Author Archives: amy j howton

the past few weeks/months have been so full with much change and creation. i’ve been riding the wave of life and creativity with gusto! the movement has been exhilarating, with both significant inner and outer shifts. i’m feeling a need to open the valve to my writing and release some energy/pressure that has been buildingContinue reading “release”

i want to participate in a sacramental life where each inhalation of life is met with exhalation of that life, manifested in the in-between space alchemized in the lungs through choice where each inner shift is greeted by movement i can perceive and know in this body where the truth that resides deep, deep downContinue reading “sacramental life”

there’s grief in me. grief is so much more than sadness. it is release. it is movement. it is letting go. it is respect, honor, reverence, joy, gratitude. grief is bowing to what has been and a softening into what is. a simultaneous goodbye and hello? tonight, this is where i am. i am soContinue reading “grief + gratitude”

i’m here working through some ideas on the Other, Othering, and our relationships with the Other… back in the day, as a student in Philosophy and Women’s Studies, particularly my days in deep dive study of psychoanalysis, post-colonial, feminist, Black Feminist theory (calling in Bhaba, Lacan, Derrida, Iriguaray, Collins), there was a lot of debateContinue reading “the Other”

last night i took the girls to mom’s for pizza. well, dewey’s pizza, which is a whole other thing. on the feast day of saint brigid, goddess of threshold and fire, i found myself in an in-between time and space. here, i sat at my mother’s table with my two growing-up daughters–meg, 13 and kate,Continue reading “imbolc: in the belly”

harm is never done in isolation. violence is never private. pain is never meant to be experienced alone. because we are connected. trauma is not the event. it is the response to it. or perhaps more aptly, the lack thereof. what does it mean to acknowledge harm done and respond it to that harm, inContinue reading “nope”

“i’m here for transformation”–a mantra of sorts these past years, months, with a particular pitch these past weeks. i’m interested, devoted to creating a new story of love and connection. this requires transformation. it requires metabolizing the pain and trauma in the creation of new life. when we are clear on what we want andContinue reading “transformation”

last night’s bengals and bills game was a game-changer. i am not a football fan and generally am not tuned in at all to football. my husband and those with whom i have always lived and loved are. yesterday’s game generated lots of excitement for lots of reasons and so for some reason, i foundContinue reading “last night’s game-changer”

i recently participated in a five day Circle Immersion led by Quanita Roberson and Tenneson Woolf. as a long-time circle practitioner of circle–through both formal training and ancestral/community knowing–it felt important to return as a participant, to be held and to fully experience the form from a different perspective. also, the timing was right asContinue reading “circle + Circle”

open to reality as it is…this vow, first introduced to me through Shambhala Path of the Warrior training seven years ago has finally fully landed in my bones. how could i ever want anything other than this very moment? i know the stretch of this question. and i know the truth of it. this morningContinue reading “reality as sacred”