribe now

**If you enjoyed this creative ramble, please consider checking out some of my other work. 🌿

Or, learn more about all this? 🌾

She looked back down the path

surveying winding steps
sea-wind buffeting her body
aggressive as the call
of ocean birds a-wing
above.

Slate-grey pebbles
wondrously uninteresting
skittered underfoot.

So many more to go, she thought
shouldering her pack.

+++++

The monastery emerged from stone
A sentinel rising silent
Awakened by her approach.

She paused, fingers digging for papers, pen.

Drawings scrawled across pages
Pen-scribbled over parchment
and she peered;
it was everything she dreamed,
everything that haunted,
hunted her through library stacks,
everything scribal artifacts breathed,
everything,
every story, every tear,
every blood-soaked page
marauders forgot and the scent
of acrid iron on hide-bound books.

Everything.

She looked, feasted on ancient stones
crumbling under her gaze
and ached.

It belonged in a museum,
but the scope
the scale
yawned bigger and wider
than any academic could hold
in archival hands.

Author’s Note 🌿

When I saw ‘s prompt this week, I knew I had to carve out time for it. The romantic idea of the academic adventurer, the Indiana Jones-esque researcher and explorer is near and dear to my heart, so I wanted to be sure to contribute. I had fun stretching the idea of the “historical artifact” to be a place rather than a thing — sometimes our forgotten places are just as much or more of a treasure than the things we can hold in our own two hands.

Thank you for reading. 🙂

❦ Heather

Thank you for reading Pen-Scribbled Stories, a haphazard archive of experimental prose and story. Pen-Scribbled Stories is a subsidiary of the Heather in the Blue Mountains newsletter.

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**If you enjoyed this creative ramble, please consider checking out some of my other work. 🌿

Or, learn more about all this? 🌾

Artist’s Note 🌿

It’s been a week.

Life is deep and wide and messy. I’ve no pithy words, no song to sing.

I paused once this week to assess the journey, to peer back where I had come from.

I praise Him from Whom all blessings flow that I did not turn into salt.

I praise Him who was with me in the fire.

Somehow, I’m still standing. And so are you.

And that is Good.

❦ Heather

Thank you for reading these feral Contemplations, an archive of pastorale poetry, visual art, modern psalms, and adventure. Contemplations is a subsidiary of the Heather in the Blue Mountains newsletter.

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**If you enjoyed this creative ramble, please consider checking out some of my other work. 🌿

Or, learn more about all this? 🌾

“It’s unlikely, these days”

As the lights descend
Over rose-kissed peaks,
Ancient stone dusted with gold.

“It’s unlikely, these days”
As the strange ones lope
Across eerie green shadows
Glassine sand sifted with blue.

“It’s unlikely, these days,”
We said once,
Before we faded.

Author’s Note 🌿

‘s prompts this last week for Flash Fic Friday were a bit of a brain-teaser for me. I didn’t feel up to trying to pen a Valentine's poem or a romantic endearment, and I just had to let things percolate for a few days. Clearly, the percolation led to something outright weird. I stepped into the ‘write about a desert’ theme when I sketched out a mesa rock formation in the sketchbook (poems are very linked to visual stimuli for me), and… Weirdness. As I leaned on the dialogue prompt, “It’s unlikely, these days,” somehow it unlocked dormant memories of 90s alien documentaries and here we are.

Weirdness. (LOL)

❦ Heather

Thank you for reading Pen-Scribbled Stories, a haphazard archive of experimental prose and story. Pen-Scribbled Stories is a subsidiary of the Heather in the Blue Mountains newsletter.

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**If you enjoyed this creative ramble, please consider checking out some of my other work. 🌿

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I am still trying to process the last few weeks. 🌿

When I made the following post on Notes, it was just me trying to give voice to some of the things I have felt and observed amid the crazed tilt-a-whirl ride of our current age. I came home from work and felt deep in my guts that this is the hour faith-filled creatives were made for, because the hunger for purpose and meaning in the next generation runs deep. And I scribbled off this note, paired with my favorite Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood painting (“The Accolade” by Edmund Blair Leighton, c.1901), hit the ‘post’ button, and that, as they say, was that.

Only, ‘that’ was most definitely not merely THAT, as I found out in the weeks that followed: the community liked and shared, the view counts soaring as more and more heard the call, and my notification list bulged as my phone blew up day after day after day. I heard stories from other educators both current and retired corroborating my observations, delightful anecdotes of childhood wonder, fellow creatives writing to tell me they were moved to tears because they felt seen for the first time, and so much more.

Clearly, I inadvertently touched a nerve.

Clearly, it isn’t just the kids who are yearning for lives of integrity, honor, and chivalry, purpose and meaning.

So let’s talk. What does that look like for us, men and women of the arts? What are some ways we can step into this space and context and carry forward the torch?

I believe the first order of business is to live with legacy in mind.

Despite what so much of our collective pop culture has sang to us for the last 50 years, it’s not just about us and our desires. If we become famous authors, wildly rich artists, and aristocratic thespians, that’s not all there is to the story. Creatives cannot exist in a vacuum — our work is largely lifeless and dead until it is engaged with by others. What can a painting say if there is no one to view it and appreciate it? What can a song speak to in our hearts and lives if there is no one to hear it? Everything we do as creatives and artisans is oriented on some level to the understanding that someone, somewhere will Hear and See. To think otherwise is short-sighted.

