More beauty from the ranch. The Garden Express headed north to the Wink Ranch.
The thrum of tires over the cattle guard welcomed me home.
We began each morning listening for birds. Mom has an app that identifies the birds by their sound, and now knows so many of them. We sat outside on the east porch and listened, with Mom identifying each.
A mama doe brought her two spotted fawns down to the dam in front of the ranch house. This space was once an open dry gully in a pasture. Daddy turned it into a dam with the hope that one day wildlife would find and enjoy. Wildlife did enjoy for several years — Wyatt, Luke, and Wynn were raised swimming, playing, and plunging here. I spent summers sitting on the banks, watching as they swam and played. The wildlife envisioned have found this place. The doe and fawns were an extra special treat.
Blue Herons also sometimes grace us with their presence.
Adolescent and adult eagles soared. Red, the red-headed woodpecker, came morning and evening.
Mom and I saw antelope on our walks up the lane.
Antelope on walk up the lane.
Mom
Walking the lane.
One afternoon brought three prairie fires due to dry lightning strikes. Neighbors rushed water to the hit ranches. We thought some of our breaks might be on fire. Daddy and I crested the top of the canyon breaks and breathed a sigh of relief.
An incredible rainstorm dumped 1 1/2 inches of desperately needed rain in 15 minutes.
Temperatures were between 100-107degrees every day. The AC doesn’t reach the upstairs bedroom in the old part of the house, where I sleep. So, I started every night in a sleeping bag on the floor beside Mom and Dad’s bed, where it was nice and cool. Sometime in the early morning, I’d make my way upstairs to the now cool bedroom.
Window facing east.
Kitchen counter art.
Early morning writing on the east porch.
Off to check waterlines.
Off to check waterlines with Daddy.
Time with family.
Cuzzin Missy Urbaniak, me, Mom.
We did hard, important things and stuck together, a blessing.
I am delighted and grateful to share that “Creative Alchemy: Wildness, Beauty, and Imagination as Theoretical and Methodological Framework” is now published by The Voice for Creative Research: https://www.thevoiceofcreativeresearch.com/…/view/385/437. I poured my heart, soul, and several years of research into creating this framework.
What makes this creative research framework unique:
The movement from wildness, beauty, and imagination as aesthetic or philosophical concepts to WBI as a research methodology. WBI functions as a research architecture.
What happens when wildness becomes a methodological invitation toward authenticity?
What happens when beauty becomes a way of examining harmony, balance, wholeness, and justice?
What happens when imagination becomes a mechanism for moving research findings toward action?
WBI positions at the intersection of creative research, geohumanities, landscape, language, and place. Opens possibilities for:
place-based research
environmental humanities
ecolinguistics
Indigenous and local knowledge
landscape writing
creative nonfiction
visual ethnography
ecological literacy
language-and-place studies
arts-based environmental research
The WBI structure is elegant:
Wildness—Authenticity/creativity: What am I authentically passionate about?
Beauty—Harmony/wholeness/balance. How might my research contribute to harmony and balance?
Imagination—Action/transformation: How can findings become specific action?
Our work and personal lives create living ecosystems. I love their intertwined nature. This was brought home to me recently when I had the delight and honor to spoke with International Society for Educational Leadership -India‘s educators throughout India about translanguaging, wildness, beauty, and imagination:✨
“In this inspiring session at ELT Summit 2026, Dawn Wink explores the transformative role of translanguaging, wildness, beauty, and imagination in English Language Teaching. Challenging conventional approaches to language education, she invites educators to embrace multilingualism, creativity, and the rich linguistic and cultural resources that learners bring into the classroom.
The session highlights how translanguaging can foster more inclusive, engaging, and meaningful learning experiences while encouraging teachers to rethink traditional classroom practices. Through thought-provoking ideas and practical insights, Dawn Wink demonstrates how imagination and aesthetic experiences can deepen language learning and empower both teachers and students.
Whether you are an English language teacher, teacher educator, researcher, or student, this talk offers fresh perspectives on creating classrooms that celebrate diversity, creativity, and authentic communication.”
Video of plenary:
At the same time, the ideas of the presentation and those presented in this article weave together, much as the interconnected root system of the Banyan tree represents translanguaging. I was thrilled to have this article highlighted within the Journal of Education for Multilingualism:
Just back from the ranch. Next Dewdrops on time there, filled with birds, animals, family, prairie fires, rain, eagles, antelope, and love. Thank you to Mom, and Ann Shaw of White Owl Store, for this beautiful new scarf!
In the last Dewdrops, I introduced the ENMU Language and Literacy Studio. That piece took me a while to write, as there was so much that comprises the Studio. I really pondered how to condense it to its essence for this first introduction. We were in the midst of four weeks of literacy magic, creative teaching, connection with families and amongst ourselves, and hugs—so many wonderful hugs—every day. I decided to separate the introduction from a bit more of our intention, mission, vision, goals, and magic. There are far too many incredible photos to include here, so again, I hope to convey the essence. To see so many more photos, we’d love for you to join us on our Studio Facebook page.
Here, after a fabulous week:
There are far too many incredible photos to include here, so again, I hope to convey the essence. To see so many more photos, we’d love for you to join us on our Studio Facebook page.
Incredible people of all ages compose the Studio—teachers, students, families, staff, and faculty. For fear of not honoring each and every person as they deserve, this is more of a personal piece.
I reflect on the spirals and circles of life. I began my teaching career reading aloud in Spanish and English with Kindergarten students in the central valley of California. How I loved those kids, their families, and the hours and hours and hours we spent cuddled up reading (with all 35 of them! Not sure that was legal even then…).
A lot has happened in that intervening time, including years of cuddling up with my own three kids and reading aloud, some of my all-time favorite memories. As I moved into teaching adults, I continued to read aloud with them in class, but my time reading to children other than my own pretty much evaporated.
The Studio has brought reading with kids back into my life, and I cherish it. When I talk about literacy magic, I truly do mean, magic. The magic of connection, the magic of opportunity, the magic of voice, the magic of power, the magic of knowing that you are not alone, the magic of experiencing yourself on the page, the magic of potential and possibility, the magic of dreams, the magic of human connetions, the magic of learning other places and people, the magic of travel from your own home. Books and reading are a magic carpet to the past, present, future, the imagined and the unimagined.
More on Literacy Hopscotch later. This, too, was magic. This hopscotch went up to 100. By the end of the Studio, it was up to 400, Such fun! (Please forgve the accompanying music. How could I resist?)
And when you pop “Dresses with books and flowers” into Google, these are just a few of what pop up. I’ll add to my collection every year. Oh, the twirls we did with our dresses! Spiderman also joined us many a day. Did I mention all of the hugs? Literacy is love.
Sometimes the stars align into constellations that open doors to new worlds.
This happened to me this January, when I accepted the position as the new Dr. Gay Su Pinnell Endowed Professor of Language and Literacy at Eastern New Mexico University in Portales, NM. This position was endowed by Dr. Gay Su Pinnell and comprises teaching, research focused on literacy in diverse settings, partnerships with schools, and collaboration with local, national, and international organizations to support literacy initiatives.
I adore this position and my new university community. I commute between my apartment in Portales during the week and Santa Fe on the weekends. I love the 3 1/2 hours drive through the open expanses of rural eastern New Mexico, listening to my latest audiolibro or taking in the silence.
We just completed our inaugural four-week summer reading program for Pre-K through 5th grade. Our teaching faculty and staff gathered at the beginning of our summer program.
ENMU Literacy and Language Studio teaching faculty and staff, Summer 2026
This summer, we built on their initiatives implemented over the past four years and expanded them to include mother-tongue literacy instruction and engagement in Spanish and Dual Language (English-Spanish). Bienvenidos al Estudio de Lenguaje y Literacidad:
We celebrated our Grand Opening and Ribbon Cutting with Dr. Pinnell. “Marking its inaugural year, the ENMU Language and Literacy Studio was established through a generous endowment from renowned educator and alumna Dr. Gay Su Pinnell. The space is designed to serve as a dynamic literacy hub, cultivating a lifelong love of reading for students of all ages while fostering critical community partnerships.”
Dr. Gay Su Pinnell and ENMU Chancellor Dr. James Johnston cut the ribbon.
Dr. Pinnell with Studio students.
“Literacy is more than learning to read words; it is developing a lifelong relationship with books, ideas, and learning that enriches every aspect of life,” said Dr. Pinnell, whose educational philosophy centers on the belief that reading nurtures confident learners, thoughtful citizens, and lifelong seekers of understanding.
“Literacy transforms lives and worlds. Hope, inspiration, dreams, and opportunities flourish within literacy,” Dr. Dawn Wink, Endowed Professor of Language and Literacy, said. “The Language and Literacy Studio embodies Dr. Pinnell’s vision that education be a place where students and teachers live literate lives from the earliest possible experiences, through education, research, community partnerships, leadership, and a love of reading.”
“As a child, learning to read opened a world of adventure, imagination, and exploration. As I grew, I realized that it served as the foundation for my educational journey. Through the generosity of Dr. Pinnell, ENMU will provide the same sense of wonder and the critical foundation for education to students throughout our region,” Dr. James Johnston, ENMU chancellor, said. “Of equal importance, it gives ENMU the ability to continue to advance the body of knowledge related to literacy and learning.”
ENMU Chancellor Dr. James Johnston reading to students.
And, so we begin. More literacy magic and photos to come.
We have emergent social media accounts for the Studio. We would love to share the journey.
With Dad, Cascabel Land & Cattle Company, AZ, 1978
2025
Father’s Day 2026 – Deepest gratitude that the stars aligned for this guy to be my dad. My annual Father’s Day honoring of my amazing dad, Dean Wink.
This is my all-time favorite photo of my dad and me, taken in 1978 on the ranch in southeastern Arizona, where I was raised. We were in the corrals working cattle. I’d turned over the milk bucket to sit. Our Wink eyes are side-by-side. My mom describes the first time she met all of the Winks, “Somebody told a joke, everybody started laughing, and suddenly, nobody in the room had any eyes!” Every year, the annual school picture involved the photographer telling me to open my eyes when I smiled. Every year, I responded, “I can’t. I’m a Wink.” I’m sure Mom took this photo. During these years, I was usually pushing cows and calves down the shoot and giving injections, since I was too small to do much else. This photo means we’d ridden the day before to bring in the cattle. Cascabel Land and Cattle Company lay along the San Pedro River Valley in southeastern Arizona. We ranched there from 1976 to 1985. Riding and reading filled my days.
San Pedro River Valley, Cascabel, AZ
Riding on the ranch with my dad, through the rugged terrain of the Sonoran Desert, was my heaven. As I think back, so much of what I’ve learned in life, I learned riding with Dad. Listen. Pay attention. Anything worth doing is worth doing well. Hard work and hard laughter go together. If your horse goes down, kick your feet out of the stirrups, in case you need to jump off. What you do matters, and others are counting on you. Take care of others. Leave the gates as you find them. Be kind.
The following piece, “When Your Dad’s a Cowboy,” was originally published in Range Magazine, 2005. When Mom and I published our book, Teaching Passionately: What’s Love Got To Do With It? (Pearson, 2005), the dedication read: “To Dean Wink, from the two women who love you most.”
When Your Dad’s a Cowboy
By Dawn Wink
Range Magazine, Summer 2005
My dad flew off the big three-year-old gelding buckskin and landed on the rock-hard ground with a thud. He and I stared at each other for a moment, him flat on his side in front of the crowding alley and me in the doorway of the old barn on his South Dakota ranch.
“Are you all right, Dad?” Blood poured from a chunk of skin ripped off his nose.
“Well, I think I might have broken a nail,” he said and held his wrist aloft. It was in the shape of a well-formed S.
Dad’s hand
Dean Wink has a long history of breaking bones, then waiting too long to go to the hospital. Whether it was the time he broke his sternum, had the bones in his thumb splintered into shards when his horse went down in a bog and crushed it against the saddle horn, or the most recent shattering of his right hand when a cow kicked it against a pipe holding her in the branding chute, he waited a week or two before going in. Just enough time to let the broken bones heal, then be rebroken and set. Even he agreed that we needed to head to the emergency room this time.
The closest hospital was 80 miles away.
“You got good tires on this truck?” Dad asked as we flew over the prairie into town, making good time. “I don’t have time for a broken wrist,” he said over and over during the trip, his arm now packed in ice.
When your dad’s a cowboy, you learn to smile, nod, and put the pedal to the metal.
For as long as I can remember, I have been trotting at the heels of my dad’s well-worn cowboy boots, bouncing beside him in a dusty pickup, or riding along with him as we moved cows. Whether the ranches were in Wyoming, Arizona, or South Dakota, I’ve often been at my happiest helping him with ranch work.
Last December, I spent a week on my parents’ cattle ranch to write and gather information and images for my current novel, Meadowlark. I found myself chuckling when I realized that once again I was trotting along at his heels as we walked out to doctor a filly with a torn leg. I was doing the same thing at age 36 that I’d done at six. And I was still loving it.
That day, Dad and I were going to ride in the breaks, where the flat prairie pours down into rugged cedar- and juniper-dotted ravines leading to the Cheyenne River. It had been six months since Lucky (now renamed Bucky) had last been ridden, but he came in from the pasture and took the saddle well. Dad did expect him to crow hop a bit, so he mounted right there in the corral. As soon as Dad climbed into the saddle, Lucky started bucking. He bucked and lunged and spun. Several jumps later, Dad got off to the side. With the next buck, he was down on the ground.
Several weeks later, he wryly told me he was reading a book on horse training and had discovered what we’d done wrong: “We skipped chapters one through 10!”
After the horse wreck in 2005.
By the time we made it to town, Dad could no longer move his legs. An hour later, he was in excruciating pain with any movement in his torso, despite a pain threshold that mere mortals can only dream of. Before becoming a rancher 30 years ago, Dad played defensive tackle for the Philadelphia Eagles. He eats pain like others eat Wheaties. He has ridden over cliffs on crazy horses nobody else will ride, been caught between a gate and the corral fence, and worked over while a 2,000-pound Brangus bull rammed against it all the way up and then back down again; and been rolled over by a horse more times than I can count. After all of which, he bounced back up with a smile on his face and a twinkle in his eye. Never once have I seen him do anything more than a brief wince—so I knew this was serious.
When your dad’s a cowboy, you think he’s invincible.
Seeing Dad in such pain led me to the previously undiscovered wonders of straight tequila and cigarettes. At one point, after a long day of painful tests for him, he was getting an MRI, and for the umpteenth time that day, I thought I was going to pass out. I lay down on the cool tile floor right there in the office, cheek to the tile, bum in the air.
The doctor saw me and said, “Um, ma’am? Would you mind waiting somewhere else, please?” No problem. I crawled out of the office and into the arms of José Cuervo and the Marlboro Man.
When your dad’s a cowboy, I recommend them for fainting spells in the hospital.
A separated pelvic bone, shattered wrist, internal bleeding—and, one week later, Dad was released from the hospital. His first day home, the yearling fillies got out of the corral. Dad was out there shuffling long with his rolling walker, trying to bring them back in.
Is it any wonder my heroes have always been cowboys?
What a gift to receive this treasure of a poem, “Ode to Silence,” written by Dr. Protiva Rani Karmaker. Dr. Karmaker and I connected through our love of languages, mother tongues, and landscape. We discovered that we also share a love of the early morning magic hours.
Dr. Karmaker shared the reading of her poem written during her own early morning magic hours. I listen to her reading her poem again, and again, and again. This poem reminds me that we never know how what we create in the world may touch others. What an essential reminder when creativity and art feel selfish. I think of the richness gleaned in my life through the creativity and artistry of others, the inspiration, hope, and connection that come from others, and this buoys, inspires, and strengthens to keep creating.
I invite you to sink into the beauty by Dr. Karmaker. She reads her poem, accompanied by a sumptuous feast of imaes, here. Enjoy:
Silence has a sheer beauty
Of magnanimity & purity,
Silence has a depth
Of voice to realize spirituality.
Silence has invisible eyes & ears
To view this world of weary talk & noise,
With deep pauses and anticipation.
Silence has a quietness of Dawn
Profound & sacred stillness,
To embrace hardship
And regenerate broken spirits
Forsaking all odds of days bygone.
Silence! Lovely Silence,
I love thee sometimes
To talk more with nature,
Birds and raindrops in a small tree
You have such a sheer beauty!!!
I recently wandered through a cemetery and found myself entranced by stories real and imagined. I was away on a work trip and discovered a cemetery beside my hotel. Cemeteries intrigue me, draw me in. Late one afternoon I walked through a cemetery drenched in the golden light and entered a world of stories. I read and read and read the headstones.
One of the ways to say ‘cemetery’ in Spanish is campo santo, sainted or holy field.
I studied the dates of birth and death, thought of that era, world events, the state of technology, fashion, state of medicine. Sometimes spouses died within months of one another and sometimes there were spans of 20-30 years. What different life experiences that would create. I thought of the remaining spouse who saw their name etched on the headstone for years when they came to visit or bring flowers. What must that be like?
