Dear balmer,
It’s been three months since I last wrote to you.
After our last gathering in May, I made the intentional decision to let Balm rest.
It felt risky and a bit rebellious, as rest usually does. But Balm needed a break from my micromanaging mind.
I was curious what wisdom would emerge when I didn’t fill in the space. I wanted to find out what sounds it would make when I wasn’t constantly trying to turn it into a song. I wanted to see where Balm would go without my pushing and pulling.
As I surrendered and embraced the summer season, Balm went the opposite direction. She hunkered down into winter.
And then, without really meaning to, I went quiet too.
I noticed one day that I was journaling without music. Cooking without podcasts. Driving without the radio. Falling asleep without my favourite playlist.
For almost a month, there was silence.
In the ma 間 (the conscious gap) I became aware of other soundtracks in daily life. The cardinal singing at dawn, my stomach growling, the dog sighing, daughters rap battling, GO trains rumbling in the far distance, the looping thoughts that made zero progress and continued to live rent-free in my head day by day.
Between those sounds, Balm continued to quietly breathe and dream. And between waves bubbling along the shore, two themes began to pop out to me like sea glass on the beach.
Grief + Courage.
They kept appearing. Or maybe they were always there in the nooks and crannies of life. In conversations. In things I was reading. In the corners of my body. In what I noticed people carrying and reaching for. Sometimes impossible to miss, sometimes hiding in plain sight.
The more I paid attention, the more I noticed how grief and courage live in the things we care about most.
And yet, some of the things that matter most to us are remarkably easy not to make space for. There always seems to be something louder, more urgent, more convenient to pay attention to.
We don’t naturally make space for this stuff, because they’re hard. But my hunch is that grief and courage, like silence, have something meaningful to give us when we’re willing to make room to receive.
That’s what Balm wants to be a place for in Season 3.
Soul Care Sunday returns in four weeks. Over nine Sunday mornings, let’s gather at Pluto to intentionally hold space for grief and cultivate courage, with live music and community at the heart of it all.
If making room for these things feels important to you too, I’d love for you to be part of it.
Find the full calendar here.
And if you’re not ready to commit yet, please tap reply. Tell me what grief or courage means to you right now. I’m here to hold space for you here, too.
Imagine, what’s possible when we make space together and where will it lead us?
With love,
Karen
May you make room for what is asking to be felt.
May you find courage for what is asking to be lived.
May you trust what emerges when you listen.