Therefore, creating with legacy in mind understands that there will be those who come after us, who will be left with the gift of our work (we will touch on the ‘gift’ idea in the next newsletter).

If the next generation is being gifted our legacy, then we must ask ourselves, what kind of legacy are we leaving? Is it one of life? Or one of death?

I know for my part, I want to leave the gift of the most beautiful, wonder-filled works of art and poetry and prose that I can. To do that, means I must devote myself to studying greatness, to dedicating myself to the improvement of my own craft, to filling my own mind and soul with beauty and wonder and truth so that’s what comes out of me (“Trash in = Trash out” remember?).

Newly Released Work 🌱

• “In the Crossing Season” (poem) in the Fieldmoot: A Feast of Poetry digital chapbook

• “Up the South Fork,” (illustrated poem in zine format) available to purchase! I’m quite excited about this — I plan to release several works this year in these homemade print runs. Zines are fabulous! They’re small, easily reproducible, and fun in an old-school artsy way. Buy a few and give them to your friends, drop a copy in your nearest little free library, leave some at the local coffee shop.

• I recently added a new column/section to the newsletter here called “Pen-Scribbled Stories” that existing subscribers can add from the ‘manage my subscription’ page. It’s the repository for my more experimental and speculative fiction work through a poetic lens, where all the art and prose that bends across genre lines go. So far it has been fairly well-received, being featured in ’s “Warrior Wednesday” and “Sword & Saturday” roundups, restacked by and others among the flash fiction and speculative fiction community.

  Manage My Subscription

• And lastly, my ginormous painting, “Sword of Truth”, was unanimously selected by the Arts committee and the City Council to hang in the council chambers for 2026! This is an incredible honor. You can buy prints of it here in my Shop.

Onward with Courage… 🌿

It’s not hard to see the darkness of the time in which we live, and there can be a temptation to wonder “How could I even make a difference — I’m just one person.”

Let me encourage you today: you can only banish darkness by holding up a Light. If we all hold up our Light, if we all commit to Shine — as best we can, in the way we were Made to shine — then I promise you: darkness will flee.

Your words, your art… It’s for such a time as this.

I’m so glad you’re here.

❦ Heather

**If you enjoyed this newsletter, please consider checking out some of my other work or purchasing something from the shop. 🌿

If you’re new here, see what this is all about. 🌾

Heavy stormclouds curled overhead, spattering

water on dust-laden faces.

Eyes closed, faces turned
toward vortex swirling
pressure dropping like a sigh.

Rain.

It was a collective psalm
a praise long-awaited
now released like the rush of wild horses
thundering across tumultuous
nimbii rent wide.

One by one, faces turned
toward stranger waiting
arms raised all sharp
angles, a blunted staff
gleaming water-sparkle.

* * *

“Who do you think will notice?”
he muttered,
reaching in spirit
then letting go, casting out,
evaporating.

* * *

They struggled and grasped
for words that didn’t come —
as barren as the drought years —
to recount
days and lives changed
by a stranger not from here,
but from mist and shadow.

Peace came in the silence
Understanding in the sunlit riot
of green things now growing.

Author’s Note 🌿

This poetic tale was inspired by Scoot’s 2026 inaugural Flash Friday prompts. Prompts, plural, yes, because the more constraints I have to work with the more my creativity kicks into overdrive. 😂

You can find Scoot’s prompts here:

Gibberish

FFF - You Must Be New Here

New To Gibberish? Check out Navigation for Newcomers…

Read more

2 months ago · 20 likes · 13 comments · Scoot

❦ Heather

Thank you for reading Pen-Scribbled Stories, a haphazard archive of experimental prose and story. Pen-Scribbled Stories is a subsidiary of the Heather in the Blue Mountains newsletter.

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**If you enjoyed this creative ramble, please consider checking out some of my other work. 🌿

Lyra heard it.

Breath caught, strained in the silence
Heartbeat too loud.
Twisted and drunk with sleep,
She rose
Listening:

Strange music skittered
Light-fingered across
Consciousness.

Furtive she stretched
Wincing at the creak
Of mattress and bone,
Still listening,
Still reaching
For a sound that questioned
Sanity’s grip.

Again!

Again it whispered,
Called sibilant,
A susurrus over
Thoughts like fingers
brushing her unbound hair off her cheek,
Intimate phenomena,
A life’s work.

Up and moving in time
She reached back—
Soft lights blinked
On a recording console
Beckoning—
She reached and reached to grasp the dance
As it swirled across the Sphere facility,
Gossamer and winged in the two moons’ light.

Shaking fingers touched,
and console blinked red,
primed to capture,

and the music

spun into ether

silenced.

Author’s Note 🌿

This one was a hard one to pin down and took me nearly a year.

I had developed the accompanying illustration last year (2025) around various reference images of unusual rock formations, one of which were the Trovants or “living rocks” of Romania. One of my favorite artist pastimes is to study photographs and real-world geology, botany, etc., and then try to imagine those shapes in context of science-fiction civilizations. Star Trek episodes like “Encounter at Farpoint” (Season 1, episodes 1 and 2, known as “the space jellyfish” episodes) and Farscape with Moya further cemented this fascination.

So then, what sort of facility would these be? I pondered and kept returning to the artwork, month after month, brainstorming and considering different angles.