The composition detailed on headstones tell stories: “Mother,” “Father,” “Infant Child,” “Beloved Grandmother/Grandfather.” Some headstones contained the names and dates of several family members. I tried to figure out those that were not obviously parents and children.
Peonie plants on the cusp of bloom framed many headstones. I hadn’t associated those with cemetaries before and now will.
May 26, 1945—I noticed this date on several headstones of young men. I knew it had to be a battle of World War II, and learned it was the Battle of Okinawa. Those headstones rested next to parents or the names and dates were included in the greater composition of the stone.The deeper I walked into the cemetery, the farther from the present time I felt.
The sharp edges of the present softened, blurred, as past and present bled together as shades in a watercolor painting.
All of these stories, all of these lives brings other perspectives to present delights and heartaches. I imagined those standing around the grave, right where I now stood, their energies, feelings, thoughts absorbed into the ground. I felt a kinship, a sense of shared humanity in joy and sorrow. Heartbreak and sorrow tend to create a sense of aloneness, of otherness, a feeling of ever being apart from our surroundings and people.
Wandering the cemetery stories reminds that ours is a shared experience, expressed in infinite different ways.
This inspired in me a sense of companionship, a sense of comfort, amidst life stories real and imagined. While our joys and sorrows may be individual, ours is not a unique experience. Infinite joys, sorrows, laughter, tears, stories, secrets, dreams infuse this small piece of land. I find solace in this.
I will continue to wander cemeteries, seeking out and learning of lives I will never know. Their stories conveyed through etched stone, metal, words, shape, what is on the headstone and what is not remind me that we are each part of such a greater whole, encompassing past, present, and future. This feeling makes me want to honor my ancestors and loved ones who have passed and treasure the present, make the most of it, know that each precious moment is a gift. These stories cause me to reflect, “What legacy do I want to create? What stories do I want to seed the earth? How will I compose the campo santo, holy field, of my life?”
Comfort, grounding, and hope blossom within this knowing that our life stories are a tiny, magnificent parts of a timeless and vast majestic whole.
TESOL International Convention 2026 happened in Salt Lake City, Utah. Now, I do reognize that it is a major professional gathering—steeped in research, theories, and methods of effective language acquisition—of educators from around the world who come to share and learn about language teaching.
It is also a hug fest of people who get to see each other once a year!
I had the privilege of participating on three panels for this year’s TESOL. I share here, so that the ripples of connection and ideas may continue.
With Dr. Ching-Ching Lin
PANEL: Decolonizing Multilingualism: Sustainability, Indigenous Knowledges, and Linguistic Justice
The authors, work, and ideas of contributors to the Special Issue “The Intersectionality of Multilingualism, Indigenous Knowledges, and Sustainability” (June 2025) within the Journal of Education for Multilingualism (JEM) composed this panel. Co-Editors Dr. Paul Meighan and Dr. Ching-Ching Lin convened contributors whose work is featured in the issue. We created videos of the work published in the issue. Dr. Meighan speaks with Dr. Robert Phillipson about “Resisting Linguistic Imperialism: A Conversation with Robert Phillipson on Linguistic Human Rights, Multilingualism, and Indigenous and Minority Languages.” I present my ideas about “Constellations: Decolonizing Multilingualism through Lilyology, Scholarly Personal Narrative, Wildness, Beauty, Imagination,” and Dr. Madoka Hammine speaks of “Back to the Future: Language Reclamation with Land and Ocean.”
Hear of all directly through the video:
PANEL: One-Year National Curriculum Reform: Coffee, Chaos, and Lessons Learned
Mary Scholl, Kim Carroll, Dr. Suzan Kobashigawa, Me, Sara Davila
What an adventure this panel shared about our year creating national curriculum reform. Sara Davila, Mary Scholl, Kim Carroll, Dr. Suzan Kobashigawa and myself shared what we learned creating a national curriculum for English Language Teaching (ELT) for another country. We served as the international experts and worked with phenomenal national expert educators who joined our panel through videos. Some of what we shared was the invaluable importance of trust, patience, empathy, creativity, and plain old hard work. We spoke of finding ways to honor the expertise, culture, and languages of the home country. What gift for Sara to bring us back together again!
PANEL: Impact of English as Official Language on Programs and Peoples
Dr. Michelle Land, Me, Dr. Sonya Bertini, Dr. Mary Collins
In this panel, we explored the very real impacts happening around the United States due to English as Official Language policies. We discussed how policy impact differs according to state. A central theme that threaded and connected our presentations is the harmful nature of these policies and how these policies hurt children and adults and work against equitable access to education and greater civic participation and life. A reflection of the connective relationships within TESOL was the blessing of getting to know one of Mom’s former students, Sonya! Mom and Sonya worked together through the College of New Jersey in Mallorca, Spain years ago. Love this!
Translanguaging at TESOL
Wtih Dr. Andrés Ramírez
One experience that really stayed with me is one that my dear friend, Dr. Andrés Ramírez, and I shared. One of the elements that makes TESOL so special isthat it is often the one time per year that you get to see these dear friends. Such is the case with amazing Andrés. We met through the Multilingual-Bilingual Interest Section and his connection with Mom many years ago. We share the same birthday, March 28. Mom and I always shared our March birthdays (Mom is March 20) at TESOL with birthday slumber parties. Lots of birthday energy at the TESOL convention for us!
TESOL is our one time of the year that Andrés and I get to connect and catch-up. We sat on a couch in the center of Exhibition Hall. We spoke mostly in Spanish, threaded with a few English words or phrases. We were intent on our conversation and fairly oblivious to what was happening around us. We talked as fast as we could, trying to fit as much in as possible during our brief time together. Life, work, writing, my time in Andrés’ native Colombia and his incredible work that he’s doing there.
“Do you mind if I interrupt you?” asked a woman sitting on the couch across from us and startled us out of our conversation. We had been so deep into what we’d been talking about that we just stared at her for a second
“I noticed that you were speaking in Spanish, but then you used some English, and then back to Spanish,” she said. “How do you decide which language to use?” Her energy and intention were genuine.
“We don’t really think about it. We just do it. It’s what bilingual and multilingual people naturally do.” We mentioned translanguaging, which is a professional area for both of us.
Had to bring Frida, gift from my parents.
“I do think that when kids who speak other languages are in school in the United States,” she said, “they should speak English in the classroom. I teach Newcomers and all of the language groups hang out together. The Chinese stick together and speak Chinese. The Russians stay together and speak Russian. The Guatemalans all stay together and speak Spanish.”
Andrés and I gave a collective deep inhalation and paused. I felt each of us thinking, Do we use some of our treasured time together to go into the vast subject of translanguaging and language acquisition. We did. As we contemplated after, it was her open energy that encouraged us. She genuinely wanted to understand. And, she genuinely was taken with our use of weaving in and out of Spanish and English, something that any bilingual or multilingual person does without giving it much thought.
Andrés shared examples of how often what is happening in these situations is people of the same language and culture are making-meaning together of this new experience, asking each other questions, discussing experiences, sharing resources how to navigate a new country, culture, and language. Not only are they gaining access to content and information, they are making meaning and creating relevancy. This is what we want happening in schools.
“People often assume that if people are speaking a language other than English,” shared Andrés, “that they are talking about you.”
She nodded.
“When you think about it,” Andrés continued gently, “that’s a pretty self-centered perspective. There are much more important things than you to talk about.” I watched this exchange and it was the openness of the woman and Andres’ energy that encouraged understanding.
She nodded again.
She asked some very good and very big questions about translanguaging, questions that deserved more time and attention than we had at that moment and we gave her our cards. Perhaps one day we’ll hear from her and our conversation will continue.
Hopefully, whatever happens, seeds of ideas were planted that caused reflection on assumptions. Hopefully, there are young Newcomers in her classes who can now make meaning in their mother tongues without the tension of feeling they are doing something wrong. Hopefully, this may now even be encouraged.
This experience embodied the spirit of TESOL, the essence of the three panels, an expression of decolonizing multilingualism, the importance of relationship in teaching, the harm that comes from English-only policies—and the the potential for deepened understandings, learning, and growth that comes through human connection.
Me with newborn foal, Cascabel Land & Cattle, Co., AZ 1978
I love this photo. Mom and Daddy woke me to experience this foal’s birthing. Still in my pajamas, I pulled on my Wranglers and a sweater. We headed to the corrals. I must’ve been too excited to think of my boots. Daddy had brought the mare in to keep an eye on her. We knew that her time was close. The San Pedro River bluffs that framed, shaped, and sculpted my life rise above the corral fence. The mare heaved in the corner. We watched. Two small hooves emerged, and then a tiny nose, a head. A great push and suddenly the foal lay in a wet, folded heap on the ground. The mare turned and licked, nudged, whinnied softly. To witness a soft, slick bundle of foal composed of impossibly long limbs rise and stand is one of life’s great blessings. Slowly, first one leg, and the collapse. Then, another try, and falls to the side. Attempt, failure. Attempt, failure, falls. Again and again, until those supposed failures reflect the necessary steps of whole of the process, not failures at all. Each attempt and fall, not a failure, but a meaningful element of the process that results in the foal standing, trembling those four giraffe-like legs, a miracle.
Much like the entrance of the Year of the Horse.
Disclaimer — I don’t know much about Chinese New Year. I’ve never followed. That said this year’s transition from the Year of the Snake to the Year of the Horse resonates. I find myself reading and learning…and hoping. When the initial posts and announcements of the approaching end Year of the Snake 2025 and the entrance of the Year of the Horse 2026 appeared, they caught my attention.
Year of the Snake (2025)
Introspection & Strategy: A time for deep thinking, intuition, and planning rather than rushing.
Shedding the Old: Focuses on letting go of bad habits, relationships, or old versions of yourself.
Wisdom & Truth: Encourages uncovering hidden truths and acting with careful intention.
Truth
Grief
Endings
Release
End of cycles
Shedding
Lifting of veils
Year of the Horse (2026)
Action & Momentum: Fast-paced energy that pushes for progress and tangible results.
Transformation: Represents the implementation of changes planned during the Snake year.
Movement
New beginnings
Alignment
Passion
Freedom
Beauty
Flow
I painted images in my journal and wrote the messages. I pulled my watercolors off the shelf and wiped the dust that had collected for the past several months. I played and painted in my journal, which became increasingly messier and messier.
I drew and and painted. I spent years in my childhood drawing horses, coloring horses, painting horses. I still remember the flow of the lines, but it had been a while since I’d sketched a horse. In some of the paintings, my horses had the head of a mule. I could just hear Daddy! In other paintings, the head was of a horse, and the hind end of a giraffe. I didn’t care. I flipped through pages and pages of my journal, drawing, painting, and somehow when the head looked like a horse, the body looked didn’t. When the body was smooth and graceful, the head reminded me more of a dragon. The foreloks of some of the horses made them look like unicorns, which I loved.
As the pages evolved, and this happened again and again, I realized how perfect the expression of ink on the page. What an apt expression of how I enter this year, stumbling, trying, sometimes graceful as the horses winnowy body, other times as a dragon’s head on the body of a giraffe.
So, we turn the page and try again…and again, and again. Many of us enter this year much as the Cascabel newborn foal in a folded bundle on the ground trying to get his legs under him to rise.
I trust in the shedding of the old and that the universe holds us as we enter this new year, the Year of the Majestic Horse.
Mom and I talked of this, last year’s grief and the hope of the symbolism of the horse for this new year. Oh, do we hope so.
May we enter the new Year of the Horse hoping, trying, determined to get our legs under us — messy, often stumbling, tumbling, and falling, and other times poetic, graceful, fluid, powerful. It’s really all we can do.
Wishing you movement, clarify, passion, alignment with your soul’s calling, freedom, beauty, and flow.
“To accompany” : to go with as an associate or companion
This past year taught me much, including many life lessons that continue to swirl within the snow globe of our lives that was shaken and has yet to settle. One element that shines through is the gentle and fine art of accompanying that I have witnessed and experienced.
To accompany is to simply be with a person in their pain during difficult life chapters. To accompany is listen and to be comfortable in shared silence. Our human tendency is to want to fix, to put a positive spin, to explain, to help. The art of accompanying is to resist that urge and not to fix, not to deny the depth, not to explain, not to give advice—to simply be with and accompany in sorrow, not to take on their pain, but to be with them in it. There is comfort and reassurance with this, an affirmation, a sense of belonging. Accompanying helps to create firm ground under one’s feet when it feels as if the world has fallen away.
To accompany in times of joy and jubilant times seems to come naturally. We are caught up in the good energy and momentum of moments of happiness and celebration! It is easier to stumble in accompanying in times of grief and pain. We so desperately want to help our loved ones. And yet it is in sorrow, that we perhaps need accompanying the most, to simply acknowledge, honor, and share space within the pain. There is great reassurance and comfort in accompaniment during times of distress and confusion. To accompany creates a sense of deep unity, strength. To accompany in grief, as well as joy encompasses the natural ebb and flow of life tides.
I have been beyond blessed to have experienced beautiful and soul-deep accompanying in the past months. “The deepest healing occurs in relationships,” writes Thomas Hübl, an important reminder for those of us who prefer to grieve privately, in the sacred space of solitude. Francis Weller writes in The Wild Edge of Sorrow that “those of us who live in the West are conditioned to accept the notion of private pain. This cultural conditioning predisposes us to maintain a lock on our grief, shackling it in the smallest concealed place in our soul. In our isolation, we deprive ourselves of the very things that we require to stay emotionally vital: community, ritual, nature, compassion, reflection, beauty, and love.”
It is possible to do both—to honor the private journey, as well as allow accompaniment.
THE HEALING TIME
Finally on my way to yes
I bump into
all the places
where I said no
to my life
all the untended wounds
the red and purple scars
those hieroglyphs of pain
carved into my skin and bones,
those coded messages
that send me down the wrong street
again and again,
the old wounds
the old misdirections
and I lift them
one by one
close to my heart
and I say holy
holy.
~Pesha Gertler
I hope that I may have gleaned wisdom from the grace shared and will move through the world remembering these lessons, and sow the grace shown to me.
A new year — rife with expansiveness and openness, a blank canvas upon which to create. In the quiet early morning magic hours, I sat with my journal around what I hope to weave into and throughout this new year. I stared into the candles, drank my dark coffee, and listened.
Through the stillness, several rhythms, experiences, and actions emerged and spilled out through the tip of my pen and onto the page. All are quite vulnerable yet, so I shall protect their privacy and emergent tenderness. Some are personal and some professional, they intertwine, as they do in our lives.
Some of the themes that came through include creating, art, deep reading, energy movement, deep writing, a focus on gratitude. I enter this new year with such gratitude for each magnificent spirit who walked with me this past year. I learned a lot, including the infinite and exponential impacts of kindness, extended love, roots, caring, and connection.
I am grateful for you, reading this now, sharing our lives in all of our humanity.
We move through our life journeys with an ebb and flow to giving and receiving, holding and letting go. We each go through times of fluidity and light, and times of darkness, a long lonely tunnel where we cannot see the end. Our connections ground and strengthen us, uplift us.
“Sorrow is a part of the earth’s great cycles, flowing into the night like cool air sinking down a river course,” writes Kathleen Dean Moore. “To feel sorrow is to float on the pulse of the earth, the surge from living to dying, from coming into being to ceasing to exist. Maybe that is why the earth has power over time to wash sorrow into a deeper pool, cold and shadows. And maybe this is why, even though sorrow never disappears, it can make a deeper connection to the currents of life and so connect, somehow to sources of wonder and solace.”
“The true language of humanity is not spoken or written, it is the universal language of resonance and emotion,” shares Thomas Hübl.
So, as I sat and listened with intention what my spirit yearns to include in this year, sources of life, of creativity, of resonance, of moving energy. May this year include laughter, connection, creation, community, and meaningful work. We lit farolitos (in New Mexico)/luminarias (in Arizona) this year, their soft glow in the darkness felt deeply peaceful, soothing, hopeful. This past year I learned that the heart has an infinite ability to break, and I trust that it also has an infinite ability to heal. When I think of the experiences of this past year, I am mindful of how I might interpret and convey those experiences and learning in ways that may provide that soft glow in the darkness in the world. How this will be embodied remains ephermal, though I do have some ideas, which I shall share with you here as their journeys unfold.
I anticipate that much of this creation will be very messy! I intend to play, listen, have fun, and sink deeply, unafraid to share with the world.
“You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment. Fools stand on their island of opportunities and look toward another land. There is no other land; there is no other life but this.” ~ Henry David Thoreau
“Find your eternity in each moment.”
Here’s to an upcoming year of weaving into life what our spirit beckons. Here’s to creation, light, energy movement, exploration, play, music, color, beauty, transformative reading, wild writing, and deep connection with people, meaning, and purpose.
