WHAT IT'S FOR

Any season you're moving through, grief, an ending, an illness, a decision you're still finding your way into. This isn't about finishing anything. It's about giving your hands something to do while your heart does its own slower work.

This ritual was inspired by a woman at our Kitchen Table, who folded a thousand paper cranes for someone she knew while he was ill. Every fold carried a thought, a prayer, a wish. This is her practice, offered to you.

WHAT YOU'LL NEED

Paper, any kind. Origami paper if you have it, but a square cut from a magazine page or an old letter works just as well. Nothing about this ritual asks for the right materials.

THE PRACTICE

Before you fold, take a breath and name, even just to yourself, what you're folding for. A person. A season. A version of yourself you're saying goodbye to, or one you're welcoming in.

Fold one crane.

With each fold, let a single thought accompany it. A wish. A worry you're setting down. A hope you're not ready to say out loud yet. It doesn't need to be the same thought twice.

You don't need to fold a thousand. You don't even need to fold ten. One crane, made with real attention, still counts. The number was never really the point -the intention behind each fold is.

When you're done, however many you've made, set them somewhere you'll see them. A windowsill. A bowl. A string, if you make enough. You don't have to give them to anyone. You don't have to keep them forever, either. Some people burn them when they're ready to let go. Some people keep them for years.

HOW TO FOLD

If you'd like a guide for the fold itself, the video below walks you through it gently, step by step.

The second video is a beautiful story about finding meaning in every fold.

Warmly, Kathy

A little about me

Hi, I’m Kathy. A guide, a gatherer, a maker of sacred space, and a woman who found her way home to herself after years of putting everyone else first.

For years, I wore many hats at once. Single parent, community manager in a role I was promoted into before I believed I deserved it, event organizer. And later, a family caregiver. Learning all over again how to give without losing myself in the giving. Caring for everyone, in every direction, all at the same time. What I had to learn, slowly and imperfectly, was that I mattered too. What I found on the other side of that, through stillness, creativity, and the women who gathered around my table, became everything I now offer.

There’s a place at the table with your name on it.

Visit The Hummingbird Nest Website

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July 15, the garden asks you to listen.

A reading from The Garden

Earlier this morning I did something that feels more comfortable each time I do it. I read you a manifesto I wrote for women like us, out loud, in real time. There’s a line in it I keep returning to:

make yourself a priority. set aside time just for you. push the pause button.

If you were there, thank you for sitting with me. If you weren’t, the recording is here, and it’s short enough to fit inside a cup of tea.

At the end of the reading I offered a journaling prompt, and I want to leave it here too, for anyone who’d rather write than watch:

Today I give myself permission to…

No rules about how to answer it. A sentence counts. A whole page counts. Thinking about it while you fold laundry counts.

Reading aloud to you did something unexpected to me. It felt less like broadcasting and more like the moment at a retreat when everyone finally settles, and someone begins a story. So I want to ask you something. What would you think of a Substack Live storytime? An evening now and then where I read to you a story, an essay, something worth hearing in a human voice, and you simply get to listen. Reply to this email or leave a comment and tell me what you think.

More lives are coming. The next one, where I demonstrate how to pound flowers onto paper and fabric. It’s taking place on Thursday, July 23 at 9:30 am MDT.

Warmly,
Kathy

Join me for my next live video in the app. If you have the Substack app, it will let you know the moment I go live.

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Soft light. Warm water. A moment to set down what you've been carrying. This is one of the simplest rituals in the nest, and one of the most quietly powerful.

The full ritual is waiting for you below. Download it, print it, keep it close.

Warmly, Kathy

A Ritual A Shower By Candlelight

4.73MB ∙ PDF file

Download

Download

A little about me

Hi, I’m Kathy. A guide, a gatherer, a maker of sacred space, and a woman who found her way home to herself after years of putting everyone else first.

For years, I wore many hats at once. Single parent, community manager in a role I was promoted into before I believed I deserved it, event organizer. And later, a family caregiver. Learning all over again how to give without losing myself in the giving. Caring for everyone, in every direction, all at the same time. What I had to learn, slowly and imperfectly, was that I mattered too. What I found on the other side of that, through stillness, creativity, and the women who gathered around my table, became everything I now offer.

There’s a place at the table with your name on it.

This is where the stillness practice begins. Not with a technique or a timer, but with a corner of your home you can claim as your own. A candle. A chair. A quiet place to say, this is for me. Download it below, tuck it away, and begin when you're ready.

Warmly, Kathy

Create Your Sacred Space Guide

13.7MB ∙ PDF file

Download

Download

A little about me

Hi, I’m Kathy. A guide, a gatherer, a maker of sacred space, and a woman who found her way home to herself after years of putting everyone else first.

For years, I wore many hats at once. Single parent, community manager in a role I was promoted into before I believed I deserved it, event organizer. And later, a family caregiver. Learning all over again how to give without losing myself in the giving. Caring for everyone, in every direction, all at the same time. What I had to learn, slowly and imperfectly, was that I mattered too. What I found on the other side of that, through stillness, creativity, and the women who gathered around my table, became everything I now offer.