A science facility is an obvious (and admittedly easy) answer, but then we get to play with the juxtaposition of logic/emotion, data/mystery, and control/freedom, concepts supported by both narrative and artistic design (circular construction is unusual and more challenging to work with, compared to square/brutalist design that automatically gives a nod to control). Lyra became a character who has spent her life documenting and recording, likes things just so, and gave room to explore an encounter with something not so easily quantified, recorded, and explained.

I’ll let you decide for yourself how she responds!

❦ Heather

Thank you for reading Pen-Scribbled Stories, a haphazard archive of experimental prose and story. Pen-Scribbled Stories is a subsidiary of the Heather in the Blue Mountains newsletter.

Subscribe now

**If you enjoyed this creative ramble, please consider checking out some of my other work. 🌿

They drifted above her,

casting great, ink-dark shadows,
blotting out the stones.

Even the stones would cry out,
she could hear them,
as in the old stories,
the tremor
the sound
the fury rumbling–

Then: silence.

Even the birds dare not peep.

They drifted above,
Searching,
Searching,
lights blinking curious, almost,
sentient, almost,
And Seela held her breath.

The metallic pinging set hair on end,
Resolve strengthened,
Fingernails gripping in the dirt.
The dragging cable whinged and snapped bright
pulverized lavender crags;
Seela ran, lungs heaving,
Breathing, the only sound in the eerie,
with the sinuous
in her sights.

She leapt,
Wingless and yet flying.
Moment stretched thin,
wrapping and twisting below,
and she sank.
Defeat, defeat, defeat, heart crying,

But,

Then,

Fingers closed around smooth spun wire.
And triumphant Seela
climbed.

Hand over hand,
Fist over fist,
Pallid earth swooping
away,
Behemoths cutting sky
above.

They drifted now together,
casting great, ink-dark shadows
Blotting out below.

Author’s Note 🌿

I’ll be candid: I really don’t know what’s going on with this poetry-as-story thing I’ve got right now, but I really am enjoying it. I can dip my toe in different worlds, scratch the geekier itch, play with fun words and language, and I’m not stretched thin by the demands of the form like I would be with a novel or longer work (I wrote several when I was fresh out of my undergrad studies, it’s a big big undertaking, much bigger than I have bandwidth for, currently).

Today it’s sci-fi, who knows where we’ll be next week?

❦ Heather

Thank you for reading Pen-Scribbled Stories, a haphazard archive of experimental prose and story. Pen-Scribbled Stories is a subsidiary of the Heather in the Blue Mountains newsletter.

Subscribe now

**If you enjoyed this creative ramble, please consider checking out some of my other work. 🌿

I’ve known for years that creativity heals. 🌿

I still remember sitting on the creakey piano-stool in front of my Grandmother’s 100-year old Clarendon cabinet grand piano, with the mid-afternoon sunlight slanting in across the pages of the Beethoven sonata on the music stand. Tears stung the corners of my eyes, but I could feel the wearied release of prickly tension as the pounded-out notes faded in the air. Peace welled up from within and I hid in its’ arms.

I was twelve, and somewhere between my determined chutzpah and the complex puzzle of Bach and Tchaikovsky well beyond my skill, wounds that would have drowned me became wells of deep beauty that poured out into every area of my life. Note by note, in each successfully learned refrain, my broken pieces began glueing themselves back together. I was encountering the healing hand of God (long before I truly knew who He was) through my creative expression in real-time as I practiced day after day, songs becoming unspoken prayer, and peace and wholeness returning.

Over the years, I’ve seen this play out again and again, from both my own personal testimony as well as that from others. Heartache splashed in crimson across a canvas becomes a breath of fresh air; meter and rhyme hastily scribbled becomes a salve of peace to weary bones. One burgeoning poet I know finds emotional triggers decreasing and being replaced with joy with every word hammered onto the page, and it is beautiful to witness the blossoming of a soul too long in the waiting place.

But many of us continue to struggle. One artisan-that-could-be can’t find anything except twisted up anger simply because every item of beauty he makes isn’t “perfect” or “useful.” He feels his time creating is a waste and hates himself for it.

When we accept our God-given gifts, we begin to come into alignment with His plan, and storehouses of healing and blessing open up to us if we want them. When we don’t use our gifts, or worse, reject our gifts… our lack of expressed artistry can become a cautionary tale.

This is one of the reasons I’m so passionate about teaching others the tools to tap into their inner spark and how to get their creative expression unblocked. When we are children, not a single one of us looks up, bright-eyed, and states “I never want to be creative,” or “I want to stay a broken person.” Such statements would be unthinkable from a child whose very nature is steeped in imagination and dreams and the intrinsic understanding that we are meant to be whole. But yet, far too many of us abandon our creativity early, only to reach adulthood and wonder why we aren’t doing as well as we ought to be.

So, how can we reconnect with our spark?

We begin.

It’s really both that simple and that challenging all at once. We must be willing to try, to experiment, to play again; to show up for ourselves even when no one else can or does. We must be willing to be vulnerable. Your creativity is rather like a wild animal; it cannot be forced, it must be coaxed out from its’ hidey-hole into the open. And, we must simultaneously be gentle with ourselves; none of us gets it right the first time (or the second… or the two hundredth…).

Just begin, with all the enthusiasm a kid can muster.