Last year’s altar was all about adding the family photos that I’d just received of various members of our family. I always think of an altar of love as our family landscape, a connective gathering for the years, cultures, places, and languages that thread throughout.
If Day of the Dead/Día de los Muertos is new to you, please learn more about this amazing tradition:
I’ll be honest, I had to dig deep this year. All is still so tender and vulnerable with Bo. What gives me strength is that despite what he might say, he would love all of the ritual, tradition, and love going into creating his place of honor on the ofrenda this year, the altar. He would love seeing his worn gloves, the tapatio sauce, his sweat-stained hats, which I love to wear.
Right now, I think of each of us with our loved ones who have passed, all of us navigating the unexpected waves of grief that flood over us. Amazing how those waves can come out of apparently smooth seas! This season is about honoring and celebrating our loved ones.
I think of this when I straighten Bo’s cap and hat on his frame. During this season that the veil is so thin between the realms, with the marigolds leading our loved ones to the altar, I lift energy of love for all.
I don’t like formal gardens. I like wild nature. It’s just the wilderness instinct in me, I guess. –Walt Disney
I walk outside to see the wild and feral gardens that are the rhythm of fall. Summer is a time of tending, watering, and encouraging the garden to preen and pose at its best. At least for me, by late summer and early fall the gardens have let their hair down and are running with wild abandon and exuberance into winter.
I love my feral fall gardens. They are the essence of wildness, beauty, and freedom. When I walk through the flowers now, I don’t worry about trimming or pruning, and instead revel in their wildness. Its an adventure to walk through the flowers now and wonder what I’ll find. The rose bushes are layered under the butterfly mint and sunflowers, bees hover around the Russian sage, and I have to pull layers of stems and flowers aside to walk through.
Flowers lean and keel wantonly with the weight of long stems, petals, and the weight as they burst into seed. I know that soon I’ll be cutting all back, so all are set free in these final weeks. Now, I get to discover what they’ll do.
I treasure these final weeks of wildness in my gardens. I know that winter will be here far sooner than I’d like and this wild, exultant, colorful, texture-laden space will be barren and brown when not covered with snow. It will be a long wait before this space fills with color again here in Santa Fe, mid-June. March, April, and May are loooooooong months here in Santa Fe, as I wait for the earth to thaw. Of the many beauties of Santa Fe, spring is not one of them. It is cold, barren, and brown until the end of May. We move almost instantly from winter to summer here, with no real spring to speak of. This is why I treasure these weeks and let the gardens take the bit in their mouth and race freely. I drop the reins of the wild horse of my gardens, hold my arms high to my sides, and go whereve this galloping horse takes us. It is a sense of pure freedom and joy.
I look out the kitchen window onto the secret garden embodies the spirit after which it was named.
In these days of all, the beauty, freedom, and exuberance of wild and feral fall gardens to you!
Mom, Daddy, and I were out for our morning walk on the ranch when we looked up to see this white rainbow amidst the ranch beauty. None of us had ever seen a white rainbow before, or even heard of one. We’ve taken to calling rainbows “Rain-Bos” ever since Mr. Subtle made his presence known for us.
“Look at that! Way to go, Bo!” we said.
I read of white rainbows and discovered:
“A white rainbow symbolizes purity, spirituality, and hope and is a natural phenomenon caused by light refracting through the tiny water droplets of fog, resulting in muted or missing colors. In some Buddhist traditions, it signifies a liberated soul’s passing, while in others, its serene and otherworldly beauty inspires inner peace and spiritual insight.
Symbolic Meanings
Spiritual Purity and Liberation: In Tibetan Buddhism, seeing a white rainbow is a profound spiritual sign, indicating a person’s spiritual attainment and release from the cycle of rebirth.
Hope and Renewal: The ethereal beauty of a white rainbow can serve as a symbol of hope and renewal.
Inner Peace and Insight: Its serene and otherworldly appearance can act as a gentle reminder to seek inner peace, spiritual growth, and to be more attuned to spiritual truths.
A “Circle of Wholeness”: They are sometimes called the “Circle of Ulloa” after the scientist who described them, and can represent the full spectrum of light, or a connection between different spiritual realms.
We celebrated my younger brother, Bo Wink’s, life on September 13th. Bo’s sons, Dean Austin and Garrett, and I each spoke during the Family Time of Remembering.
This is what I shared, including some of what I didn’t say, because my notes were tear-smeared or I simply accidentally skipped.
I began by lighting a candle to invite the spirits, as Isabel Allende does. I also held a cup of water aloft to remind us that transformation is occuring, even when invisible, just as water evaporates. I have done these rituals for years. They have taken on new significance with Bo’s passing.
***
My brother, Bo Wink. Bo lived a big life, whether it was flying around the world doing the work that he loved as an agronomist or walking the Cheyenne River breaks on the ranch. He went to the Netherlands and Chile like I go to the grocery store.
Bo was born into a tight nest of friends in Yankton, South Dakota, which Mom referred to as the womb. Many of those dear friends are here now. Thank you for coming, dear MJ Lunetta, Roger and Annie Smith, and Nancy Cuthbert. Mary and Frank Main, you are with us.
1975, Wyoming Ranch, Bo is with Mom in the middle.
Bo Wink
Thank you to all joining virtually. Your presence and honoring and love for Bo are palpalple. You are here with us. You are here, Cousin Dirk, despite the plane reversal. Bormans from Mobridge, and Cousin Troy.
From South Dakota, with a few stops in between, we moved to a ranch in the Sonoran Desert of Arizona, in an area known as Cascabel, which means the rattles of a rattlesnake in Spanish. Growing up, my brother and I had few rules carved in stone, and instead explored our outer and inner landscapes with relative freedom. The rules we had, though, we understood were not to be breached: Never climb into the corral if there’s a bull in there. Always leave a gate as you find it.
Bo and I spent summers walking beside the front-end loader, tossing the rocks that the disc had turned up in the alfalfa field into the bucket of the tractor. Then, there was the time that Bo accidentally set the hay field on fire with a flamethrower. Oops. We were all out there with shovels digging up dirt to throw on the flames and tamp out.
It was in Arizona that we met the Dobras family. Our families were always together. Thank you, Darryl, Mary Ann, Dobie, and Amy for being here. Wendy-bird, you are right here with us. We were, and are; the Moms, the Dads, the Big Birds (Dobie and Winkie), and the Little Birds (Bo, Amy, Wendy).
Joan & Dean Wink, Mary Ann Dobras, Bo, Amy, Wendy, Winkie, Dobie
Only the Little Birds truly know of all of their adventures. Many of those included the three of them driving our 1976 lime green Chevette around the ranch age five—one on the floor board working the gas, another there working the clutch and breaks, and another standing in the drivers seat and steering. I was well into adulthood before I realized that most kids don’t learn how to drive at age five. Although, Bo did learn at three-years-old. On the Wyoming ranch, my dad taught him how to stand and steer while Dad threw hay bales out of the back. Bo knew to yell, “Ditch, Daddy, ditch!” when they approached an irrigation ditch. Dad would then hop out, get on the cab, press the brake to slow the pickup through the ditch, and then jump out and hop back into the pickup bed to keep throwing out bales for the cattle. A few times Bo didn’t yell the warning and bounced Dad right out of the back.
Amy, Bo, Wendy
When you lay the Wink and Dobras photo albums side-by-side, they mirror one another. What these albums reveal is that the Little Birds found clothing overly restrictive and couldn’t be bothered with that riff-raff. Clothing fell by the wayside. Bo, however, maintained his standards, his priorities firmly in place. Even when there was not another stitch of clothing, he kept his socks on.
We moved from the Arizona ranch to Davis, CA. Thank you so much to Brian Briggs and John Felts. The transition from ranch to town was not smooth. Bo loved BMX bikes and brought his from the ranch. One evening not long after we’d moved into town, Mom and Dad saw one of Bo’s friends fly smoothly by the house on his 10-speed. Not long after, Bo came along, peddling madly on his little BMX. Shortly thereafter, a Davis bike cop followed. Dad turned to Mom and said, “We gotta get that kid a faster bike.”
Margaret Pyfer/Maggie Schimke
The transition from ranch to town was even bumpier for two country kids used to unlimited space to make noise. Not long after arriving in Davis, Bo and I were wrestling, as we did all the time. We heard a knock on the door. I had him in a head lock and he had his arms and legs wrapped around me. Without releasing the other, we stumbled over to open the door. A police officer stood there when we opened the door. “We received a call of a potential break in and injuries. Are you okay?” the police offer asked. Without releasing the headlock or waist hold, we looked at each other and said, “All good here, Officer.”
Dear friend, Maggie, wrote, “One memory I will always cherish is of when your parents took you, Bo, and me to my first rodeo. I was seated up front, between Dean and Joan, and you and Bo were in the backseat goofing around. Eventually, the messing around turned into a full-blown, 3D wrestling match with arms and legs flailing. I remember howling with laughter as I caught sight of ankles, your hair, then ankles again in the rear view mirror—and all of this was before we arrived at the rodeo and the real bronco riding began.”
Bo then grew much bigger than me. Oh, did he whallop me, much to Mom and Dad’s delight. Karma is real, baby.
This past year, wild how the narrative arc of life happens. Again, it was the four of us on the ranch. While I wasn’t living there, the rhythms of our lives were intimately interconnected. Bo and I spoke three, four, five times a day, every day. We still do. We talked of life, love, and journeys. I learned that he is fascinated with aliens and the world’s mysteries. While there were issues that we disagreed about, we left those to the side and focused on the many more things that we agreed upon. First and foremost of these was our immense gratitude that somehow we lived under the most blessed of stars and had been born to Dean and Joan Wink. We marveled at our luck. Our shared acknowledgement and gratitude for our parents was the the foundation upon which all else rested and we knew it.
Dean and Joan Wink
Bo Wink
Here is what I can tell you about Bo Wink. He gave his all every single day. Like all of us, we are each just so rife with humanity, so filled with imperfection. Bo loved deeply. He fiercely loved his family and friends.
I’ve come to realize that Bo is on Kairos time, God’s opportune time, time of divine intervention. His spirit is on a journey far vaster than our human experience. He is fulfilling that journey. Bo would want us to go forth and thrive, laugh raucously, love fiercely, and probably put something in the smoker. How he loved the ranch. Maggie wrote, “May you feel his presence in the prairie winds blowing through the grasses.” That is what we shall do.
Bo’s passing into the next realm created a catastrophic shift in the tectonic plates of our family’s world. And yet, while the constellation of these plates shifted and settled into a different composition, we are still together—interconnected in a new way—and always will be.
Bo loved the pair of bald eagles that have a nest on our ranch. The adolescents are just starting to explore and take flight. On my last trip to the ranch, we went and watched as the eagles circled and soared through the sky.
The Winks have a tradition. We say good-bye with a rodeo queen wave.
Here’s to you, Bo Wink. Forever loved.
Fly, eagle, fly.
The first morning Mom and Dad were home after the service, this eagle greeted them. You can’t make this stuff up.
The first morning Mom and Dad were home after the service, this eagle greeted them. You can’t make this stuff up.
“Silver Wings” was the funeral song of Cascabel. As the evening grew late and all gathered around a campfire, sitting on the tailgates of pickups and folding chairs, eventually the guitars would come out, throats cleared of tears, and we sang. Of course, this had to be the song to sing Bo off.
Photos from Bo’s service, beautifully created by Lisa Wink, for Mr. Subtle.
Thank you ever so much to all who have reached out to connect with such love and compassion. Your memories and love for my brother, Bo, are so very beautiful to receive. Thank you.
A memorial service will be held at Sun Prairie United Methodist Church, 702 North Street, Sun Prairie, WI at 11:00 am (Central Daylight Time) on Saturday, September 13, with a luncheon to follow. Visitation will be at 9:00 am.
We all navigate the ebbs and flows of intense life chapters. I share here some kinesthetic motions that my dear friend, Barbara Piper, starts each day with to Accept, Soothe, Renew, and Release. These grounding motions and ideas are my anchors at 1am, 2am, 3am for the past weeks. Perhaps these might be grounding for you, as well. They help me breathe, which has not come easily in the past weeks. Here we go:
One of my fav photos of us. We lived in a tiny house on Pearl Street in Yankton, SD. Daddy built a bed several feet off the ground, so Bo and I could play underneath. Here we were on this bed. Circa 1973
What to do when a vortex of traumatic life events come together at the same time and the world makes no sense, and the once-firm ground under your feet falls away. Thank you to Jennifer Wolfe, for telling me to focus on the next right thing. I googled where this came from and was so surprised to discover this song, from Frozen 2, which I’ve seen multiple times, as it’s one of Wynn’s favorites. Oh, this song…
The lyrics landed in a completely new way this time.
“I’ve seen dark before But not like this This is cold This is empty This is numb The life I knew is over The lights are out Hello, darkness I’m ready to succumb
I follow you around I always have But you’ve gone to a place I cannot find This grief has a gravity It pulls me down But a tiny voice whispers in my mind “You are lost, hope is gone But you must go on And do the next right thing”
Can there be a day beyond this night? I don’t know anymore what is true I can’t find my direction, I’m all alone The only star that guided me was you How to rise from the floor When it’s not you I’m rising for? Just do the next right thing Take a step, step again It is all that I can to do The next right thing
I won’t look too far ahead It’s too much for me to take But break it down to this next breath This next step This next choice is one that I can make
So I’ll walk through this night Stumbling blindly toward the light And do the next right thing And with the dawn, what comes then When it’s clear that everything will never be the same again? Then I’ll make the choice To hear that voice And do the next right thing.”
I try to stay focused on the next right thing:
Water the flowers.
Address work needs.
Bake cookies for those that I love.
Order condolence thank you notes.
Write the obituary
Run
These lyrics feels particularly resonant:
I won’t look too far ahead It’s too much for me to take But break it down to this next breath This next step This next choice is one that I can make
Here’s to all of our listening to hearing that tiny whispering voice, and doing the next right thing.
Dean, Joan, and Dawn Wink honor the life of our beloved son and brother, Bo Wink. Bo unexpectedly passed away of a heart attack this week.
Bo loved his career as an agronomist and traveled the world doing seed research. Bo loved his friends, science, seeds, birds, and the Cheyenne River breaks on our ranch in western South Dakota.
One of my all-time favorite places in South Dakota,—and on Planet Earth—is Prairie Edge and Sioux Trading Post, Trading Co. & Galleries in Rapid City. Whenever I am on the ranch, a trip to Prairie Edge is always very high on the list. The beauty within this space never ceases to leave me speechless, lost in all.
Prairie Edge, Rapid City, SD
Here, just a glimpse of the art, history, spirit, colors, textures, and sounds of this incredible place that inspired some of the beading scenes in Meadowlark:
Daisy set down her beading and moved t stand beside Grace. A panorama of unearthly lights shimmered and swayed through the sky, dancing flashes of blue, pink, green, and yellow shimmered through the heavens. Spanning behind the colors, infinite numbers of stars, glowing crystals that spattered across the blanket velvet in mily swirls and hazy spirals.
Daisy raised her hand to touch the pane, settling her palm against the cold glass, “Woímnayankel.”
“What does that mean?”
That is a word that is difficult to explain in English. We say this when we experience something so big, so grandm that we are humbled at the the same time it makes us feel we are a part of greatness.”
The women stood close. Grace put her arm across Daisy’s thin shoulders and said, “It makes me fee so very small, We’re just dpecs really, compared to the heavens.”
I just tried something interesting and typed “Meadowlark, beads, Daisy” into ChatGPT. This is what come up:
“In Meadowlark by Dawn Wink, Daisy Standing Horse is Grace’s half–Lakota friend who embodies cultural tradition, resilience, and creative beauty through her art of beading by candlelight. The descriptions of Daisy beading are rich with symbolism, friendship, and emotional healing.
🌾 Daisy and Her Beads — Meaning in the Novel
1. Cultural Connection & Heritage
Daisy’s beading is firmly rooted in Lakota tradition. The novel highlights her skill and devotion to creating beadwork, especially in scenes where “she and Grace were intent on their beading and sewing in front of the fire”Dawn Wink: Dewdrops+9Dawn Wink: Dewdrops+9Dawn Wink: Dewdrops+9.
These moments of craftsmanship symbolize cultural continuity, ancestral memory, and the expression of identity in a time of hardship.
2. Beauty Amid Hardship
Against the starkness of prairie life, beads—often described as “twinkling in the candlelight”—serve as tiny bursts of beauty and hopeDawn Wink: Dewdrops.
Daisy’s beadwork brings warmth and light to Grace’s world, suggesting that creativity and companionship can temper suffering.
3. Friendship & Emotional Support
Daisy’s presence and artistic practice provide emotional sustenance for Grace. Their shared creative space becomes a haven where Grace can find peace.
As Grace heals—especially following trauma—the act of witnessing and participating in Daisy’s craft becomes therapeutic, weaving threads of connection between them.
