In Season 2, episode 5 of FLOWERS FOR LINDA, a podcast on grief & creativity, I had the pleasure of experiencing honey-like time, slow and thick with light, in this tender, raw, and honest-as-children conversation with Katrina Goldsaito—guide for the grieving, author, artist. 

Among the energies in the room with us were many teachers: Emily, Katrina's sister who opted out of the embodied earth experiment; The Samurai ancestor who chose life after defeat; Her prolific haiku writing Grandmother who smiled through language in times of despair; And Katrina herself, of course, with her radiant warmth and a silliness that I recognized as kin.

In our conversation Katrina walks the line between depth and levity with astonishing grace. She talks about the container of the page as a place to hold and explore the wilderness of grief, and that distinct paradox: spiritual awakening—though I'm not sure that is the language she would use—often begins with painful loss. 

I choose to keep the seams of this conversation showing, because Katrina and I are new to each other, but it just felt as if we'd known each other for a long time. It’s not just chemistry, it’s two people meeting with open hearts. You can hear me prompting, intending to take myself out in the edit. But in the end, I kept myself in.

The slowness and openness of this episode, largely untouched, speaks to Katrina’s gift of speaking with crystalline, thoughtful clarity. In the editing process, I often cut out long pauses to make the podcast experience more listenable. But when Katrina takes her time, I think you'll find, it’s worth slowing down to join her pace. I hope the listening will accompany you, the way Katrina calls the creative process a form of accompaniment.

Here, by way of example, is a question she left me with that I hope sits right next to me, breathing invisibly all day: what if it was joyful the whole time?

P.S. Just loved making a poem by arranging the lines of Katrina’s boulder of grief. See below.