Newly Released Work 🌱

• A digital repaint of a banner for a Catholic Discord server (artwork pictured above). Fun project as I continue to learn digital illustration, but please utilize real creatives wherever you can. We’d love to help you!

• “Lazarus” (poem, published as “Full-Tilt”) at Spirit Fire Review

• “In the Crossing Season” (poem) in the Fieldmoot: A Feast of Poetry digital chapbook

• “Up the South Fork,” (illustrated poem in zine format) available to purchase and shipping beginning 1 February 2026! I’m quite excited about this — I plan to release several works this year in these homemade print runs. Zines are fabulous! They’re small, easily reproducible, and fun in an old-school artsy way. Buy a few and give them to your friends, drop a copy in your nearest little free library, leave some at the local coffee shop. (If you find one in the wild, snap a pic and send it to me or tag me on Instagram/Substack @bluemtnheather for a newsletter feature!)

And, a short haiku from the archives to share:

Seed pods dangling

Limbs, overwintered and I

Too, am worn colorless.

(penned 22 March 2025 — praise the Lord I am finally coming out of my ‘desert season’)

Onward with Courage… 🌿

Even though I don’t play piano anymore, having moved onto other arts that resonate more deeply with my soul, I remain profoundly grateful for the lessons I learned on that rickety old piano stool. Life may be messy, but creativity can meet you there, just as Jesus does. All we have to do is be willing to be there, too.

May you find your ‘piano stool’ place this week,
❦ Heather

**If you enjoyed this newsletter, please consider checking out some of my other work. 🌿

No one knew where the swords came from.

They’d always stood there, looming
giant sentinels over the village.

Dex squinted against harsh sunlight,
peering at colossal blades towering.
Pigeons swooped
Wheeling between giant quillions,
pale wings catching light otherworldly.
Wind sighed around the edges,
lone grasses twitching and rustling against iron.

Words failed him in that moment,
light shifting and bending,
enormous steel plunging
deep into stone earth.
The hair on Dex’s arms prickled.

No inscriptions, no runes, no words or plaques, and yet:

Knees and tears coursed down to dry earth.
He knew without knowing,
the depth
the breadth
the height of care of the Shaper–
these blades could belong to none other–
who would claim with this sacred stillness.
Reaching a trembling hand,

and then:

a low rumble,
an ancient forgotten song to meet him:
kinship, steel, and covenant.

Protection.

Home.

Author’s Note 🌿

Some of you may recognize the artwork from last year; I’ve been tinkering with this story about Dex and the mysterious swords for longer than that, with not much luck. It didn’t want to be a full-blown novella, it didn’t want to be standard short story, and even the typical flash fiction format just seemed… meh. Even the artwork struggled; I knew what I wanted to see, but getting it there took multiple revisions.

And then, as I began developing course materials for a middle school creative writing class, I ran across prose poetry. Sudden fiction. It all came to the forefront, back from the mental archives of college circa 2006. A tighter word count and a more —ahem— creative sort of layout…. Yes. It seemed like it might work with my recent return to poetry and poetic forms.

And, it did. After more than a year of tinkering, I finally felt reasonably satisfied with this first completed piece of flash fiction in… let’s just say a very long time.

For that alone, I can let this one fly free.

❦ Heather

Thank you for reading the inaugural edition of Pen-Scribbled Stories, a haphazard archive of experimental prose and story. Pen-Scribbled Stories is a subsidiary of the Heather in the Blue Mountains newsletter.

Subscribe now

**If you enjoyed this creative ramble, please consider checking out some of my other work. 🌿

That’s the only description I have for what has occurred these last two weeks as we crossed the threshold into the New Year. In much the same fashion as when I was preparing to give birth to each of my children, I was possessed with an intense desire to clean house.

And not just clean, but purge.

Nothing was safe, digitally or physically. I deactivated my Facebook account. I deleted over 200 Instagram posts. Erased 20+ reels and videos, including several from my YouTube channel. Axed all but 15 of my best posts on here. I retooled my URLs (the root domain now points to my portfolio, and this newsletter now resides at the ‘newsletter’ subdomain). I vacuumed and scrubbed and washed about everything in my home that wasn’t nailed down (and even several things that were). Compiled more things to be donated. Organized my desk (!). Anything that felt marked by the Holy Spirit for removal, anything that didn’t serve the forward path, got pruned heavily.

I even pulled everything out of the refridgerator and scrubbed all the shelves in the sink!

It started just prior to my scheduled winter break, beginning with a vague sense of digital overwhelm and desire to reclaim a simpler analog time, and escalating into a phenomenon eerily similar to the frenzied preparation for a birth or a move, though neither is on my radar in any capacity. (What does my Father in Heaven have planned for me??)

With each removal or reworking of the old, it has brought a fine moment of reflection. We can’t know where we are going if we don’t know where we’ve been, as they say, and in much the same fashion as getting lost in an old box of photos, I reminisced a bit while I was cleaning up on here.

My most popular post for 2025 was my early (early) Spring trip to Palouse Falls:

I say this every year, that I need to get out on the road more, and every year (thus far) it seems that things have gotten in the way of doing anything more than day trips. (You wouldn’t think a day trip would take more planning than a week-long escapade, but with younguns, they do!) I still hope to get out more this year, plus, 2025 saw the replenishing of all my camping gear, so now we have some serious incentive to disappear into the wild.