4. Symbolism of Transformation
Beads and the act of threading them hint at larger themes of stitching together scattered lives. Grace, too, is working to weave together her past, her identity, and her fragile hopes.
The novel’s rich description of threaded beads (even the blog posts about threaded beads speak to hope, perseverance, and small pieces creating a broader whole) echoes that metaphor
I love it.
I honor the rich Lakota history, art, and music and share a bit of the beauty with you here.
Lakota Star Quilts that mark a girl entering womanhood in Lakota tradition.
Glistening beads.
Prairie Edge, Rapid City, SD
“Isn’t she beautiful,” the woman behind the counter asked me.
Please enjoy some of the beauty from the Great Plains of western South Dakota. Last year’s time on the ranch found us gathered with all kids together for the first time in many years. This year took Noé and I up through Denver to see Wyatt and Natasha. Then on to the ranch with Dad, Mom, and Bo. I brought garden bouquets from Santa Fe, and Mom had a prairie bouquet waiting for us.
The amazing rains from this spring has the prairie green even in early July.
I arrived to matching jammies and robe from Mom.
Arrived to matching jammies and robes from Mom.
As Mom said, we fit as much as possible into the days that we were on the ranch. This included the beauty of the Cheyenne River Breaks.
Cheyenne River Breaks, South Dakota
Time on the ranch with Daddy and Bo, including finding two snake skins in a well pit.
Snake skins in the well pit.
Daddy/Dean Wink, Bo Wink, me, Noé Villarreal
Beautiful prairie sunset.
As long as I’m with Daddy, we could be doing anything on the ranch and I would be happy. This came home for me when we were dragging a dead calf out of a dam. Ah, to dispel the romanticism of ranching. Sorry. When he went out to start up the tractor for a round bale for the horses, I said, “You’re not ditching me! I’m coming with you,” and I climbed up into the cab, just as I’ve been doing as long as I can remember.
As happy now as when I was doing this same thing at 5-years-old.
Extra special time with brother, Bo.
Bo Wink
Horses on horizon.
It’s always hard to portray all of the ranch, the experience, the roots, the vastness of the emotional experience and physical landscape into a single piece. I’ll share elements in distinct pieces, much like the different lenses of a single prims that casts it’s individual rainbow.
An especially beautiful rainbow cast during our time on the ranch was the evening that I spent with the horses: Josie, Frankie, Lucky, and Buster.
It was the beautiful golden hour just as the sun sets. All had worked hard outside all day and settled in. I really wanted to see Josie and be with the horses. So, as all settled into watching a movie, I made sure the the volume was loud and closed the blinds to the west toward the pasture the horses were in. (I later learned that Mom asked them to turn down the volume and opened the blinds, but I didn’t know that then.) I called Bo, asked him to remind me how to start the four-wheeler.
“Cover for me if anyone asks where I am.” I was heading out to bring the horses in. “Come looking for me if I’m not back in a couple of hours.”
I headed to the machine shed and found the four-wheeler well behind several other machines. It’s amazing the strengh of the power of desire. I rocked the driving lawn mower back and forth out of the way, and got the four-wheeler pushed past the tractor. I didn’t turn it on, as I didn’t want my parents to hear. I was like a teenager sneaking out of the house!
I pushed the four-wheeler through the gate into the corral. Once safely hidden behind the machine shed, I started it up and headed up the alley leading into the pastures. The setting sun cast all in gold. Gilded trees liked the creek. Blades of grass ablaze with light everywhere. The horses silhouettes on the horizon glistened.
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It has been an extraordinarily difficult past year. As the prairie opened before me, I gassed the four-wheeler and whooped, cheered, and shouted as loud as I could. I stood up on the four-wheeler, gassed it, and headed into the north pasture not to scare the horses, even though I’m sure they heard me. I let me hair down from its hair clip, took in the golden light, and continued to whoop, holler, yell, cry, and laugh over the prairie. Yet again, as she has over so many years, the prairie took me in, accepted, soothed, renewed, and released me.
Then, I brought in the horses.
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Josie inspired the mare, Mame, in Meadowlark. Frankie (named after ol’ Blue Eyes Sinatra) is her son. Josie is a grullo. Frankie is an albino. They make for a striking pair. I’ve always felt a special bond with Josie, right from the first days that I met her. Thus, she became a primary character in Meadowlark and especially important for Grace. The last time that I was on the ranch, I clipped a piece of her mane, which is now saved in my drawer.I tried to get a photo of our manes together.
Several descriptions immediately came to mind when I first read the Table of Contents of the upcoming publication, including magical, creative, innovative, and lush. I was over the moon to learn that my paper was accepted, and wrote much of it during the early morning magic hours.
Editorial Languages of the Land: Indigenous Knowledges, Linguistic and Epistemic Justice, and Multilingual Futures offers the VISION AND ETHOS OF THE SPECIAL ISSUE “The contributions to this issue span geographies worldwide from the Maldives to New Mexico, from Mexico to Denmark, and from the Ryukyu Islands to Scotland. They are linked not by uniformity of method, but by a shared commitment to relationality, community, resistance, hope, and imagination. The articles, both empirical and conceptual, explore and demonstrate how language is a vessel of ecological memory, a tool for reimagining education, and a terrain of struggle against colonialism and imperialism. Together, they compose a compelling mosaic of scholarship, activism, and story” (p. 3). Paul J. Meighan and Ching-Ching Lin
1. Language as ecological knowledge: Whether through land-based learning in the Maldives, storytelling in Mexico, or gardening metaphors in Scotland, these authors illuminate how language encodes, sustains, and transmits ecological knowledge.
2. Reclamation and resistance: Each contribution highlights acts of reclamation—of language, identity, land, and time. These are not nostalgic returns, but forward-facing refusals of colonial logics.
3. Multilingualism as relational practice: Rather than being treated as discrete competencies measured against colonial frameworks and assessments, languages are viewed here as networks of relations between people, places, histories, and futures.
4. Transepistemic transformation: The issue embodies Meighan’s call to move beyond Eurocentric paradigms and colonialingual ideologies. It invites educators and researchers to value multiple ways of knowing, being, and languaging as necessary to just futures (p. 5).
To paint the portrait of the issue, I draw from the Paul and Ching-Ching’s descriptions of each paper within “Languages of the Land: Indigenous Knowledges, Linguistic and Epistemic Justice and Multilingual Futures” (2025).
Research Articles
“Language Gardens: Returning to the Poetics Found in the Linguistic Diversity of the Land”
Back to the Future: Language Reclamation with Land and Ocean“by Madoka Hammine is a study of Indigenous (Ryukyuan) language reclamation among adult L2 learners in Japan. Through the Master-Apprentice language learning model, Hammine illustrates how learners reconnect with ancestral memory, land, and ocean, challenging Western linear notions of time and age. Language learning here becomes a cyclical act of healing, a return to youthfulness through cultural belonging, and an embodiment of ecological relationality” (p. 3).
Language Gardens: Returning to the Poetics Found in the Linguistic Diversity of the Landby Alison Phipps, Tawona Sitholé, and Hyab Teklehaimanot Yohannes draws on permaculture, poetics, and Indigenous epistemologies to frame languages as part of the ecological tapestry. The authors, three displaced Indigenous scholars grounded in Blin, Shona, Ndau, Gaelic, and English, cultivate a metaphor of language gardening—a practice that resists extractive logics and reimagines multilingualism as nourishment, abundance, and relational care in both education and community contexts” (p. 3-4).
Learning from Mexican Indigenous Women’s Life Stories: Multilingualism and Sustainability “by Yesenia Bautista Ortiz, Mario E. López-Gopar, and Ana Edith López Cruz centers two Indigenous Zapotec and Mixtec women in Oaxaca whose lives and linguistic practices illuminate the intersections of gender, sustainability, and Indigenous epistemologies. Through critical ethnography, the authors demonstrate how oral storytelling and language preservation are deeply tied to environmental knowledge and resistance against colonial erasure” (p. 4).
Sustaining Indigenous Language and Knowledge in Island Communities of the Maldives: Challenges and Facilitators “by Naashia Mohamed, Mizna Mohamed, and Mohamed Inaz offers an ethnographic exploration into how climate change and language shift threaten the linguistic and ecological heritage of Indigenous Maldivian island communities. Through their land-language-knowledge nexus, the authors advocate for educational models that embrace relational values and Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) as central to environmental sustainability” (p. 4).
“Constellations: Decolonizing Multilingualism through Lilyology, Scholarly Personal Narrative, Wildness, Beauty, Imagination”
Constellations: Decolonizing Multilingualism through Lilyology, Scholarly Personal Narrative, Wildness, Beauty, Imagination “by Dawn Wink offers an evocative, genre-bending intervention that centers artistic and scholarly personal narrative. Lilyology, an Indigenous framework rooted in ecological and Indigenous metaphors, offers a counter-narrative to linguistic imperialism. Wink shows that imagination, wildness, and beauty are not luxuries but necessities for decolonial pedagogy, particularly when languages and identities are at risk” (p. 4).
Infinite gratitude to Dr. Le Dinh Boa Quoc of Pro.Ed Education Solutions for publishing this piece in EduVerse 20 2.2023, and his amazing editorial team who created such gorgeous aesthetics! EduVerse Newsletter is a curated resource for education professionals, designed to inspire, inform, and connect educators from around the world. Each month, we bring you a collection of insightful articles, expert interviews, industry trends, and valuable resources to keep you at the forefront of the ever-evolving field of education. I am very proud to serve as an EduVerse Ambassador.
I’ve written of my daily ritual of the early morning magic hours. Another of my favorite sacred rituals draws from the wisdom of Isabel Allende and Terry Tempest Williams.
Rituals allow me to divide my year, to organize my life, and to mark a day.
—Isabel Allende
When Isabel Allende sit down to write, she lights a candle to invoke the spirits to join her. She lights a candle every morning before she starts writing. She says that rituals allow her to divide her year, to organize her life, and to mark a day. She believes the candle helps to call upon inspiration and the muses. She writes in silence and solitude, creating a space for focus and creativity, and surrounds herself with pictures of the people she loves, both living and deceased, as a source of inspiration and connection. She blows the candle out when she’s done working, a symbol to rest or do something else.
I love to begin classes and presentations by lighting a candle in honor of Isabel Allende and all the candle represents. In a class that I taught virtually this spring, I lit a candle to begin our weekly gathering on Zoom. As the weeks progressed, students began lighting their own candles. We lifted all in solidarity together.
This ritual brought us together across the miles that physically separated us.
@Terry Tempest Williams
Another ritual that I love and integrate into teaching, presenting, and writing is from Terry Tempest Williams. She writes of the saucer of water that she places on her desk when she’s writing to remind her that transformation is always occurring, even when invisible. She, too, lights a candle. She writes:
For me, writing is a spiritual practice. A small bowl of water sits on my desk, a reminder that even if nothing is happening on the page, something is happening in the room–evaporation. And I always light a candle when I begin to write, a reminder that I have now entered another realm, call it the realm of the Spirit. I am mindful that when one writes, one leaves this world and enters another.
— Terry Tempest Williams
At conferences, I often use a cup from the conference venue and fill with water. More than once, I accidentally drank the transformative water!
These two rituals learned from wise, wonderful women ground my writing, teaching, and learning life. I also love to bring flowers to classes, presentations, and meetings. It is not always possible, but when it is, I try to do so. The best bouquets are the messy, wild bouquets from my garden in the summer. When not possible, colorful arrays from a story add vibrancy and life to the altar composed of candle and water.
When I defended my dissertation, I began by lighting the candle with a small bowl of water beside.
The candle glows in the early morning darkness on my desk as I write, the bowl of water beside.
As I close this piece, a day of writing lies ahead of me. The candle will remain lit and the water invisibly evaporate. Hopefully, the muses and spirits will join me, inspire me. One of the projects that I am working on today is a class grounded in transformative education. The bowl of water gently reminding me of this often invisible transition, not visible, yet laden with energy.
What a pleasure and honor to participate in the 4th International EFL Teachers’ Congress, hosted by Universidad de la Amazonia in Florencia-Caquetá, Colombia. The description of the conference conveys the energy, ideas, and community around all beautifully:
“Set against the breathtaking backdrop of the Amazon rainforest, this congress promises to be a captivating exploration of ‘Interculturality and New Trends in Teaching and Learning English as a Foreign Language.’ As champions of linguistic diversity and cultural exchange, we are excited to bring together educators from around the world to share insights, exchange ideas, and shape the future of English language education. Join us as we delve into the rich tapestry of interculturality, celebrating the myriad ways in which language connects us across borders and cultures. From innovative pedagogical approaches to emerging technologies, this congress will offer a comprehensive overview of the latest trends shaping the field, empowering you to excel in your teaching practice.”
And, indeed, this is exactly what this conference turned out to be, as this video reflects.
Astrid Nuñez Pardo, Jaime Ancajjima, Joshua James Zwisler, Dawn Wink, Jovanna Zivcovic
Conference Chair William Steven Rivera Plazas gathered speakers to share their ideas on a spectrum of ideas. Among the many speakers, Astrid Núñez Pardo spoke to imperialism in EFL textbooks and the coloniality of being, knowledge, and power. She reinforced the need for texts that represent local context within Latin American with dignity. Jaime Ancajima invited us to mediate the world through communities of practice and quality lessons. Joshua James Zwisler reflected on sociolinguist competence, pluralingualism, and transculturality. Jovana Zivkovic focused factors that affect learner experiences: context, learning environment, methodology, interactions, and assessment. William Steven Rivera Plazas shared his expertise and ideas around ICTs (Information and Communication Technology), i.e. computers, internet, as a fundamental element for growth of societies. I shared my ideas around teaching and learning through wildness, beauty, and imagination. Fernanda Felix Binati shared her experiences teaching in India, the power structures within language education, and education as enlightenment. Larissa T. Rico provided a stunning critical analysis of the national linguistic policies of Colombia.
Astrid Núñez Pardo
Jaime Ancajima
Joshua James Zwisler
Dawn Wink
Jovana Zivkovic
Fernanda Felix Binati
Larissa T. Rico
Gathered, all.
Final panel conversation.
The conference was highlighted on TV in Colombia with this piece. I was grateful to speak to the importance of events such as this congress for language teaching within this piece. The energy and people of the conference shine through here, even if you don’t speak Spanish.
A special treat for me was to finally meet the international connector, collaborator, and educator extraordinaire, Jaime Ancajima, in person. Deepest gratitude for new connections and friendships created through this time together. Stevie Rogers took amazing care of me in the lead-up to the conference, as we navigated the multitude of logistics that go into these things.
Thank you so much, Jovanna and Sergio, for treating me to such a lovely afternoon/evening in Bogotá. What a gorgeous time together. We went to the incredible Museo del Oro.
Conferences such as this hold the potential to create professional and personal magic. The beauty of Colombia came alive!
As 2024 draws to an end, I wish first-and-foremost to express my heartfelt gratitude to YOU. While I am writing this letter to our community, as I sit and compose this I am thinking of the individual people who are part of this community. I visualize your face, our shared history, the unique situations that brought us together. You and I met through unique times and places where our paths came together–some through teaching and classes, others through friendship, others through professional organizations, some through Meadowlark and other publications, others who began as professional colleagues and are now forever, treasured friends, and a whole spectrum that covers such diverse landscapes, cultures, languages, time zones, and ever so much more. I love the thought of our continued connection across through the years and across the lands and seas. And, a few of you here have known me since I was 5-years-old and younger. You know who you are. 🙂
I include the video below, a response to an invitation to share our thoughts of gratitude and love as 2024 draws to a close. I belong to a phenomenal community of educators from around the world, created by Jaime Ancajima. I created this video for our community, yet you were also in my mind and heart as I spoke. As I think of what I am grateful for this year, among so many things, I am grateful forconnection. I find that this is easy to let slip away amidst the multitudes of responsibilities and obligations that compose so much of our contemporary lives. I will be the first to admit that often connection gets pushed to the back burner in my own life due to work, deadlines, due dates, and all that comes with doing our best to be present for those we love. In the ebb and flow of life, often there are one or two of those we love who really need our time and attention at any given time. When I sat to compose this message in the video, I really didn’t know what I was going to say, It was after a long day of work, and the sun had already set. I pushed the Record button, wondering myself what I would say. As I spoke, what came through ever more clearly for me was my gratitude for connection.
As I think of intentions for the New Year (and there are many!), primary among them is to be intentional in connecting with those I love, professional communities, personal friends, among others. This also includes connection with books, reading, ideas, and beauty.
I include the pieces published in Dewdrops over the previous year, a collective library of our ideas and experiences shared. If you are anything like me, there are often times that I see something that I want to read, and then am pulled in another direction, only to remember it later (or not) and wonder where I could find that piece again. So, here a little library to peruse and muse.
