🌱 The Ways We Remake the World

On rebuilding with yellow blossoming 💛JOY💛

Photo by Mister Starman on Unsplash

Book + Poetic Pairing:
John O’Donahue’s Walking in Wonder, or listen to his voice here: John O’Donahue

Dear 🎵 Bridgers 🎵,

Some days are so exquisitely beautiful we just have to share! The meadows radiant green appeared to have returned from some sacred retreat in the heart of the Emerald Isle. There was a lilt in the breeze, something ancient and tender, brushing across the budding branches with the ease of a remembered blessing.

The earth itself seemed to hum the quiet cadence of an old folk tune, the kind passed down not through language but through being. And in the middle of it all, a single weathered stone sat in the field like a listening elder. It seemed to murmur the words of John O’Donohue — words about thresholds, belonging, the courage to begin again.

And the daffodils — oh, the daffodils — those theatrical heralds of spring, who have been staging their arrival like it was opening night at the opera, finally made their debut. Yellow blossoming JOY, they rose like little suns, as if to say: We have seen your galaxies, and we too know how to burn bright.

It was a day made for doors to be left open and stories to wander in. Neighbors dropped by — not for appointments or transactions, but because the day itself seemed to extend an invitation. They brought bulbs, bread still warm, the remembered names of plants and the forgotten art of mending stone walls. A kind of barter emerged, not of goods but of presence. It reminded me of the truth we so often forget: that belonging is built in small, shared acts.

I had the quiet honor of walking with Nathan, my Clockhouse classmate, and the unofficial mayor of Singing Bridge. Nathan makes one feel they have hit the lottery every time he shares his wealth of knowledge with us. He is one of those rare people whose presence turns a walk into a homecoming. He spoke of how, when we were children, a classmate’s house burned down. And what followed was not a flurry of fake social media sympathy or distant aid — it was the town, sleeves rolled, hammer in hand, showing up. Engineers and carpenters gathered and people who hadn’t built a thing in their lives learned how to support. They gathered not just lumber, but love. And somehow, in the debris of disaster, a new house rose out of the ashes. This is what community meant in 1970s Vermont: not sentiment, but structure. Not performance, but participation.

Nathan gently reminded me of something we have, perhaps, collectively misplaced: that our ancestors — often with fewer resources and far more precarious lives — still found ways to show up for one another. They shared what they had, including their knowledge, their tools, and their time. Not because it was convenient, but because it was necessary. And because it was human. In contrast, we — so often overwhelmed, distracted, and detached — spend our days scrolling past one another, and naval gazing ourselves into siloed spirals. Nathan's presence, and his memory, offered a kind of recalibration. He reminded me that slowness is not the opposite of productivity; it is a form of attention. And remembering is not a retreat into the past, but a sacred act of resistance. And that to truly belong to a place is to know and carry its stories as if they were breath itself — part of how we live, part of how we love.

In a world running headlong toward collapse, there is something profoundly radical about taking a walk, sharing seeds, listening deeply. To plant a garden. To rebuild a neighbor’s home. To share and hold a memory. These are the quiet ways we remake the world. And in doing so may we reconnect and calm our collective nervous system.

Stay luminous, you wild and wondrous daffodils. 🌼
Let’s keep placing our bulbs in healthy compost and blooming into the light.

— With love in our heart and mud on our boots,
C2 & C3