My least popular post for 2025 (but really should have been my most popular) was a short lesson on how to make your own sketchbooks for journaling:

It’s ‘least popularity’ status likely has to do with the fact it was behind a paywall for much of the year, but I love this post so much for it’s usefulness that it will remain de-paywalled from here on out.

My favorite post from 2025, though, has to be my post on the Grail Diary (from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade) and my tale of how I got into sketchjournaling:

I cannot imagine going through life without my trusty journal. There is something uniquely special about recording memories and information in this manner, it has a great capacity to almost transport you through time itself to re-experience those moments with each reread. (I’m hoping to write more on the science behind this later this year.)

Enjoy the Journey… 🌿

Thank you so much for reading, and I look forward to more adventures this coming year.
❦ Heather

**If you enjoyed this newsletter, please consider checking out some of my other work. 🌿

In this issue1:

• Preface —some thoughts

• Newly Released Work — linkage

• Visual Rambles — snapshots of things I’ve been working on

• Writings — a poem

• Inspiration in the Studio — highlighting things that bolster the spark

• Enjoy the Journey — closing remarks

Preface 🌿

I am honestly not sure what to make of 2025.

Here I am in the middle of Advent (at the time of this missive), mere hours away from the return of the light (solstice) and the celebration of the Incarnation (Christmas), and I have tried multiple times to come up with something intelligent to sum up this year and I have failed.

Again, and again, and again.

I still don’t think my thoughts here will cover it, but perhaps they will come close.

In many ways, I am weary. Over the last few weeks, the only creativity I could seem to summon was that of making a hot cup of tea and curling up in bed at the end of the day. 2025 held what seemed to be an unusally high number of things that were extra hard, heavy, and draining, leaving me feeling like I was in a gruelling endurance race. It also appeared that God Himself was simultaneously walking me through a deep pruning season2 as I groped my way forward through unfamiliar territory. In listening to others talk, I know I’m not the only one.

And yet, when I look back, there were also good and beautiful and wonderful things, and thankfully enough of them to keep my kinda mangled hope-muscle feeling a little bit of sparkle.

I like to treasure these moments, tuck them away in my journal to pull out for a smile on a dreary day. And such is my hope for you, here at the close of the year, that you also had enough beautiful and wonderful things that you can tuck them away to delight in when you need a pick-me-up.

My kids and I set up our Christmas tree a few days ago and the ornament that ended up at the very top nearest the star?

When I noticed it, I heard His voice so clearly: “Heather, do you See?”

It felt like a promise, a terrifying and dizzying Promise for the weary heart that is slowly relearning what Hope looks like. May it also be a Promise for you, too.

May this next year hold tons and tons of Hope that bears much fruit, so much our cupped hands can’t contain it all. ❤️

Newly Released Work 🌱

• “On Identity” (poem) at Heart of Flesh Literary Journal

• “Sword of Truth” (acrylic on canvas) on digital exhibit for Upside-Down Kingdom, at God Loves Art School of Art Ministry

Visual Rambles 🍃

Writings 🌾

All the leaves are gone
Fire extinguished
In a moment,
Whispering turns to sighing
Breath becomes grey
And I count the days until
A light grows in the darkness.

Inspiration in the Studio 🍀

I've really been enjoying poring over James Gurney's book, The Artist's Guide to Sketching, that he wrote with the late Thomas Kincaid3. I don't know how many times I've explored this book since I bought it, but it's still giving me tons of ideas, in addition to helping me come to a deeper understanding of my own sketching practice. It's also inspiring me to want to develop my portrait sketching skills (currently rudimentary).

Enjoy the Journey… 🌿

It's been a gnarly year, fam. Thank you for being here, and thank you for your support. Please be gentle with yourself as we cross the threshold into a new season.
—Heather

**If you enjoyed this newsletter, please consider checking out some of my other work. 🌿

Poetry

Over the summer I decided to submit a few poems to a couple literary magazines. To be honest, I didn’t expect much; I hadn’t formally submitted any creative writing since my undergrad days, and I know all too well the difficulty of the process.

So imagine my surprise when I got two acceptances in fairly short order!

My poem “On Identity” will be appearing in issue 14 of the Heart of Flesh literary journal (in print and online), which is slated to come out toward the end of November, and my poem “Lazarus” is going to appear in Spirit Fire Review (online) in December. I’ll be sharing links to those in the Notes and also posting them in the sidebar on the main page when the time comes.

At any rate, the success galvanized me: in my euphoria, I’ve submitted a few more humble verses to other magazines (why not?!), and it will be fun to see what happens! (I’d like to think great-great-many times-great cousin Emily would be very proud of my literary foray.)

Artwork

I’ve been doodling pretty regularly even though I haven’t had any formal projects on my radar, but the coolest thing of recent note has been teaching an introduction to nature journaling and scientific illustration at the school where I work. Watching these kids immerse themselves in nature and diagramming and learning how to apply art to other academic disciplines is increasing my excitement in the best ways for a discipline I’ve always been passionate about. In some aspects, it is simultaneously clarifying my call as both an artist and a teacher, as well as bringing a long-awaited fulfillment of some points on the vision board I put together four years ago.