The Unsaid Between the Lines “As I composed the pieces that created the constellation of the spectrum of the year and sat with my journal to begin 2024, again and again I found myself thinking of all the unsaid between the lines. We all experience those chapters in life when the energy of the events and experiences of the unwritten, the unsaid, outweigh all expressed in words voiced or written on paper…”
Home Run Books and Meadowlark “The journey of writing Meadowlark was one of years of research, writing, reading, and writing some more. The writing journey is a solitary one—we write in the early morning darkness, the snippets of time between other demands, and never really knowing what will become of our heart and spirit that we pour onto the page. Little do we ever know what may happen. This experience of a young woman who doesn’t like to read and her response to Meadowlark keeps me writing. It’s not about us, the writers, it’s about the readers.
“Where did you learn Spanish?” The Amazing Next Chapter Little did I know the magic and love that would come from reconnecting with dear friends from my time living in Chihuahua, Chihuahua, Mexico. It had been 37 years. What I did not know at the time was what a profound experience of connection, love, gratitude, heart, soul, spirit, and connection would follow.
Lilac Love We had lilacs on the Cascabel ranch in Arizona and Grandma Grace planted them on the ranch in South Dakota. Lilacs can live to be more than 100-years-old. When you’re on a country road and see a few seemingly-random lilac bushes, there was most likely a house or farm there in the last century. They were the first plants into the ground when we moved into this house. I planted four different kinds, ranging from light purple to bubble gum pink. This year we started watering early in the spring and the result is an abundance of blooms.
Slide and Glide (or Loud and Proud)—Parkinson’s, One Proud Daughter Here is what most people do not know about Mom—despite her public presence, she is an intensely private person. It is for this reason that I am so heart-stoppingly proud of her latest writing and work: Slide and Glide (or, Loud and Proud. in which she reveals her recent Parkinson’s diagnosis. She writes, “As some of you know, I have a hereditary condition called Essential Tremors. I have known for years that I would get it. It does not change my life much. However, this winter I was also diagnosed with Parkinson’s. At that time, my movements had become very stiff, slow, and rigid… I have two vices: reading and walking. However, this winter, I was not able to...
Wink Ranch Summer 2024 Once kids are grown and off creating their lives in various parts of the country, now with jobs and responsibilities, it can prove tricky to get all together at one place at the same time. It had been six years since we’d been together with all three kids at the same time. We’ve gathered on the ranch throughout the years in different compositions, but it had been too long since we were all there together. This year, inspired by Wynn’s bff, Erin’s, saying, “I really want to go back to the ranch,” I threw down the Mommy gauntlet —”This year, we are all going to the ranch.” And, we did.
Your World for the MomentWhen you take a flower in your hand and really look at it, it’s your world for the moment. I want to give that world to somebody else. ~ Georgia O’Keeffe As the notes of fall land here in the high desert, the flowers of summer are in their final throes of bloom. We received the desert monsoon rains absent the past few years, and our garden thrived. The vibrant lives of flowers, hummingbirds, butterflies, birds, and bees bring exponential amounts of joy, absolutely crazy amounts of joy. I savor. No matter what else was happening in life, the beauty outside the window of my writing room always lifts the cotidian of life.
National Hummingbird Day National Hummingbird Day falls on the first Saturday of the month of September every year. This year the day lands today, September 7th. The hummingbirds who summer with us continue to bring incredible amounts of joy. We have three hummingbird feeders in the yard and another on the window of The Secret Garden, as shown in the video above. They are utterly mesmerizing as they zip and sing about. A few fun facts:
Hollyhock Summer This was The Summer of Hollyhocks. I bought scads of tiny hollyhock sprouts at the beginning of the summer in tiny black containers. There was no identification of kind or color anywhere. I filled my cart and proceeded to plant with enthusiasm, wanton abandon, and quite a bit of curiosity throughout the flower beds in the yard and within The Secret Garden. This summer was an ever-unfolding revelation of jewels!
Life-Changing Books on Writing I love books dedicated to the art and craft of writing! Like all writers, my bookshelves teem with books. This piece focuses on writing books that I read early in my writing life that made a life-changing difference. I inhaled the books here as if they were my breath, oxygen, and in many ways they were. All have notes, scribbles, responses, questions, and sticky notes throughout. These books illuminated served as a treasure map to illuminate my path.
Early Morning Magic Hours I call these the early morning magic hours—a sacred time of solitude and sanctuary, of writing, dreaming, listening, and planning. This is usually the only time during the day that I can sink deeply into listening within to see what emerges. This time births dreams.
Translanguaging, Wildness, Beauty, and Imagination in ELT Video I was delighted to share ideas about “Translanguaging, Wildness, Beauty, and Imagination in ELT (English Language Teaching)” with Teacher Development Webinars. Educators joined in from around the globe, which was a delight. The webinar was 4pm in Pakistan, which is 5am in Santa Fe. We spanned time countries, time zones, and oceans to gather together. The relationship of translanguaging, wildness, beauty, and imagination continue to emerge and connect.
Parkinson’s, Banned Books, and Boxing What do Parkinson’s, banned books, and boxing have in common? Dr. Joan Wink! She has Parkinson’s, reads as many banned books as she can, and is now boxing. Yes, boxing. I shared Mom’s original piece about her Parkinson’s diagnosis in “Slide and Glide (Loud and Proud)—One Proud Daughter. My admiration and pride have grown exponentially since that writing, if that is even possible, as I’ve witnessed Mom dive into researching and sticking to the exercise routines, PT, and medication with a ferocious dedication.
The Handbook of Creative Data Analysis I am over the moon to have a chapter in this book, “Beyond the brick wall: transdisciplinary and creative research through Scholarly Personal Narrative and Lilyology.”My chapter draws on the theoretical framework and methods that I used in my dissertation. One of the biggest surprises of my doctoral studies was that I would fall in love with methods. I know that I loved the ideas and theories. I had no idea that I would become fascinated with methodology. This Handbook of Creative Data Analysis is a veritable treasure trove of creative research methods!
Breast Cancer Awareness Month —A Chapter in the Story and When a Woman you Love has Breast Cancer I’ll admit that I have mixed feelings about writing and publishing this piece. It is October, Breast Cancer Awareness Month. This deserves our attention.That said, I sit now in the early morning magic hours, and stare at my computer screen. That said, I think of the infinite times that I’ve turned to the stories of others for companionship, as I try to navigate my own life path. It is because of the amazing research done that my, and my mom’s, breast cancers were detected and treated. I honor this. Perhaps you know someone on this journey. Perhaps a woman you love has breast cancer and you’re not sure what to say. We’re all in this together.
Life on the Altar—Día de los Muertos As I compose this year’s altar, I feel the gentle taps on my shoulder. “I was here.” This celebration of life and love traces back to pre-Hispanic Aztec rituals. As I place the photos on the altar, I hear laughter, watch the flirtations, see the maternal pride. Each generation feels as if we are reality. The people smiling out from these black and white photos felt the same. Spirits, voices, laughter, movement, and yearning stir on this year’s altar. I hear them, feel them, sense them.
Touching Base, Saying Hello, and New Publication about Teaching with Wildness, Beauty, and Imagination (EduVerse) In the video I also share some news that I am so excited about—I’m thrilled to have my article “Transformative Teaching Through Transdisciplinary Methods: Wildness, Beauty, and Imagination” featured in EduVerse. In this piece, I share ideas how to weave wildness/creativity, beauty/wholeness, and imagination/call to action into teaching and life.
‘Tis the Season for Christmas Tea ‘Tis the season for Christmas Tea, also known as Russian Tea, Friendship Tea, and probably a few other names, as well. A Wink family tradition for Christmas is to read the gorgeous book A Cup of Christmas Tea by Tom Hegg. While this is titled Christmas tea, the story holds for all traditions. This is a human story of roots, memories, and love. Mom’s book is covered and filled with photos of treasured friendships. It is such a beautiful story. I’d love to share our Christmas tradition. Let me read it to you:
Spectrum of the Year 2023 I am so very grateful to you for sharing our life journeys together. I sit looking out at a robin splashing in the birdbath outside my writing room window. The three doves that visit us flew to the fence—and for the first time in years, quails! Oh, do these birds bring me exponential amounts of joy. Oh, this year, this year…More on thoughts for our upcoming year in the next piece. Our lives are rife with humanity, obligations, tugs and pulls in so very many directions. We so often need to be several places at once to tend to the ones we love and the work responsibilities that need tending. More on all of that in next piece. For now, a time of reflection and companionship.
‘Tis the season for Christmas Tea, also known as Russian Tea, Friendship Tea, and probably a few other names, as well.
We are headed to Tucson to celebrate, gathering from several states. It will be a lovely Sonoran Desert Cactus Christmas for us this year.
A Wink family tradition for Christmas is to read the gorgeous book A Cup of Christmas Tea by Tom Hegg. While this is titled Christmas tea, the story holds for all traditions. This is a human story of roots, memories, and love.
Mom’s book is covered and filled with photos of treasured friendships. Every Christmas Mom begins to read this book aloud. In my experience, she has yet to make it through the whole story without the wave of tears that has another reading the final pages.
It is such a beautiful story. I’d love to share our Christmas tradition. Let me read it to you:
Here is my original recipe card, so that you can make. That is my dad, BopBop, hugging a 3-year-old Wyatt, with my brother, Bo, behind him.
I love stirring this recipe. It always reminds me of shifting sands in the desert. I love to use a wooden spoon to do this.
Wishing you and your loved ones a lovely holiday season in your tradition.
So sorry that it’s been a while since I wrote. The past months have been rich and full, including a trip to an incredible conference in Colombia, which I’ll write about in the next post. I was thinking of you and wanted to take a moment to connect, despite the end-of-year intensity, and made this video for you.
In the video I also share some news that I am so excited about—I’m thrilled to have my article “Transformative Teaching Through Transdisciplinary Methods: Wildness, Beauty, and Imagination” featured in EduVerse. The issue focus: “As we navigate the dynamic shifts in education, we find ourselves at a pivotal moment in shaping the future of learning. With great anticipation, we present this special edition of the EduVerse Newsletter, issue 18, dedicated to the theme of Neo-Mindsets for Tomorrow’s Education. In this 116-page issue, we explore the transformative mindsets required for educators, students, and communities to thrive in an increasingly complex and interconnected world.”
I am so grateful to editor Dr. Le Dinh Bao Quoc for inviting me to contribute, as this publication helped me to further develop the ideas that I’m working with around wildness, beauty, and imagination. In this piece, I share ideas how to weave wildness/creativity, beauty/wholeness, and imagination/call to action into teaching and life.
The piece begins:
Sun poured in through the windows of the large room as a group of educators and i gathered to explore translanguaging, wildness, beauty, and imagination in teaching in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Educators spanned the united States, educational contexts, and several countries. What drew us together was our common threads of interest in innovative and transformative teaching approaches. The famed bright blue sky of Santa Fe provided a background outside the windows. Nestled at the foot of the Sangre de Cristo mountains in the high desert southwest of the United States, Santa Fe is known for its deep history, natural beauty, and cultural creativity—a perfect place to explore these transdisciplinary ideas and approaches.
“What brought you to this session?” I asked This was not a more traditionally titled session about specific pedagogical methods.
The answers ranged from “Curiosity,” to “My brain is on overload from highly technical sessions,” to “I need some wildness beauty, and imagination in my life and teaching.”
“What does that actually mean?” several asked.
In this piece I address the question that I receive all the time when I present and talk about these ideas, ‘That sounds great, Dawn, but what does that actually mean?” 𝗚𝗿𝗮𝗯 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗳𝗿𝗲𝗲 downloadable 𝗰𝗼𝗽𝘆 𝗼𝗳 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗶𝘀𝘀𝘂𝗲 𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲: https://www.proed.com.vn/eduverse-newsletter
In Mexico, the cemeteries fill with candles, marigolds, picnics, music, and candles. People adorn the graves of their loved ones with marigolds, candles, their favorite foods and drinks, treasured items. Día de los Muertos is about healing, honoring our loved ones and inviting the spirits to return to be with us, and celebrating their lives.
Cemetary in Oaxaca, Mexico.
Cemetery in Oaxaca during Dia de los Muertos
Original La Catrina
The face of Día de los Muertos, La Catrina, began as a socio-political cultural statement of rebellion against the authoritarian government of Porfirio Diaz. The Mexican Revolution began in 1910 and artist José Guadalupe Posada created the first Calavera Garbancera. Garbancera refers to one who denies their looks Indigenous/Mexican American roots and denies their heritage. Guadalupe Posada made the political statement interpreted as referring to those skeletal from poverty, yet clinging to supposed European identity. Starving, she still wears a hat from France with ostrich feathers. La Calavera Garbancera became known as La Catrina. She became one of the faces of the Mexican Revolution. She is the face of artistic rebellion, revolution against authoritarianism.
Marigolds for the altar.
I love her.
Our Dia de los Muertos altar reflects our familial landscape. I wrote a piece about our altar a couple of years ago that I love, “Dia de los Muertos: Altar as Landscape.” I love that piece and all holds true today.
Our altar’s landscape took on new textures and layers through time this year. The last time we were on the ranch, Mom handed me a basket filled with envelopes, papers, and photo albums. “Time for you to have this,” she said. I should’ve known there was something there when we were leaving and she took the basket out of my hands. “That stays here. “You told me to take it,” I said. “Oh, must be time, then.”
This year’s altar fills with these new/old photos of family and ancestors. New photos of Mom’s mom, my Grandma Janet, and Grammie Cille (pronounced ‘seal’), Uncle Bob, and Grampy Dave now take their place in this landscape. The last time that I was on the ranch, I took a photo of my Grandpa Wink and Grandma Anna, which now graces our altar.
When I look at these photos, what I see is how much my mom and dad look so much like their parents! There are photos of my Grandma Janet that look identical to my mom at that age. My dad smiles through Grandpa Wink, and my Aunt Elaine looks just like my Grandma Anna. I also smile at the Wink eyes. As Mom said after the first time that she went home with Dad to meet his family. “Someone told a joke, everyone laughed, and suddenly nobody had any eyes.”
Grandpa Wink and Grandma Anna
Aunt Eva, Uncle Bob, my Grandma Janet, Mom’s mom.
Grammie Cille and Grampy Dave
Great Grandma Grace
Grammie Cille (center)
As I compose this year’s altar, I feel the gentle taps on my shoulder. “I was here.” This celebration of life and love traces back to pre-Hispanic Aztec rituals tied to the goddess Mictecacihuatl, or the Lady of the Dead. The story goes that Mictecacihuatl allowed spirits to travel back to earth to reconnect with their family members. As I place the photos on the altar, I hear laughter, watch the flirtations, see the maternal pride in my Grammie Cille’s eyes, and the bashful shyness of my Grampy Dave.
Photos of gatherings, picnics, and family occasions dot the pages. Thankfully, almost all have names written on the back. Somehow, each generation feels we are unique. Each generation feels as if we are reality. The people smiling out from these black and white photos felt the same.
Spirits, voices, laughter, movement, and yearning stir on this year’s altar. I hear them, feel them, sense them. Isabel Allende lights a candle when she writes, “to invite the spirits.” The spirits are here, mingling among the candles. Even my Anglo gringo ancestors of Welsh, English, Irish, and German stock followed the marigold petals to the altar.
Our neighbor saw this marigolds and thought, “Dawn’s Dia de los Muertos altar,” and gave them to me. The vibrant colors and strong fragrance, which is a musky smell, from marigolds is said to lead souls from their burial place to their family homes. I’ve never seen marigolds this big in real life before! The tradition of the marigolds and altars would be completely foreign to Lutherans, but somehow I think those distinctions cease to matter on the other side.
I make the pan de muerto that the kids were raised on. Now, that they’re scattered in different states, I make and send. My heart smiles that around this time of year my kids and goddaughters ask, “Are you going to make pan de muerto this year?”
Noé’s parents, Amadeo and Manuela, and brother, Amadeo (Mai) are here with us. The Van Gogh sunflower embroidered by my Grandma Mary, along with her glass vase. Mentor and dear friend, Tove Skutnabb-Kangas, now graces the altar. She gave me that wooden bracelet and the shell earrings more than 30 years ago. Treasures from her many travels speaking of linguistic human rights.
Amadeo and Manuela, Amadeo (Mai) Villarreal
Tove Skutnabb-Kangas
Grandma Mary’s sunflowers and glass
In honor of those reflected on our altars and those whose presence is ephemeral and eternal.
I’ll admit that I have mixed feelings about writing and publishing this piece. It is October, Breast Cancer Awareness Month. This deserves our attention.
That said, I sit now in the early morning magic hours, and stare at my computer screen. That said, I think of the infinite times that I’ve turned to the stories of others for companionship, as I try to navigate my own life path. It is because of the amazing research done that my, and my mom’s, breast cancers were detected and treated. I honor this. I honor this even amidst the near Great Pink Balloon Rampage of 2019 when I walked into a breast cancer center for yet another diagnostic test and was greeted by a wall of pink balloons draping all in the two-story foyer. I originally wrote and published these in 2020. I am now healthy! This was a chapter in my life story and does not define me or life story. Life has moved on, gratefully, and my time and attention are focused elsewhere. I rarely, if ever, talk about this chapter. I share, because perhaps you are on this journey. Perhaps you know someone on this journey. Perhaps a woman you love has breast cancer and you’re not sure what to say.
