Category: Washington

Lake Hancock

The bronze buck glows in the dim light of the sun-fueled lamp 

As generations of Hearings and their wed-welcomed family smile silently from portraits pinned to the wall 
Here is a warm haven on cold nights on the cusp of winter 
Where wood fires cook hearty meals and hearts glow along with the bronze buck 

Walk the hill as the creek tumbles through old, second, and third growth 
Boulders and brush and on to where it jumped the bed before the lake and tore a new path 
Nature does what it will until machines carve deeper journeys into the scarred earth 

Stand at the lake’s edge where the air tastes like the cool depths 
Fish fail to fly but break the surface enough to grab their next meal and swim on 
The reflection of the ledge beyond reveals the sinking sun and the chill settles in 
Into each crevice and branch, into your bones and breath 

Head back inside to the silent smiles 
The wood fired feast 
The bronze buck 
With your heart full of nature-love and Hearing hospitality

Ocean Shores

The Pacific Coast of Washington State is wildly whipped and windblown, wrapped in thick grey sky and warped by silver waves. The power and movement of that place fill you up and set you free to imagine better – a connection to others who also dare to embrace the energy of the ocean. And, in only moments, the motion stops, and the calm that settles in reassures the deep dreams you’ve once again believed in.

Steinbeck and Seattle in 1960

“I remembered Seattle as a town sitting on hills beside a matchless harborage – a little city of space and trees and gardens, its houses matched to such a background. It is no longer so. … This Seattle was not something changed that I once knew. It was a new thing. Set down there not knowing it was Seattle, I could not have told where I was. Everywhere frantic growth, a carcinomatous growth. Bulldozers rolled up the green forests and heaped the resulting trash for burning. The torn white lumber from concrete forms was piled beside gray walls. I wonder why progress looks so much like destruction.”