Which fills me with deep gratitude that I can hardly express. When I put that vision board together, it was nothing more than a pipe-dream floating far out of reach above a life in shambles. To see it happen in real time… Truly delightful!

And, here are some of those aforementioned doodles from my sketchbook:

What began as a stylistic experiment, I am now growing particularly fond of. There’s something calming and almost “old-world” about it. The pencils are not a true trois crayonnes selection (that would be black/sanguine/white, as opposed to the brown/sepia/white that I’m using), but the mimicry is there even if subtler. I also appreciate the texture shifts between the smooth fountain pen text, the grittier pencil, and the soft muted watercolor. Yes, very satisfying.

Personal

The weather shifted pretty suddenly out here, but I can’t say I’m complaining even though it heralds the end of the outdoorsy season. There comes a point toward the end of summer when everything feels rather like that quote from Bilbo Baggins, about feeling like “butter scraped over too much bread.” To have rain again, and watch the trees change color, and smell that particular damp scent that the mountains all have in October is a welcome change, even if it means I have to bundle up a bit more intentionally before going out.

I’m still working on the book I began over the summer, but it’s been slow going (like so many other things). I feel like I’m in a bit of a waiting season on many fronts, like there’s a deep, internal recalibration going on before it will just pour forth onto the page. And that’s okay; creativity is sometimes like that. Especially at this time of the year when everything in Creation slows down, takes a deep breath, and settles in for a well-earned rest. Why would we (and our productivity) be any different?

In the meantime, I’m content to continue honing the craft word by word, pencil mark by pencil mark as the muse strikes. Holy Spirit will get us all where we need to go, as He always does.

Best,
—Heather

**If you enjoyed this creative ramble, please consider supporting my work with a free or paid subscription, a simple restack/share, or by leaving a tip. 🌿

***Do you have a need for prayer? I pray at Adoration every week and I'd love to pray for you. Submit your prayer request here.

On August 2nd, eight pieces of my artwork went up for display and auction for Adonai's Mercy House, a ministry providing oncology and hospice care for impoverished children in the Philippines. They have many projects they are working on, and additionally provide care and assistance to the elderly and those with autism. It’s a beautiful thing they are doing.

I first learned about Adonai’s Mercy House when I got tagged in on occasion to pray for people associated with this ministry, and when my youngest experienced a significant drowning accident four years ago, many of the people involved graciously mobilized in force through prayer on my family’s behalf. So I was quite thrilled to “pay it forward” by offering more tangible support as an artist.

But what is really neat to me, and brings me to a deep sense of awe in God, is this healing garden they have on site:

Over a year ago, God gave me a very detailed and specific dream about this exact place, only I didn't understand it at the time. As with all the dreams the Lord gifts me, I write them down, pray, and wait for Him to reveal what they mean or whom they are for. Sometimes He gifts me with the interpretation right away, and other times — like with this dream, He reveals the meaning bit by bit as connections are made. Friends I knew were involved in this ministry figured in the dream, but there were also people I didn’t know and a lot of details that are only now making sense.

It's wild to me that God does this and it excites my spirit to see Him moving, making these beautiful and life-giving connections, and also humbles me deeply that He would choose to grab little ol’ me by the hand and tug me along on the adventure. God is literally always busy at work in our lives, and there’s so much more that God is doing at any given moment than we can really see until He reveals it with a flourish. Are we listening? Do we see His fingerprints?

And also, do we hear Him when He calls us into action?

Several paintings of mine will soon be en route to the hospital site in Tongo, Manila, where they will lift the spirits and perhaps bring a measure of emotional healing to whomever sees them.

And I hope that they do, because that’s one of the big things I believe art is for.

To learn more about Adonai's Mercy House, please visit their website: www.adonaismercyhouse.org

**If you enjoyed this creative ramble, please consider supporting my work with a free or paid subscription, a simple restack/share, or by leaving a tip. 🌿

***Do you have a need for prayer? I pray at Adoration every week and I'd love to pray for you. Submit your prayer request here.

We traveled to Lewis-Clark Trail State Park, Columbia Plateau Trail, and various other locations wherever we could find untouched wild zones or riparian areas. And some species flat out surprised me (giant artichokes, anyone?!) and begged to be included even though they were cultivated and not wild.

Here are some selected sketches from the week:

For the artists in the crowd: I’m using a Faber-Castell warm grey Pitt brush pen for the initial sketches, followed by a black Pilot G2 pen to create the contour drawing and cross-hatched shading. I have to be careful not to work too soon over the brush pen, or cover the ballpoint with the brush pen, as the inks react significantly with each other and the black bleeds strongly into the grey. After the bones are on the paper, I follow up with some basic Prismacolor pencil for added details (usually some combination of white, terracotta, indigo blue, or olive green). Additionally, I’m working on a homemade notebook of Strathmore 400 toned tan paper to get those beautiful mid-tones. and make the white really pop.

If you’d like to make your own sketchbooks, I did a lesson on that back in March:

**If you enjoyed this creative ramble, please consider supporting my work with a free or paid subscription, a simple restack/share, or by leaving a tip. 🌿

We are ghosts.

It’s funny to think about, isn’t it? Here in 2025, we are surrounded by screens. Computers, cell phones, TVs, fitness trackers, tablets… the list goes on and on. A few months ago they even installed giant plasma television screens in my local Walmart as part of some large renovation project. Now whenever I walk down the aisle from house wares to pet food, I am confronted with the latest ads for the clothing section and what’s currently ‘trendy.’