“Breast cancer is no more than a chapter in my life story.
It will never be my life story.”
~Robin Roberts
Saltines and Ginger Ale. Who knew?
When I first heard that breast cancer was a possibility, these were the only things that tasted okay for months. Here’s for small miracles!
Breast cancer has been the chapter of many women’s life story in my family. Many of you know that Mom‘s life story includes this chapter, as did my aunt’s on Dad’s side. My maternal grandmother’s life story ended in that chapter. This chapter is now a more intimate experience in my own life. This past fall I was diagnosed with breast cancer. For personal and professional reasons, I chose to keep the journey private. For all those same reasons, it now feels right to share.
My table of meds, candles, and flowers.
During this time, I tried to focus on beauty where it could be found.
There was beauty and blessings in early detection.
There was beauty in a gorgeous AZ scene on the doors of pre-op room, very helpful to see and imagine.
There was beauty in the love and laughter in the shared prayer with our former pastor and forever friend who called before my surgery and led us in an energy-filled prayer, closing with, “Wow! I pray like a Baptist when I pray for Dawn Wink!”
There was beauty in learning that all the cancer was removed and I would not need chemotherapy or radiation.
There was beauty in the daily early morning coffee and candles during recovery.
When there were unexpected complications and I went back into surgery on December 23, there was beauty my family gathering with me at the hospital.
There was beauty in my surgeon who after complications arose took infinitely exquisite care of me through the initial emergency visit to her office on a Sunday, to the surgery the next day, then the daily, then every other day, then twice a week, then weekly care until the next surgery two months later.
Beauty in the phenomenal support and presence of my family. Every moment. Every Time. Throughout all.
The beauty of bulky sweaters! When things went awry after the first surgery, Mom, Wynn, and I went to a local consignment shop and loaded up on bulky sweaters that got me through these months. I have no idea what women do in the summer. Mumus? God bless bulky sweaters!
A gorgeous lamp store in downtown Santa Fe.
Window of my writing room.
There was beauty that in the month of October, Breast Cancer Awareness Month, before my diagnosis was final and when I walked into a breast cancer center for yet another diagnostic test and was greeted by a wall of pink balloons draping all in the two-story foyer that The Great Pink Balloon Rampage of 2019 remains only in my mind and did not actually occur. It was very, very close.
There was beauty in those whose intention is to comfort during invasive procedures. Unless you’re a person like me who during difficult times wants to be left alone to do what I need to do. So when people intending to be helpful during these procedures do not listen to me asking to please leave me alone and let me focus, there is great beauty that the visceral growl of, “If you get in my face one. more. time, I will throat-punch you,” remained unspoken.
Gratitude for small miracles.
There was beauty in the bouquet of flowers that Mom and Dad sent me after a confluence of events came as a 1-2 punch one week
Beauty in the prayers received. I felt them deeply. Prayers made a world of difference for me. Thank you with all of my heart. Mil gracias con todo el corazón.
Patricia De Dios
Beauty in the discovery of a cupboard beneath the stairs – a delight to my Harry Potter-loving heart.
Beauty that my recent surgery went well and my healing journey is on the upswing.
Beauty and courage in the pin given to me by a forever friend. I carry this pin with me, take it out to look at when I need inspiration, and rub my fingers across the edges when in my pocket.
I feel strong and have been working throughout.
I look forward to hitting the running trails again! The dogs look at me expectantly in the mornings, disappointed when I only refill my coffee. We will all be thrilled to get back into our daily rhythm.
I look forward to climbing back into the dissertation saddle to complete that journey.
Breast cancer is no more than a chapter in the whole of the book of my life story. This chapter definitely shapes me in new ways that continue to unfold and emerge. I don’t yet know all of the ways this will influence me. There is definitely a “Before” and “After” the diagnosis. The rest of the life story yet to be lived.
I had several of these cards. They lived on our fridge, lined my pockets, were bookmarks in my books and journal.
Back from our run, Luke noticed that with his lilac-colored chew toy in his mouth, Angus and I matched. It’s important to choose one’s running attire to match your dog and his chew toy! This piece has been a while in the making. I take a deep breath and offer these thoughts, as during my own journey with breast cancer I came to realize how very many lives breast cancer touches, whether it’s you or a woman you love, mother, sister, friend, cousin, and on and on. If a woman you love has breast cancer, I hope this piece might provide insight and ideas.
If you are the woman with breast cancer and this reflects your experience, but you may not have the words or energy to express, you can text or email this piece—”This is how I feel,” or “This is how I felt”—so people will know how to support you, without you needing to tell them.
I offer this reflection on my own experience, as I realized that when the words “breast cancer” enter a conversation, often people don’t know what to say. I can only speak from my own experience and what my mom and other dear friends have shared with me about their breast cancer journeys.
While this piece cannot encompass the infinite experiences of all women, I hope it might include common threads and make the ground firmer under your feet.
Some possible language and things to think about when a woman you love has breast cancer:
“I’m so sorry you’re going through this.” When in doubt, go with this. That was really all I needed or wanted to hear. An acknowledgement of the journey, no explaining, no joking, no trying to make me feel better, just an acknowledgment. I knew I could take the rest from there.
Listen. When this journey begins, you are bombarded with different procedures, tests, and possible treatments. Some are optional, others not so much. I learned that the decisions made are intensely personal for each woman. Listen to her and support her in her decisions. I know that I made decisions that those who love me did not initially agree with. It meant the world to me that they listened, supported me, and did not try to change my mind, even though I knew how they truly felt. It’s her body, her decisions. Listen, trust that she knows what’s best for her, and support.
Follow her lead. For some women, this is an external journey and others an internal one. Some women seek comfort outwardly, and others turn deep within. “It seems like the women I know with breast cancer go either all one way or the other,” a dear friend said to me. “Either it’s intensely public or intensely private, not too much in-between.” Whatever her natural inclination, follow that. Some women find great comfort and strength in sharing with their friend and family communities via email, social media, talking about it, sharing the journey. Whatever path the woman you love walks, follow her. It is such an internal and intuitive urge, it’s really not even a choice.
For me, the journey was extraordinarily private. It’s always been like this for me. When I go through tough times, I put my head down, go deep within to get through it, and emerge into the world after. Another reason I kept this journey private is that I did not want to see that look in peoples’ eyes. That look of sympathy. I wanted to feel and be as strong as possible.
If she is someone that goes within, often those who love her feel helpless at not being able to help or feel left out, not included. This is not personal. For that woman who needs to go within, providing her with both presence and space is an enormous support. She feels your love and presence. It’s just taking every ounce of her energy to get through this right now and when she emerges on the other side, she will connect.There are many reasons why the woman you love may go deep within for this journey. Presence and space.
Until she jokes about it, it’s too soon. I believe this comes from the very human response to make someone you love feel better through levity and humor and with the best of intentions. Until she jokes about it, it’s too soon. And, if you want to make her feel better and initially joke too soon, she understands where that comes from and the love it expresses. When my mom was going through chemo, we finally laughed when she described putting on her make-up foundation the day after shaving her head, “I went to put on my make-up today and where do you stop?” she said as she moved her hand up her forward and just kept going up and over her bare head. “Your neckline in the back?”
Grief and mourning. Her grief and mourning are real and deep. I learned later that after visiting dear friends during the depths of this journey, after I left the husband said, “That wasn’t Dawn. She just seems so sad.” I was so very, very sad. Doing my best to cover for that, but clearly there were cracks. Grief for my body. Grief about the journey. Just soul-deep grief, and I couldn’t figure out how to come out of it. I did my best to put a smile on, so as not to spread that grief. I read something Brad Pitt said about going through tough times that resonated with me, “I clean up okay on the outside, but it’s still pretty rough underneath.” That was me—with lipstick. Because my journey was private, most people did not find out until after all my surgeries, when I was on the other side of healing. Eventually, slowly and on it’s own time, the light began to shine in my soul again.
Pink. Not all women with breast cancer embrace the color pink immediately. Remember my own near Great Pink Balloon Rampage? It would be an understatement to say that I immediately embraced pink. I remember Mom expressing this, as well. Philosophically, I whole-heartedly embrace pink and the research and at last naming and holding space for a woman’s cancer marginalized in the medical community until recently that it represents. I just didn’t want to wear or see it during the most intense times. I embrace it now. It has taken quite a bit of time and I’m out of the deep throes of the journey. Other women find tremendous comfort, community, and support with pink. Whatever she feels, it is deep, visceral. Go with it.
Don’t even try to explain her experience to her. Please, please, please do not explain how she’s feeling or what she’s going through to her. That’s a great way to get throat-punched.
Just do it. If you want to provide support or show love, just do it. Do not say, “Let me know if you need anything.” That sentence hands another responsibility to the woman you love who is already doing all she can to keep one nostril barely above the water. Just send flowers or a card. Just send luxurious face creams or have take-out delivered. Put together a care package with an impossibly soft blanket that she’ll curl up under and feel your love. Send tea and candles. Bake homemade bread and send. Whatever feels right. Just do it.
If you’re the woman going through this. I’ve been on the other side of this for a few months now, some things that I would say to myself or any woman going through this. Be gentle with yourself, you’re doing the very best you can. Trust yourself and your intuition. Sleep when you can. Create a soft nest with an impossibly soft blanket, candles, tea, flowers, meds. Stay there as much as possible. Your body will be different, not worse. Embrace the stories of your scars. This one will may take a lot of time. I’m just starting to maybe get there. There’s no right or wrong way to do this. Trust what feels right for you.
While these ideas cannot encompass the infinite ways that a woman experiences breast cancer, I hope they might provide light in what can feel an opaque and unfamiliar landscape.
I am over the moon to have a chapter in this book, “Beyond the brick wall: transdisciplinary and creative research through Scholarly Personal Narrative and Lilyology.”
The Introduction by the editors begins, “‘Moving beyond the mystery and magic of data analysis’ All research projects require a research design, phases of data collection or data production, and careful processes of analysis that lead to the dissemination of key findings” (p. 1).
My chapter draws on the theoretical framework and methods that I used in my dissertation. One of the biggest surprises of my doctoral studies was that I would fall in love with methods. I know that I loved the ideas and theories. I had no idea that I would become fascinated with methodology. This Handbook of Creative Data Analysis is a veritable treasure trove of creative research methods!
Reviews for this book include:
“Because knowledge is not simply ‘written up’ but created through the process of inquiry, the creative research methods elucidated in this handbook are essential for meaningful practical innovations and theoretical developments.” Sarah J. Tracy, Arizona State University
“What a fantastic collection – instructive, educative, and inspiring in equal parts! A must-read for all involved in creative research methods. I loved the multi, inter, and transdisciplinarity and the mix of academics across the career trajectory. Wonderful! Congratulations to the editors and authors.” Maggie O’Neill, University of College Cork
“This significant, accessible collection brings together new and established voices to offer original insights to the often unseen process of creative analysis of a range of qualitative and quantitative data.” Helen Lomax, University of Huddersfield
More about the book:
A deeper dive into the Introduction and my chapter:
The Table of Contents:
I have several articles due and presentations in the next few months. I gave my writing room a thorough cleaning, winnowing, and organizing to get the good energy flowing and glowing! Now, time to create.
She has Parkinson’s, reads as many banned books as she can, and is now boxing. Yes, boxing. I shared Mom’s original piece about her Parkinson’s diagnosis in “Slide and Glide (Loud and Proud)—One Proud Daughter. My admiration and pride have grown exponentially since that writing, if that is even possible, as I’ve witnessed Mom dive into researching and sticking to the exercise routines, PT, and medication with a ferocious dedication. This is not to say, that there isn’t laughter, giggling, and extraordinary difficult elements and chapters along the way. She continues disciplined and undeterred.
I can hardly believe the changes in her since her diagnosis. The night of that initial diagnosis on her 80th birthday, I saw her standing beside the bed in her jammies.
“What are you doing, Mom?”
“I’m taking a running leap to get into bed.”
A-ha.
She wasn’t moving. She literally could not get into bed by herself. She stood paralyzed.
I shoved her from behind, and we both fell sprawling into her bed in fits of laughter. It was laugh or cry. We laughed!
I share this to convey the severity of her condition then—and how she is doing now, a result of her utter dedication to do all she can for her health, and her commitment to exercising and moving! We all think that she would be in a wheelchair by now had she taken the diagnosis and not physically exercised. I cannot stress strongly enough the role her dedication to physical movement and exercise has had in her rejuvenation since the March 2024 diagnosis.
Now, to the boxing. Yes, boxing. For those who know Mom, Joan Wink and boxing would not intuitively go together. Yet, here she is!
Mom writes of this experience and includes more photos:
“I realize that I previously wrote that I would not write of Parkinson’s again on WinkWorld, but your positive responses made me reconsider. The bottom line is that I am so much better than even four months ago, and I credit that to a balance of meds and daily exercises, which are reposted at the end of this blog post.
I was delighted to share ideas about “Translanguaging, Wildness, Beauty, and Imagination in ELT (English Language Teaching)” with Teacher Development Webinars.
Educators joined in from around the globe, which was a delight. The webinar was 4pm in Pakistan, which is 5am in Santa Fe. We spanned time countries, time zones, and oceans to gather together.
In this presentation, I added more information and research around translanguaging in ELT contexts in different countries and spanning the grades. it is exciting what is happening with translanguaging!
The relationship of translanguaging, wildness, beauty, and imagination continue to emerge and connect. I’ll be speaking on these ideas in a number of places this fall, for which I am ever so grateful. Each conversation and presentation brings new discoveries to explore further. I am writing a number of pieces on these ideas, which will be published next year.
I am grateful to share the journey with you!
Here is the video of the presentation:
Flowers from the Secret Garden and candles for the presentation. Thank you, Amanullah Saand, for the invitation! Deep gratitude.
I wrote last about life-changing books about writing that most influenced the rhythms, art, and craft early in my writing life. I mention a key book in this journey was The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron. In this book she talks about morning pages, three hand-written pages every morning about whatever comes into your mind, stream-of-consciousness. Cameron qualifies this explicitly, There is no wrong way to do morning pages (p. 10). “Morning pages map our own interior. Without them, out dreams may remain terra incognita” (p. 15).
Early morning magic hours in my writing room.
I read this book when I had a 6-month old, 1 1/2 year old and 3 1/2 year old. I’ve always been an early riser (ranch roots), but this is when bumped up when I got up to get time alone in the morning before my gang woke up, usually around 3:30-4am. That was 25+ years ago now and I cannot imagine how different my life path would have been had I not done this. I’ve filled more messy journals, than I can count in the intervening years.
I call these the early morning magic hours—a sacred time of solitude and sanctuary, of writing, dreaming, listening, and planning. This is usually the only time during the day that I can sink deeply into listening within to see what emerges.
This time births dreams.
There is a narrative arc to each morning. Nightlights in the hallway lead toward the kitchen, where strands of little white lights line the window above the coffee maker in the kitchen. Absolutely, positively no overhead lights go on during the early morning magic hours until after the sun has risen. This is a time of little white lights, candles, and eventually the glow of the computer screen. Sometimes, moonlight glows through the windows.
Kitchen window in the early morning magic hours.
Coffee in the early morning magic hours.
First, coffee, which I then take into my writing room, light the candles, pull out my journal, briefly read what I wrote yesterday, and begin. I drink in the solitude and quiet, and often stare out the window into the darkness, letting my mind wander wherever it may go. There is rarely time for wandering mind later in the day, so I cherish the expansive freedom of this time in the early mornings.
Often, surprises show up along the way during the writing. “Oh!” I find myself softly exclaiming in the darkness, grateful for whatever idea or thought just popped up would have remained hidden and undiscovered without this spacious time. I follow the narrative and, often, those are the ideas of things that I remember that go on a list.
Then, I review my lists that are living documents, cross out what I’ve done, circle what may be extra important, and add new elements. When most of the items on a page have been crossed off, I’ll start a new page with the few that remain and the whole process begins again.
Inky blue eases into the sky as dawn approaches.
It is also a time of explicit planning how to bring these dreams into being. Much like writing with the distinct and necessary phases of intuitive, creative writing and then switching to linear, rules-driven editing, my early morning magic hours fill with both of these stages. This time is the only way that I keep track of the multiple writing, publishing, teaching, presenting, work, and family simultaneous happenings. Well, at least try to keep track… For as many long-hand journal pages, there are also lists of next steps. So many lists.
At last, I move to my computer to work on whichever writing project, publication, or presentation is the closest.
This narrative arc primes the creative and editing pump. I’ve had my time to write, dream, think, muse, and plan. When I sit at my computer, I am ready to start with whichever project either needs immediate tending or is the project with the most creative energy for me in that moment.
