We explore a silky summer evening, airbrushed with cool mountain air and golden sinking light. Newly arrived in Steamboat Springs, we wander west. The river is gift enough, flowing like laughter between us. One of those rare series of moments when you feel so alive, so present to where you are, so thankful to love…Read more A Secret Garden That Changed My Life (In Vietnam)
Spiritual journey
Moment between death… and life
On the night he almost died, eternity brushed my cheek. Ephemeral, yet solid. I knew on that night, more than ever before, that forever is. He knew it, too. He would later talk about that passage when a massive stroke shook him like a rag doll in the mouth of a vicious dog. He would…Read more Moment between death… and life
Where true joy can be found
I know a place where unhindered joy pulsates. But you won’t believe it when I first take you there. Perched on the edge of desolation, humble and inconspicuous, a gray cement block building crouches behind ramshackle shops. Barefoot children play on a pile of rubble, and rusty-corrugated-roof shacks lean on either side. Before we go…Read more Where true joy can be found
Free Indeed
Red patterned light trickles across black curtains. A fanciful bouquet erupts on stage right: black-and-white-striped poles adorned with pink sparkly netting, fuzzy green puffs dripping with silver strands, orange tufts dotted with pink. Green cardboard-cut-out leaves ground the arrangement. Expectant silence swells as the curtain draws. Lilting music evokes the changing moods of “My Many…Read more Free Indeed
Reach
“You only get just one time around, you only get one shot at this, one chance to find out the one thing that you don’t want to miss.” One Life to Love by 33 Miles This song lyric often plays in my mind. Life on this earth tumbles by and falls off the final cliff…Read more Reach
Songs in the Valley
“It doesn’t look as bad as it did yesterday,” my ever-honest 12 year old tried to encourage me. I asked my husband, “Is it really bad?” “I like some of your other pieces better,” he conceded. I gave it one last look, and shredded it. Every piece of artwork, for me, seems to pass through…Read more Songs in the Valley
Trees
As a kid growing up in Black Forest, trees were my favorite place to while away a summer day: scent of pine, sticky sap, whispering wind, choosing the next limb to climb ever higher, a quiet kingdom of my very own. Still at points of stress, I like to think about trees. Something about their…Read more Trees
Healing
In my heart I keep a safety vault for fossils: petrified wounds from the past. Bricks of self-protection mount an imposing barrier. As long as these hardened relics remain quarantined (even from myself), perhaps they can be kept from provoking further pain. But, what if there is another way? What if these fossils could be…Read more Healing
Safe passage
Life is anything but safe. Its twists and turns leave me breathless, sometimes in wonder and sometimes in shock. “Is all of this going anywhere?” I am prone to ruminate in my weaker moments. But for all my own wrestling, my heart’s greatest vulnerability lies in watching my children tangle with the dangers of life, particularly…Read more Safe passage
Summoned
Lying flat out on my belly, face down in the sand: vulnerable, defenseless. Suddenly, out of nowhere, like Moses's burning bush, like Jacob’s ladder, the summons comes: terror and hope. Terrible hope. If I am wrong, I am just here in the dirt, more aware of it than ever. But anticipation is trembling like air…Read more Summoned
Colleen Briggs Images & Writing 