Call me a luddite, but I hate it.

I hate it, even as I am sucked in.

Technology has become ubiquitous to our society, touting improvements, ease, and increased productivity for our lives. AI – artificial intelligence – is the latest in a long stream of developments promising untold wonders at the touch of a button, and my mind spins when considering how different a childhood my children and students are experiencing compared to mine. Growing up in rural Idaho, I remember having a rotary wall phone in the house. It was a big deal when we got a phone with touch buttons. I remember being 7 years old and playing Oregon Trail on one of the original Macintosh DOS computers with the black and green screen. And at 12 I remember the tortured scream of computer chips as they coaxed the modem to connect to something called “The Internet.” It was all so novel and mysterious.

But I also remember countless days spent laying out in the horse field amongst the tall grass, watching giant cumulonimbus clouds scud across the sky. I remember poking at the rusted, half-buried cast iron stove ruins in the locust trees where the original homestead had been. I remember hearing my own breath move in and out of my lungs and feeling the earth under my feet. I remember long, quiet hours immersed in a drawing while curled up on Grandma’s couch, smelling the pungent oil paints and turpentine of the latest project on her easel.

To me, the excitement of being able to type out a message on a computer screen and send it immediately in real-time to family residing four states away paled in comparison to the days when they piled out of the van in our driveway after traveling most of the week to arrive.

I worry that today’s kids don’t have that.

The speed of pixels has gone from a convenience, to being omnipresent, and I worry we are losing ourselves along the way. Pundits and researchers far more skilled than I, have well-established the concerns, causes, effects, and warnings of a life fully immersed in technology. I believe they’re right, and I won’t bore you by regurgitating the details.

Put plainly: we are becoming ghosts. We are increasingly a world of disembodied spirits, and what’s worse is that many are choosing to sacrifice their hard-knock humanity for promised ease.

When I was in my pre-Christian era (™), I was quite fond of paranormal literature and movies. During said era, one of the tropes that made the rounds was that of the person who gets turned into a ghost, and the main plot of the tale is how to reverse the curse and get them to turn back.

In our world of disembodied spirits, I’m concerned with how we turn back.

Let’s take a minute to examine semantics.

To be disembodied is defined as “separated from or existing without the body,” or “to separate or free (something) from its concrete form.”

Sounds rather like a lot of arguments about ‘transcendence,’ doesn’t it? It’s an ancient argument with a modern spin. The gnostic heretics believed the fleshly body was evil and the only thing good was the spirit – e.g. you must be delivered from your fleshy body and leave it behind to achieve transcendence. Tech is no different. Who needs friends in real life when you can have them on Facebook? Can’t find a date at the local coffeeshop? Sign up for the latest algorithm-ran matchmaking service, and you’ll find love without leaving your house. Need something to read? Innumerable electronic books, library loan services, and fanfiction sites vie for your attention, at the touch of a button. Groceries? Now you can buy them online and never have to speak to the cashier. Somewhere along the way, the Internet ceased to be a tool like ye olde rotary phone, and promised influence, fame, riches, and fulfillment in life for all of us ghosts.

It reminds me of that Bruce Willis film, “Surrogates” (2009), where real life and physical activity became viewed as “risky” and people increasingly chose to live vicariously through specialized robotic avatars… and I have the eerie feeling like I’m watching it happen in front of my eyes.

So what is the opposite of disembodied? It is to become embodied.

The definition of embodied is: “to be an expression of or give a tangible or visible form to (an idea, quality, or feeling); to include or contain (something) as a constituent part.” To put it simply, to be embodied involves tangible expression, and the act of being part of a whole.

Being embodied is not just being a mind or a consciousness floating through pixels, but to feel. Touch. Be.

It strikes me that this ever-present technological creep which sucks our lives into bits and bytes is ultimately an assault on our humanity. God did not create us as a brain or thought floating in space – He could have created us as Transformers-esque sentient creatures (you can’t convince me it would be beyond His capacity and talent), but instead He chose to create us as soft, organic beings capable of feeling the earth under our feet, breathing fresh air, and seeing the sky as it changes from orange to red to purple and pink.

He created us to take it all in, deeply.

And it’s heart-breaking to see people willingly choose to forfeit the gift primarily for one reason: avoidance of pain and discomfort.

My testimony is one filled with trauma but marked by resilience. To be blunt, I was in a cage fight in some way or another with the devil until I became Catholic this year at 40 years old. Jesus, in His infinite graciousness, was patient, kind, and steadfast when I first encountered Him way back in 2019. His presence and faithfulness, the likes of which I hadn’t experienced before, earned my undying loyalty and drew me closer to Him step by step.

When all I wanted to do was escape from rejection, abuse, violence, and hardship, He showed me how to stand. When all I wanted to do was be numb, He showed me how to feel again.

One of these ways was through the restoration of my creativity.

Creativity is a hot-button item in the Kingdom of God. It’s a gift God placed in each of us – He is a creative God, and as we are made in His image, we are, therefore, creative as well. Additionally, the first person recorded as having been filled with the Holy Spirit was Bezalel in the book of Exodus, and it was so that he could create artworks for the temple. The arts are Important to God.

And they should be to us, too, because I believe that the arts are the way back home from the computerized matrix.