There’s a place at the table with your name on it.

A short meditation to walk you in through the meadow and bring you all the way to the garden bench. Pour yourself something warm, find a quiet few minutes, close your eyes, and let me take you there.

Warmly, Kathy

A little about me

Hi, I’m Kathy. A guide, a gatherer, a maker of sacred space, and a woman who found her way home to herself after years of putting everyone else first.

For years, I wore many hats at once. Single parent, community manager in a role I was promoted into before I believed I deserved it, event organizer. And later, a family caregiver. Learning all over again how to give without losing myself in the giving. Caring for everyone, in every direction, all at the same time. What I had to learn, slowly and imperfectly, was that I mattered too. What I found on the other side of that, through stillness, creativity, and the women who gathered around my table, became everything I now offer.

There’s a place at the table with your name on it.

A letter from the Garden, mid-May.

the days following my return from the ocean —

There is a particular kind of disorientation that follows a deep rest.

I came home from just a few days away to Vancouver Island, on the west coast of Canada, bags full of salt air and silence, and for a full day I could not quite find my footing. I felt unsteady. Unfocused. Like someone had shifted the furniture while I was away, and now I was moving through a familiar room in the dark.

On the drive home from the airport, I watched a crow fly above the freeway. I turned to my daughter and said, just a short time ago we were watching eagles soar across the water. Now look at us. We laughed. But something in it was also true, and a little tender.

The island does that to you.

It takes time to arrive at that kind of stillness. And apparently, it takes time to leave it too.

As you press play on the videos, close your eyes.

Imagine yourself there by the ocean.

Take what you need.

The sound of the waves. The birdsong overhead. The wind.

What I know now, and wish I had remembered yesterday, that foggy, unsettled day after I returned, is that the ocean was never really out of reach. It was sitting right there in my camera roll. One small moment away.

And then I remembered the wind.

That sound does something the quiet lapping of water couldn’t quite do on its own. It moves through you, blowing the cobwebs loose from all the corners of your mind. The mental clutter. The low hum of obligation.

I could have stepped away from the unpacked bags and the grocery list, and let myself be there again, just for a few minutes. Not to escape what was in front of me. But to ease the crossing. To give myself a bridge between that open, unhurried version of myself and the one who had to do laundry and think about what to make for dinner.

Stillness is not a place. It turns out it’s portable. We just forget to carry it with us.

I’m curious whether you have ever felt this, the day-after-return feeling, the slight grief of ordinary life rushing back in. And if you have, what did you reach for?

Warmly, Kathy

A little about me

Hi, I’m Kathy. A guide, a gatherer, a maker of sacred space, and a woman who found her way home to herself after years of putting everyone else first.

For years, I wore many hats at once. Single parent, community manager in a role I was promoted into before I believed I deserved it, event organizer. And later, a family caregiver. Learning all over again how to give without losing myself in the giving. Caring for everyone, in every direction, all at the same time. What I had to learn, slowly and imperfectly, was that I mattered too. What I found on the other side of that, through stillness, creativity, and the women who gathered around my table, became everything I now offer.

There’s a place at the table with your name on it.

Visit The Hummingbird Nest Website

Early May, while the garden is still new.

a note from the Garden -

The garden has just been planted.

The lavender is still young, the roses not yet climbing, the chamomile just beginning to soften the edges of the path. I have been out here in the early mornings, tucking things into the earth, wondering what will bloom and when. There is something so hopeful about planting before you can see what will grow. It asks you to trust what isn’t visible yet.

That is what I am doing here, in everything I am building. Planting.

The Hummingbird Nest is new ground. The paths are being laid, the spaces are taking shape, and everything is a little tender the way new things are. But the garden is open. And I wanted you to be the first one in.

The garden is the place I built for stillness. Not the kind of stillness that asks you to empty yourself or get very serious about breathing. The kind that simply invites you to stop moving for a little while. To sit down. To let the morning be enough.

It is the first place I come each day when I need to remember who I am beneath the noise. I think it might become that for you too.

I have recorded something for you. A short meditation to walk you in through the meadow and bring you all the way to the garden bench. Pour yourself something warm, find a quiet few minutes, close your eyes, and let me take you there.

Warmly, Kathy

PS: The garden is always growing. Come back whenever you need it.

A little of what’s ahead in the garden

In the weeks to come, I’ll be adding stillness practices, meditations and journaling prompts to help you find your way back to yourself whenever you need it. Consider this your first taste.

Warmly,
Kathy

A little about me

Hi, I’m Kathy. A guide, a gatherer, a maker of sacred space, and a woman who found her way home to herself after years of putting everyone else first.

For years, I wore many hats at once. Single parent, community manager in a role I was promoted into before I believed I deserved it, event organizer. And later, a family caregiver. Learning all over again how to give without losing myself in the giving. Caring for everyone, in every direction, all at the same time. What I had to learn, slowly and imperfectly, was that I mattered too. What I found on the other side of that, through stillness, creativity, and the women who gathered around my table, became everything I now offer.

There’s a place at the table with your name on it.

Visit The Hummingbird Nest Website