The early morning magic hours are now such an integral and essential element in my life that when I miss them, due to travel or other reasons, that when I wake and sit down to them the next morning, it feels like I’ve returned with an old friend. I don’t know which I love more — going to bed at night knowing the early morning magic hours are coming or waking in the morning knowing that they’re here.
Are early morning, or late evening, magic hours are an element of the rhythm of your day?
I love books dedicated to the art and craft of writing! Like all writers, my bookshelves teem with books. This piece focuses on writing books that I read early in my writing life that made a life-changing difference. I inhaled the books here as if they were my breath, oxygen, and in many ways they were. All have notes, scribbles, responses, questions, and sticky notes throughout. These books illuminated served as a treasure map to illuminate my path.
This must begin with The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity by Julia Cameron. I still vividly remember where I was and what I was doing when this book was first mentioned to me. Wynn was six-months old, and I was pushing her on a swing at the park, while Wyatt and Luke played. A friend mentioned to me, “Have you read The Artist’s Way?” I’d never heard of this book before. I do not say lightly that this book, at this moment in time, changed my life. There is a Before and After to my reading this book. I began doing Morning Pages and I don’t know how many journals later, I continue. I cannot imagine what my life would be like without having read this book.
Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life by Anne Lamott was and is fundamental. It was there I learned about Shitty First Drafts. “All good writers write them,” Lamott writes. She speaks of perfectionism, “the voice of the oppressor, the enemy of the people” (p. 28). I attended a reading by Lamott, the photo now taped to the front of my book. She is irreverent, funny, full of grace, and oh-so-wise.
The Right to Write: An Invitation and Initiation into the Writing Life by Julia Cameron dispelled the myth that any writer ever has vast swaths of uninterrupted time and to quit expecting them. I had three kids under 3 1/2 and that resonated deeply. The first trick,” Cameron writes, “is to start where you are…I believe that we all come into life as writers.”
Thunder and Lightening: Cracking Open the Writer’s Craft by Natalie Goldberg details the process of writing from first to final draft in approachable, engaging ways that made a world of difference when I read. This book laid a plan for how one brings all of those messy disparate threads and pieces of writing together into cohesive whole in practical and approachable steps.
From Making a Literary Life: Advice for Writers and Other Dreamers by Carolyn See, I learned about keeping it to yourself, charming notes, writing a 1000 words a day, rewriting, getting published, and it’s a marriage. What I love about this book is the focus on truly creating a writing life.
In A Circle of Quiet: The Crosswicks Journal, Book One by Madeleine L’Engle, L’Engle writes of being a writer with young children at home and the rhythms of this. “My husband and children came first. So did my writing. Bump” (p. 19). Bump. L’Engle expressed what I felt and her own journey of navigating these bumps. She gave me a sense of companionship—and hope.
Thank the stars for Writing the Natural Way by Gabriele Rico. This is where I learned of clustering, an intuitive, energy-laden, circular method of writing. Often when I speak of clustering to people, they say, “Oh, mind mapping,” to which I strongly chafe. For me, this is not mind-mapping, which still feels intentional, linear, and superficial . Clustering is deep, messy, unconscious, instinctual, and taps into ideas that would otherwise never see the light of day. I start nearly every piece of writing with clustering. I cluster scenes, essays, chapters, articles, letters, and books. I clustered my dissertation on a piece of wrapping paper.
Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art by Madeline L’Engle introduced to me, “We cannot Name or be Named without language. If our vocabulary dwindles to a few shopworn words, we are setting ourselves up for takeover by a dictator. When language becomes exhausted, our freedom dwindles—we cannot think; we do not recognize danger; injustice strikes us as no more than “the way things are” (p. 39) and “We may not always be able to make our ‘clock’ run correctly, but at least we can keep it wound, so that it will not forget” (p. 96).
I found Becoming a Writer by Dorothea Brande, originally published in 1934, as relevant now as when it was published. Brande writes of the advantages of duplicity (intuitive creative/ruthless editor), harnessing the unconscious, and sources of originality. “If you can discover what you are like, if you can discover what you truly believe about most of the major matters of life, you will be able to write a story which is honest and original and unique” (p. 123).
If You Want to Write: A book about Independence and Spirit by Brenda Ueland, originally published in 1938, encourages to keep be “Be careless, reckless! Be a lion! Be a pirate! when you write, (p. VII)” and to keep a “slovenly, headlong, impulsive, honest diary” (p. 133). I do. And to know to write with “real love and imagination and intelligence, at your writing or whatever work it is you care about. If you do that, out of the mountains that you write, some mole hills will be published. Or you may make a fortune and win the Nobel Prize. But if nothing is ever published at all and you never make a cent, just the same it will be good that you have worked” (p. 27).
These initial books were followed by other phenomenal books on writing in the decades that have passed since. These books add new layers of depth, detail, skills, knowledge, and strength.
A few more:
These are the writing books that led to a writing life, an authentic life, in addition to the literary world and publication. The wisdom of each of each book, and their combined constellation, is such a visceral, integral element of my life, my lens of writing, and way of walking through the writing world, as much a part of my day as breathing. I hope that you may find some treasures maps here for your own life, writing, and dreams.
Morning photo of my writing room, as I water the garden.
I bought scads of tiny hollyhock sprouts at the beginning of the summer in tiny black containers. There was no identification of kind or color anywhere. I filled my cart and proceeded to plant with enthusiasm, wanton abandon, and quite a bit of curiosity throughout the flower beds in the yard and within The Secret Garden.
This summer was an ever-unfolding revelation of jewels! As each plant formed buds, there was the anticipation of what color may be revealed. What I did not anticipate, and added enormously to the surprise and joy, was the variety of bud constellations within each flower! I know that hollyhock experts will know the names. I have no idea. I just know that the surprise of each as they opened was an experience of surprise and unbridled joy.
Amazing how such a small, simple experience can bring such magic.
Hollyhocks symbolize abundance.
Sometimes tender new shoots need protection from the strong high desert sun.
I bought these seeds for their delicious, gorgeous name.
National Hummingbird Day falls on the first Saturday of the month of September every year. This year the day lands today, September 7th.
The hummingbirds who summer with us continue to bring incredible amounts of joy. We have three hummingbird feeders in the yard and another on the window of The Secret Garden, as shown in the video above.
They are utterly mesmerizing as they zip and sing about.
A few fun facts:
They are the only bird known able to float in in mid-air and fly backwards.
They are the smallest migrating bird. Somehow these tiny wings carry hummingbirds as they make one of the longest migrations in the bird world, traveling up to 3,900 miles round trip. They leave their wintering grounds in Mexico in early spring, fly up the Pacific Coast to Washington State and Canada, and then travel south through the Rocky Mountains.
Their tiny legs are only used for perching and moving sideways while perched. They can’t walk or hop.
Hummingbirds weigh less than a nickel.
The average number of eggs laid by female hummingbirds is only two. These eggs have been found in nests smaller than a half dollar and compare in size to a jellybean or a coffee bean.
And my favorite—a flock of hummingbirds can be referred to as a bouquet, a glittering, a hover, a shimmer, or a tune.
I didn’t know many of those facts until writing this piece. Hummingbirds for me are about visceral and spontaneous joy. Noé is convinced that they stop time. Upon reflection, the infinite numbers of times that the world has seemed to stop as I watch hummingbirds. Whatever else may be happening life fades to the background as I remain spellbound by that tiny, exquisite presence.
My dear friend, and amazing hummingbird photographer, Julie Morley (@juliemorley/Instagram) named this little one, Dawn.
As the temperatures cool and ebb into fall, I savor each day that they are still here with us in Santa Fe. I’m not sure how many more we’ll have. I read to provide extra food for them now, as they prepare for their upcoming migration to warmer climates. Our feeders are always filled.
“Hummingbird surrounded by petals” — Hannah Bullen-Ryner
“If Hummingbird is your personal medicine, you love life and its joys,” write Jamie Sams and David Carson in Medicine Cards. “Your presence brings joy to others.
You join people together in relationships which bring out the best in them. You know instinctively where beauty abides and, near or far, you journey to your ideal. You move comfortably within a beautiful environment and help others taste the succulent nectar of life…Hummingbird hears celestial music and is in harmony with it. Follow Sister Hummingbird and you will soon be filled with joy and experience a renewal of the magic of living.”
Wishing hummingbird energy to you and yours. May you enjoy a bouquet, a glittering, a hover, a shimmer, or a tune of these winged jewels.
When you take a flower in your hand and really look at it, it’s your world for the moment. I want to give that world to somebody else. ~ Georgia O’Keeffe
As the notes of fall land here in the high desert, the flowers of summer are in their final throes of bloom. We received the desert monsoon rains absent the past few years, and our garden thrived. The vibrant lives of flowers, hummingbirds, butterflies, birds, and bees bring exponential amounts of joy, absolutely crazy amounts of joy. I savor. No matter what else was happening in life, the beauty outside the window of my writing room always lifts the cotidian of life.
I adore gifting flowers throughout the summer. I buy flats of inexpensive mason jars, so that nobody need worry about returning the vase. The bouquets tend to be messy, filled with flowers that happen to be blooming at that time. I love the colors and textures and sheer wildness of all. The cutting board is routinely covered in far more flowers than food.
Cutting board with flowers for garden bouquets.
A video from my writing room and out into the yard. The sound didn’t turn out great, but on full volume, you can hear.
Here are some of the bouquets from this summer and the flowers that I love to plant that compose them. Some beauty for you. I can only hope that those who receive feel a fraction of the joy that I feel to gift this beauty.
Messy garden bouquets.
I recently saw a meme that said, “And to my grandchildren, I bequeath the 356,497 photos of my flowers on my phone.”
Birds in the bath bring smiles.
New rose bushes went into The Secret Garden this summer.
Frida Kahlo Rose
Dolly Parton rose:
This summer was dedicated to creating The Secret Garden right outside our kitchen window. It’s important that one’s bird bath compliments the colors of the flowers. 🙂
A busy bee:
I wish that I could bring you a messy garden bouquet in a mason jar in person. In lieu of that, please accept here across the miles and oceans.
A bit of beauty, wildness, and imagination for you!
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I am incredibly blessed to be part of a project creating a new Bilingual National Curriculum (K-12) for Panamá. A team of Panamanian teachers from throughout the country, international experts, the Ministry of Education, representatives from the embassy and higher education compose this incredible group. This work includes creating standards for English Language Teaching (ELT) and the curriculum which will be used throughout the country to support these new standards. Our group gathered in Panamá for an in-person intensive and since that time we’ve met on Zoom throughout the months.
Curriculum development meeting.
Standards are new to educators of Panamá. Even the word “standards” can be intimidating and abstract. As our community navigated this new and unfamiliar terrain, I wondered how this might be represented through visuals in hope of expanding and deepening understanding. As we dove into this work, I again turned to my watercolors to visually express the structure and content of our work, as I did with artistic expressions of language, ecology, and story: language and landscape explored through watercolor, (Ecology & Ecology, 2023, https://www.ecoling.net/). This is how my brain creates meaning of ideas, often those conveyed through dense text.
I lay my sketchbook on the kitchen counter, drew my paints off the shelf, made myself a cup of tea and mused. How can standards and curriculum be expressed visually ?
Ultimately, the flow emerged and I listened.
In our lives filled with text and theoretical ideas, I’ve found that reaching for my watercolors/markers helps ideas that feel just out of my grasp to become real, grounded, tangible. My transdisciplinary heart loves playing with these multiple expressions in different ways, with layered facets coming to light. The ephemeral ideas take shape and the ground becomes firmer under my feet.
Once kids are grown and off creating their lives in various parts of the country, now with jobs and responsibilities, it can prove tricky to get all together at one place at the same time. It had been six years since we’d been together with all three kids at the same time. We’ve gathered on the ranch throughout the years in different compositions, but it had been too long since we were all there together. This year, inspired by Wynn’s bff, Erin’s, saying, “I really want to go back to the ranch,” I threw down the Mommy gauntlet —”This year, we are all going to the ranch.”
And, we did.
Wynn and Erin flew into Denver, where Noé and I picked them up and headed north.
Wyatt drove from his and Natasha’s home in Colorado, and Luke flew in from his home in Los Angeles. Our Angus, Wyatt’s Anya, and Grammie’s, Ginny, stretched their legs!
These two… bffs since my car ran out of gas when they were 7-years-old, they pushed us to the side of the road, and I thought to myself, ‘I’ll never see this child again. Her parents will never let her come back to our house.’ A few quesadillas later, and her amazing family entered our lives for forever. Wynn and Erin now roommates in Philadelphia. Off to see them this week!
Daddy and Mom/BopBop and Grammie
The beauty of this window.
Those who have read Meadowlark and read Dewdrops for years know that this ranch, this land holds so many different chapters, so many different voices and stories. The latest voice and story was Mom’s own. Past, present, and future of this landscape lives for ever in our minds and hearts.
BopBop and Luke—Generational curls.
Again and again in our family, we say, “It takes a ranch.” And, it does. The particulars change over time, yet again and again we return to the ranch for love, laughter, healing, tears, strength, a sense of belonging. This land holds dreams, fragility, raucous laughter, fear, hope, connection, the unknown—and ever so much more. This is where our family retreats in times of pain and gathers in times of joy.
Those of you who have read Meadowlark know of some of the often painful historical chapters of this ranch. What amazes me is how Daddy and Mom have changed the course of history and the ranch is now a place of refuge, rather than a place to escape. What a testimonial to the power of intention, energy, action, and LOVE.
Home to Bald Eagles.
Josie threads many of my own life chapters and was the inspiration for the mare in Meadowlark. We both need our manes brushed.
With Josie, 2024
The beauty and ferocity of the land remains throughout all. It is up to us which to choose, how to channel, how to experience. The land provides a space to sink deeply into the reality of the present, the waves of the past, and creation of the future.
I brought each child to the ranch for the first time when each was 6 weeks old. At that time, we lived in CA, a 24-hour drive away. For several years, three car seats, booster seats, and Harry Potter cassette tapes and later, CDs, and goldfish crackers tossed over my shoulder while driving marked our trips. While I was raised on a ranch in Arizona, this was the ranch that would be the umbilical cord and womb for us. This holds true.
Ranch photos often encourage romanticism of place and people. Let me take a moment to both honor and dispel this. The beauty of the land is real and raw, as is its harshness. The joy reflected in the photos includes the painful eras that every human experiences, all intricately interwoven—past, present, and future. Human landscape reflects these same nuances, cliffs and crags, ripples and flows.
What a wonderful conversation exploring these ideas yesterday. Thank you ever so much to Jaime Ancajima for inviting me to speak share ideas about translanguaging and the wildness, beauty, and imagination of language and language teaching.
I learned so much from the questions and conversation throughout and after. One of the big surprises to me was to learn that often translanguaging is interpreted as translating. This was so insightful! Translanguaging is not translating and I now know to be explicit about this when talking or writing.
We talk about this in the video:
Thanks so much to all who lifted your questions and thoughts for us all to consider and muse. I am still musing!
I am delighted to be speaking virtually about Wildness, Beauty, Imagination, Translanguaging, and Transdisciplinary Research in English Language Teaching (ELT) tomorrow.
We begin with a 15 minute conversation and the dive into the presentation. Thank you so much to Jaime Ancajima for inviting me to share these ideas.
Sunday, July 21, 2024
9:10am Peru/Colombia, Ecuador
USA
10:10am Eastern Standard Time (EST), 9:10am Central Standard Time (CST)
8:10am Mountain Standard Time (MST), 7:10am Pacific Standard Time (PST)
Mom, Dr. Joan Wink, with her long-awaited Texas A&M Aggie Ring. She did her PhD at Texas A&M nearly 30 years ago. this was the year for the ring. Gig ’em, Aggies!
Hello dear Dewdrops Community,
So very good to connect. I am ever so behind in writing to you. I miss you! Since I last wrote, I hope to connect with you about a bilingual curriculum project that I’m a part of in Panamá, a conference focused on equity in Early Childhood in St. Thomas, TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages), NABE (National Assoiation FOR Bilingual Eduation), a phenomenal translanguaging conference, and more. Also, for the first time in six years, we all gathered together (all three kids!) on the ranch. And, my garden is blooming, at last! I hope to create a piece honoring each of these experiences.
This piece is focused entirely on my phenomenal mom, Dr. Joan Wink. Many of you know her as your teacher, your professor, your friend, my mom, or infinite other ways that she engages and contributes with the world. A world-renowned scholar, Mom is known for her publications, teaching, and professional engagements around multilingual education, The Power of Story, multilingual literacy, Vygotsky, Critical Pedagogy, Prairie Pedagogy, member of the South Dakota Board of Regents, and a myriad of other areas. In addition to this, she is Mom, Grammie, friend, mentor, family member, and wife extraordinaire.
African Daisies in Tucson
Here is what most people do not know about Mom—despite her public presence, she is an intensely private person. It is for this reason that I am so heart-stoppingly proud of her latest writing and work: Slide and Glide (or, Loud and Proud. in which she reveals her recent Parkinson’s diagnosis.