To make art, any kind of art, puts us back in touch with the deep parts of our being and grounds us as fully embodied creatures. We feel the tools of our trade, smell the smells of our studio, hear the rasp of our medium on the canvas or page…. We slow down and truly absorb the bodily experience. You have to practice holding the pencil or paintbrush properly, you have to do various exercises and studies where you practice learning to shade and blend and mix colors.

Our expression is tangible and roots us with connection to our world, both within and without. In this manner, creativity builds bridges that bring our broken and hurting fragments back together, and places them in context. Art helps us look at the world differently. Art helps us understand our depths. You spend countless days retraining your eyes to see differently. Where once you would walk past a tree-lined avenue and hold an absent-minded awareness of the trees and the grass and the concrete curb, you have to train yourself to see the exact shade of the leaves when the light passes through them. You have to cultivate an awareness of the texture of the bark, and a physical understanding of how it differs from, say, the texture of the grass – one of the best ways to do this is by touching and smelling during outdoor reconnaissance. All the “boring” practice exercises your high school art teacher gives you are designed for one thing: teaching you how to see as an artist.

For a world of people who choose to become disembodied (or dissociated, to borrow a psychological term) because life as they know it hurts, art-making can gently encourage reentry because it is uniquely suited toward helping us transition back from being ghosts. When everything in our world is trying to suck our consciousness into a series of pixels, the slow process of traditional art and learning how to sustain artistic observation grounds us deeply into our senses and encourages us to remain in touch with our bodies. We become fully present, attentive, and engaged in the moment. This engagement, embodiment, is the balm to disembodiment or “dissociation,” helping us resist becoming ghosts in the machine of this increasingly tech-driven world.

Additionally, making art gives us the tools to reframe the parts of our lives that we’d rather avoid. Suddenly, Facebook doom-scrolling seems less appealing than going for a walk, and the local coffeeshop becomes an opportunity to find beauty in mundane places instead of the scene of loneliness. Traumatic memories, moments of embarrassment, and periods of grief become jumping off points for expression, wisdom, and understanding in prose, song, and paint, and furthermore, potentially capable of turning into masterful works that could change entire social trajectories.

Making art taps us directly into the heart of what it means to be human, and amid endless notifications, software updates, or the shine of plasma screens, I’d encourage you to remember that’s a gift worth keeping. ❦

**If you enjoyed this creative ramble, please consider supporting my work with a free or paid subscription, a simple restack/share, or by leaving a tip. 🌿

I often struggle with finding the kind of notebooks I prefer because they just are not that common, or they cost an arm and a leg to buy. However, if you’re enterprising, you can buy large sheets of your preferred paper in bulk and make your own.

To do this lesson, you will need the following:

• A cutting mat or some kind of surface you won’t care if you put holes or cuts into it on accident

• Awl

• Exacto knife, scalpel, or other cutting blade

• Needle

• Thread; I find heavyweight thread or even dental floss works great

• Paper slicer

• Ruler/straightedge

• Inner paper

• Cardstock weight paper for the cover

Let’s get to it!

The video is 17:46 minutes long this time, but hopefully covers everything you need to know.

Questions? Drop them below or in the chat!

As birds go
Winging by —
A flash of light
Against dark cliffs,
Mist-spray glistening
As they soar through
From rocky nest to cool thermals.

The weather out here in Eastern Washington is finally coming around to better than tolerable. I am sad to say that after New Year's I tend to get irritated with the cold and snow, and by my birthday at the end of February, I feel weary and cranky if I have to scrape ice off my car (and we will not talk about that year it snowed on my birthday and kept us all in tundra conditions throughout the month of March). But I digress.

As the sun began showing her face earlier in the week I repacked my plein air art supplies and began dreaming again about what kind of adventures I want to take this year. My list quickly filled with popular hikes, some not so popular, and some rather out of the way, such as this particular adventure.

There isn't much to see in what people call the “scablands” unless you're a geologist, but this sunny Saturday the fam and I loaded up and hit the road. There are treasures out among these hills and I love driving.

And then, after driving for what felt like most of the morning, we arrived, and I hurried to find a place to stand near the fenced edge and sketch.

I've been to Palouse Falls a couple times before, and it never fails to amaze. This treacherous waterfall is simultaneously beautiful as it cuts through the ancient landscape. It's no wonder it is the state waterfall of Washington.

On this day, the canyon birds were all freewheeling on the thermals near the falls themselves and in front of the basalt cliffs. Oh, to be a bird. It must be better even than all the wonderful memories I have of riding motorcycle in the days before small children. There was nothing I loved better than the wind like Jesus' hand on my chest and the pull and rush of gravity as I swooped around corners. Birds get all that and they can dive, lift, or hover, completely at one with the air. I tried to get pictures, but they were too fast for me.

I did, however get pictures of this scruffy little soul. He was surprisingly unconcerned about all the people and dogs who also took advantage of the warmer weather.

After I completed a loose pen sketch, we hiked up to the overlook where there was a picnic table. I set up and quickly added some colors from my travel watercolor palette. I was glad I grabbed my graphite color set; I love how they look on the toned paper. A few visitors came and leaned over my shoulder as I worked, and asked questions or marveled at my supplies. Perhaps I encouraged a few to begin sketching themselves.

We headed home when I began to feel crispy. Next time, I will have to remember my hat!