She writes, “As some of you know, I have a hereditary condition called Essential Tremors. I have known for years that I would get it. It does not change my life much. However, this winter I was also diagnosed with Parkinson’s. At that time, my movements had become very stiff, slow, and rigid… I have two vices: reading and walking. However, this winter, I was not able to...
I am grateful to share Mom’s words and story with you.
We were together when she was diagnosed on her 80th birthday. Who would guess that she was diagnosed with Parkinson’s two hours before this photo was taken. “Welcome to my Parkinson’s Party,” she said.
Mom’s 80th
Immediately after the doctor’s, she suggested that we go look at the wild African daisies in a yard in Tucson and get ice cream, which we then ate in bed in our matching pajamas.
“Life goes on,” she said.
Her courage and bravery render me speechless. She and I spoke of this latest chapter in her life. Just when she thought her work was done, she is now teaching the world about Parkinson’s and providing resources for others.
We had lilacs on the Cascabel ranch in Arizona and Grandma Grace planted them on the ranch in South Dakota. Lilacs can live to be more than 100-years-old. When you’re on a country road and see a few seemingly-random lilac bushes, there was most likely a house or farm there in the last century. They were the first plants into the ground when we moved into this house. I planted four different kinds, ranging from light purple to bubble gum pink. This year we started watering early in the spring and the result is an abundance of blooms.
The fragrance! What is it about the scent of lilacs that is so evocative, soothing, and lifting?
O’ favor’d flower of spring’s return
How bright your violet petals bloom
Filling the air with scent’d lavender
Not e’en darkness can dim your tiny plumes
Of all the colours spring brings to life
Of the many flowers that adorn the month of May
Tis the endearing Lilac that reigns supreme
Till summer’s kiss thy beauty starts to fade
John Hancock
Lilacs symbolize different elements, depending on their color. Violet lilacs symbolize spirituality. Blue lilacs symbolize happiness and tranquility. Magenta lilacs symbolize love and passion. Lilac, the color for which this flower is named, is a light purple that symbolizes a first love.
Thank you to my cousin, Leslee Gentry-Ent, for the idea and beauty of lilac lemon water! ”Just steep some lilac blooms and lemon slices in fresh cold water in the fridge for a few hours and it tastes delightful. ”
First bouquets of summer. Only the lilacs and cosmos from my garden. I couldn’t resist the zinnias and gaillardia at the store. Beauty to you!
This Story popped up on my phone earlier this month and I realized that it has been on year since I wrote the piece about how I learned Spanish and my time living in Chihuahua, Chihuahua, México.
At the time, I thought I’d write the original piece (found below), and leave it at that. What I did not anticipate was the memories and feelings that going through that album whose pages have lost all adhesive, so the photos slipped out as I opened. I found myself flooded with memories, feelings of such deep tenderness, the fierce homesickness mixed with fierce gratitude for my new friends and family who welcomed me with such open arms. I thought of how different my experience than that of so many people in other countries around the world. Mexico wrapped its arms around me with friendship and love. I studied the fresh faces of all of us, still teenagers. I was 16-years-old when I went to live in Mexico.
One early morning magic hour, as I looked at the photos it came to me, “Now, we have social media. I wonder if I can find anyone?” I had the newspaper clipping from my going-away party, so I had first and last names. I searched on social media. One-by-one, I started to find friends from the past. I didn’t have married names, nor some of the second last names. I connected with many people with similar names with no luck. I had a stroke of luck when I was successful in connecting with David Fernández, who opened the door to phone numbers of my friends. I reached out. “I don’t know if you remember me, but…”
It had been 37 years. Names lifted from the photos and the newspaper clipping from all those years ago came to life—Lupita Siqueiros, Margara García, Claudia Fernandez, Lucia Guerrero, Luisa Prieto, Abril Chávez, Manena Alzaga, Teresa Martínez…
Claudia, Lupita, Margara, me
What I did not know at the time was what a profound experience of connection, love, gratitude, heart, soul, spirit, and connection would follow. To say we lit up WhatsApp would be an understatement. We shared photos of our families—children, spouses, parents. Most friends still lived in Chihuahua. Lupita had moved to Guadalajara. So many years to try and catch up on. WhatsApp video calls became regular rhythms of our weeks.
Carlos, Margara, Pepón, Lupita
Lucia, Claudia, Margara
I pored over the photos that I received, seeing the 17-year-olds I had known, now in the faces of adults. I simply loved. We spoke one-on-one and in groups, each reunion bringing a stronger sense of connection. ¡Pero, Dawn, apenas estabamos en Santa Fe hace dos semanas!, me dijo Lucia. “But, Dawn, we were just in Santa Fe two weeks ago!,” Lucia told me.
Lupita Siqueiros y familia
Margara Garcia y familia
Lucia Guerrero y Sergio
David Fernández y familia
Tentatively, we began to share the chapters of our lives. As with all lives, we’ve experienced joy and heartbreak, beauty and tragedy. There have been marriages, births, illnesses, deaths, and all else that happens over the course of years and decades. My sense is that they are our experiences, the perspectives gained through the many chapters of our lives, that instill the deep sense of gratitude that of our reconnection. I know this is true for me. My sense is is due to, yes, the joyous life chapters, but perhaps especially because of the difficult life chapters, that makes all of these reconnections and my gratitude so profound.
I see the kernel of 17-year-olds we were the last time we saw each other, an essence within each of us. It is as if all that each of us has experienced since that time caused that essence, that emergent spark, to deepen and grow. A solidity, a depth, shapes and contours the adults we have become. The essence of each has expanded exponentially into the richness of adulthood.
Las Amigas en Chihuahua
Manena y familia
Manena at our favorite—frozen yogurt at Zum Zum!
Gorgeous piece by @claudiafernandezarte
Las Amigas
David y familia
Abril Chávez y familia
It has now been one year. I continue to be filled with intense gratitude for these reconnections. The photos from the years that I lived in Chihuahua still rest on the dry pages of the worn photo album. However, my phone and computer now fill with vibrant images of dear friends, their families, and happenings.
It is said that you can’t go back. I suppose that is true. What is true is the possibility of the past unexpectedly enriching the present in magical and real ways.
We’ve all sworn not to lose touch again, our connections now treasured. It is only a matter of time until we reconnect, talk, and hug in-person in México. I can’t wait!
This question pops up often. I was asked again recently, which had me looking for the photo album that I made the year I lived in Chihuahua, Chihuahua, Mexico. The stickiness of the album pages long since dried and disappeared and the photos now slide out from under the clear film that covers them. I hadn’t looked at those photos in years and memories came tumbling back.
I knew that I wanted to be a foreign exchange student when I was 13 years old. It took me two years to convince my parents to allow me to go. I was so surprised when decades later a dear friend from high school said to me, “Oh, I thought that you parents made you go.” The time and energy it took to convince them! When they at last agreed, my mom said, “There is too much water between Arizona and Europe. You can go to Mexico.” I will be eternally grateful for this decision. I cannot imagine how different the scope and trajectory of my life would have been if I didn’t speak Spanish.
Mi hermana mexicana, Tere
These were my growing up years of books, braids, and riding on our ranch in southeastern Arizona. My dad raised Brangus cattle and during that time, there was a lot of collaboration between Brangus breeders in northern Mexico and the US. My parents had many colleagues and friends in the ranching communities of Chihuahua and put out the word that I wanted to be an exchange student.
The sister of one of these ranching friends had a daughter who wanted to come to study in the United States. The two families swapped daughters for a year. Teresa (Tere) came to live on the ranch with my family and became my hermana Mexicana. I went to live with her family in Chihuahua and became her hermana Americana.
Don Benito, Señora Miriam, Angélica
I was 16-years-old when I arrived in Chihuahua to live with the family of Benito and Miriam Martínez. Don Benito came from Spain originally and la Señora Miriam Creel de Martinez came from a family with deep roots in Chihuahua. Their daughter, Angélica, lived at home and did all she could to make me feel welcome.
The first months were a swirl of new experiences, new friends, excitement, homesickness, and really not understanding much of anything that was said. I remember coming home from school every day with my head pounding. I attended Instituto La Salle. Students immediately welcomed me, invited me to their homes and parties, and did all they could to make me feel welcome. I think of this often when I hear how immigrant kids are often treated in the US.
My new friends were kind as I stumbled through Spanish and laughed with (mostly) me as I made mistake after mistake, including asking my new friend, who was eating a chocolate covered marshmallow on a stick, “¿Cómo está tu pedo de monja?” I’ll never forget her stopping mid-bite, looking at me, and laughing, “¿Qué?” I had learned that marshmallow in Spanish was pedo de monja, literally “fart of a nun.” Turns out, that is absolutely not the word for marshmallow in Chihuahua. That’s the day I learned the word bonbon and it’s stayed with me ever since.
By Christmas I could understand the gist of things and say enough to convey the main idea of what I wanted to say. I learned to only use Usted with anyone older than me or in a position of respect. It still sounds like fingernails on the chalkboard when I hear people use the informal tú with people who deserve Usted.
Angélica and Mama Lila
I learned very soon to always use Usted with Mama Lila, Señora Miriam’s mother. She was a grand lady in a grand house in a beautiful area of Chihuahua. We drove through a canopy of trees to drive up the winding driveway to her home. I can still remember the smell of her perfume, the soft paper-thin texture of her cheek when I kissed her in greeting. An elegant staircase wove up and around the wall to the balcony bedroom doors above. Sun steamed in through the kitchen windows at her home, sometimes dappled by leaves.
Libradita and Raramurí woman
Libradita cooked and cared for all of us within our home. Oh, what I would give to be able to go back in time and watch as she made flan! I was so taken with the Raramurí (Tarahumara) women and girls of the mountains surrounding Chihuahua. Their many layered skirts moved as they walked, sprayed around them when they sat. Our class took a field trip up into the mountains for a weekend not long after I arrived. I hardly understood a word of anything said around me. What I remember was the incredible generosity how my classmates treated me, how bitterly cold it was at night in the mountains, and the two young Raramurí girls who came with babies on their backs.
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This was years and years before I began to learn of Linguistic Human Rights (LHRs), the marginalization of languages and people, and the impact on the world. I know that when I began to learn of LHRs, these two girls came to my mind.
I turned 17-years-old in March of that year and my friends celebrated with a cake. I look at this photo now and wonder where these now women and about their lives. Oh, and mi querida amiga, Manena. Oh, did we laugh! And, we loved to go get frozen yogurt at Zum Zum. I always added mango and coconut to mine.
17th birthday
Manena Alzaga
Lupita took me to the market and showed me what to look for in the fruit, how to choose the vegetables. I still hear her voice, her laughter.
Lupita
My classmates, Instituto La Salle
I’ve had many other chapters in Spanish of my life. All builds on my life and experiences in Chihuahua. When I went to study in Spain, I learned that my Spanish was filled with Mexican expressions and vocabulary. In Costa Rica, I learned that my accent sounds Mexican.
When I began to learn about second language acquisition, I scrolled back through my memories and experiences and the theories found fertile and familiar places to land.
I wonder now that I listen to so many audiolibros narrated by Spaniards, Argentines, Mexicans, and Chileans what impact this has on my Spanish.
I will always grateful for this time—the experiences, friendships, inspirations, and love that have come from when I was 16-years-old and experiencing all. I feel the world would be an infinitely kinder place if all could experienced living and learning in another language, another culture. I imagine the empathy this might create if those who know experience the dominance of their own language could experience life through the lens of other languages and cultures.
A shared language opens worlds and windows of connections and relationships.
The journey of writing Meadowlark was one of years of research, writing, reading, and writing some more. The writing journey is a solitary one—we write in the early morning darkness, the snippets of time between other demands, and never really knowing what will become of our heart and spirit that we pour onto the page.
Once a piece is published, we set it out into the world and know that it is now on its own journey. There is an element of putting a note in a bottle and casting it into the ocean inherent in writing and publishing. What an honor and gift when that bottle with the note finds its way a heart where it lands deeply.
Oh, to learn that like so many books that have shaped my own life, when your book lands deeply in the heart of a reader.
Thank you, Emmaleigh! Such a blessing to share the journey with you.
Mom has written extensively of “home run reading books.” What a gift and blessing to discover that Meadowlark was one. Here is Mom’s piece:
If you are a reader of WinkWorld, you know that I love it when someone discovers their own home run reading book. This is what recently happened. In this WinkWorld, I will share three previous examples of home run reading, and I will add a new example.
What is a home run reading book?
A home run reading book is that particular book that opened up the joy of reading to you. It is the book that made you want to read another book. The idea is that none of us are readers until we find our own home run reading book. We parents, teachers, and caregivers just keep sharing books with the hope that someone else will discover their home run reading book. Thank you, Stephen Krashen, Professor Emeritus for sharing this idea with us.
Joan Wink
A Personal Example
Some of you are aware that my home run reading book was The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett. This happened when my own two children, Dawn and Bo, didn’t want to hear me read it one more time. I remember how sad I felt. It was at this moment that I decided to read it just for myself. Eureka! Up until that time, I read every assignment any teacher and/or prof told me to read, but I was not a reader.*
However, after The Secret Garden, all of that changed. From The Secret Garden, I went straight to a decade of reading all of Hemingway and Michener. Bo, our son, immediately went on to motor bike magazines, and from there he jumped to Stephen King. Dawn, our daughter, went on to read chapter books by the tens and tens…
Recently a friend of mine reached out with some questions about MEADOWLARK. Her name is Sandy and she’d given the book to her daughter Emmaleigh, a college sophmore at Northern State University in Aberdeen. It turns out that Emmaleigh is NOT a reader, and never has been, even though Mom is a reader and Dad (Pat) is a middle school teacher. After reading MEADOWLARK, Emmaleigh texted her mom, telling her… continue to the piece.
As I composed the pieces that created the constellation of the spectrum of the year and sat with my journal to begin 2024, again and again I found myself thinking of all the unsaid between the lines. We all experience those chapters in life when the energy of the events and experiences of the unwritten, the unsaid, outweigh all expressed in words voiced or written on paper. Those chapters in life when each word is measured and those that make it to the world rest upon a sea of the unsaid, the unwritten. We all experience those chapters of life when there is a weighted pause that meets others’ questions, before we respond. What to say, and mostly, what we choose not to say.
This was such a year for me and I felt it acutely as I reviewed the pieces written from the past year, each a feel a sliver of life amidst the vastness of the reality of all else happening.
We all experience this and I share here, because it can be easy to feel alone in these challenges when looking at others’ lives from the outside. I remind myself that we all have lives and chapters laden with the unsaid, the unwritten—even writers.
Yet it so often all between the lines that carries the most energy, that drives and shapes our days and nights. All happening between the lines sculpts our lives. These chapters often feel to be happening to us, rather than from us. Days, weeks, months feel swept away in reaction, rather than proaction.
In Meadowlark, I write of Lakota wisdom of turning into our fears, our pain. This is the meadowlark’s song, a reminder for us to turn into what we fear, what brings us pain, as a way through it. When I sign copies, I write, “May we always listen to the meadowlark’s song.” This came to me in the candlelit darkness as I sat to write of my intentions for the upcoming year and became so exquisitely aware of all the unsaid and unwritten of the past year. There is a feeling of power in listening to the meadowlark’s song. The idea of turning into, rather than running away from. The powerless feeling of reacting to shifts into a glimmer of groundedness. Turning into all between the lines, listening to the meadowlark’s song, allows light into the darkness. We reclaim our own narrative, our own life story.
Rosca de Reyes y Champurrado
Yesterday, we celebrated El Día de los Reyes Magos/Three Kings’ Day. In this photo, I fell in love with this corn husk doll in Oaxaca and brought home. The beautiful cup was a gift de una amiga mexicana muy querida.
I didn’t grow up with the tradition of the Reyes Magos, and learned of it from a dear friend from Mexico who gathered our families together, with kids everywhere, to cut the rosca and and see who got the piece with the baby Jesus. We celebrated this sacred time of LOVE, gratitude, friendship, and family. I loved seeing the kids gathered around the rosca and then the excitement of who received the baby Jesus im their piece. From her I learned that whoever had the piece with the baby Jesus was to host the following year’s festivities. I’ve come to embrace this tradition in our family. Last night was extra special, as I got to hold a 6-month old throughout the meal. Oh, that feeling of a baby in your arms! There was such healing as he smiled, wiggled, chortled, and roared through the meal in my arms.
We received this beautiful sage bundle as a gift this year. Today I’ll light the bundle in honor of all the unsaid and unwritten between the lines of the past year and and invite good energy, healing, and intentions into this New Year. As the smoke gently lifts, I will hold you and your unsaid, unwritten between the lines in my thoughts, along with my own. I envision the smoke lifting the weight of the unsaid away and making space for active creation, intentional actions, a sense of sculpting our own lives. I’ll hold hopes of light and of beauty.
Dawn Wink: Dewdrops 