I notice a sinking feeling. Argh!This isn’t what I want.
I tread water, grope for a footing.
Then, I notice, as I do the next thing–chop the carrots and onions– and the next–answer that email– I’ve floated past the obstacle.
Later on, I notice elation, a rising of delight and wonder.
I lay my head back, arms stretched out. My feet pop to the surface. I breathe in fresh air with my face to the wide-open sky.
The sinking feeling came like a wave, joy like another.
I’m floating in an ocean of Love receiving this breath, and now, this one.
I hope I will remember this– even for a nanosecond– when stormy waves come and keep coming.
And if I don’t, I’m grateful You’re treading water with me.
We cannot attain the presence of God because we are already totally in the presence of God. What’s absent is awareness. Little do we realize that God is maintaining us in existence with every breath we take. As we take another it means that God is choosing us now and now and now. –Richard Rohr, Everything Belongs
Credits and References: Treading Water by Coast Guard News. Used with permission. Floating by Esther Hizsa, 2026 Floating by Sheila Dee. Used with permission.
Create in me a free heart, O God, a heart that welcomes every part of myself to be felt, seen and heard, a heart that sees You in creation and loves every bit of You.
May I receive love from all of who You are. Teach me the language of trees and birds, body and experience, silence, memory and community. Help me trust the deep knowing You seed within and around me and live aligned with compassion.
May I awaken more and more to my oneness with all, rooted in the reality that I belong, I’m needed, precious and enjoyed. May I be the me You knit together and do the work that is mine with a kind pace and generous delight. May I rest before I need to and nap guilt-free.
When this life is over, may I let go of what was and welcome death as a friend.
Thank you that You are already doing what we long for, already there, wherever we are.
Praise be to You! For You dwell within the heart of everything! –Psalm 116:19 Nan Merrill, Psalms for Praying
Credits and References: 109.365 nowhere to turn but to You by ashley rose,. Used with permission. Prayer for a Free Heart by Esther Hizsa, 2026 #36 in explore by ashley rose,. Used with permission.
The image of a child crying in the back seat of my car enabled me to move from trying to silence my anxiety to having compassion for a young part of myself.
Over the next few days, I listened to my life and began to see what she was bringing to my attention: a nightmare, an email exchange, a moment of feeling trapped and losing my temper, the insight that followed.
When I pieced these together, I began to see what rattled her: an event that happened a few years ago re-traumatized her.
It didn’t just happen once, I heard. It didn’t end when you grew up. It happened again, and it will keep happening, and I will never be safe.
I felt her despair in my chest and let it be there, both of us held in “the wondrous luminous web” of God’s heart, grounded in the reality that it can and likely will happen again, God will be with me, and I’ll be okay. I’m not trapped in my anxiety. It comes and goes, and so can I.
But she doesn’t believe that.
I take her hand and go for a walk. We notice the birds that fled since the sky’s been smoky are back chirping in the morning. New grass has sprouted after last night’s rain. We look at the trees and remember holding the ecologist’s “cookie,” a slice of a tree trunk showing the growth rings of a tree that survived many fires. We will survive this too, even if the burn scars never go away.
I think these messages are for her. But, really, they’re for another part of myself that wants the young one to smarten up. This older part is in my body too, and I feel her relax a bit, sense a willingness to give more space for the little one to feel what she feels and tell me more when she’s ready.
Fire Scar on a growth ring of a Red Oak
When you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you. –Isaiah 43:2
Here I am, as I am Holy, Human In this world, as it is Sacred, Profane Ever connected, in this wondrous luminous web Ever abiding, in the Heart of God. —Heather Ruce (Body Prayer)
Credits and References: Grammy and McKinley by Arthur T. LaBar. Used with permission. I Hear Her by Esther Hizsa, 2026 Fire scar in red oak by Eli Sagor. Used with permission
There it is again in the pit of my stomach, when I go to sleep at night, when I wake in the morning, the feeling that something’s wrong, something bad’s going to happen. Summertime, when I have nothing at all to worry about, I am troubled.
I don’t like this feeling born of illogical belief. I analyze, anticipate, normalize, distract, but it persists. She persists.
Finally, I see her. She wants my attention, wants me to stop looking at her through the rear-view mirror, stop trying to get her to be quiet, stop telling her she has nothing to be afraid of.
She wants me to stop the car, take her out of the car seat, and hold her.
The Mother in the core of my being awakens.
I pull over and turn off the engine.
Jesus turned and saw her. –Matthew 9:22 (NIV)
Credits and References: rainy glass by AЯMEN. Used with permission I See Her by Esther Hizsa, 2026 Rear-view Eyes by flightsaber. Used with permission
Smoke… too dense to go out; too unsafe to play ball. So we sat in the house. and did nothing at all.
All we could do was to sit! sit! sit! sit! and we did not like it. not one little bit. –Dr. Seuss, The Cat in the Hat (adapted)
Then … we looked out and saw the hills again, blue sky and fluffy white clouds. We went outside and breathed in fresh air, opened the windows, and swept the dust off the deck.
I walked up the hill, and a deer stopped munching on grass. She looked up at me as if to ask, Where have you been?
I biked along the lake, pedalling hard because I could and marvelled at the expanse of indigo rippling sparkles of light.
Wind tickled leaves. They winked and waved, Welcome back, my friend.
Don’t it always seem to go that you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone. –Joni Mitchell, Big Yellow Taxi
Credits and References: The Cat in the Hat photo by. Daniel X. O’Neil. Used with permission. Fresh Air by Esther Hizsa, 2026 Okanagan Rail Trail, Kalamalka Lake by pistachio. Used with permission.
Yesterday, we returned home from camping in the Kootenays. Today, I’m baking bread, and Fred is vacuuming out the car. I wish he could vacuum up the smoke and everyone were safe at home.
One hundred and four wildfires are actively burning in British Columbia. Five started in the last 24 hours. Now, those living in Summerland are being evacuated, and Peachland is on alert.
I feel the deep sadness of it all, the pain, grief, loss, and disorientation, and join the lament. “Why, Lord, do you stand far off? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?”
Waves of despair and hope, trust and fear, bad news and miracles wash over us all.
Remember Your promise to never leave or forsake us, to save us in times of trouble, to rescue us and bring us into a spacious place?
Save us now.
I will never leave you or abandon you. –Psalm 16:10 (adapted)
Credits and References: Bradley Creek fire by Liam Phair in the Castanet News. Save Us Now by Esther Hizsa, 2026 Quipituk Creek fire by Bowen Assman in the Castanet News.
Even now, Douglas Fir is filtering smoke from word, Kingfisher flies ahead, finds a perch, looks back and waits for you, guiding you in. As you paddle, pedal, saunter, sit Rain, Brook, Sapphire Sea sink you into deep silence within, where you can breathe again– breathe in God breathing in you breathing in God– where you know, without a doubt, you are held, where you know, without a doubt, you are always held, where you can look at what’s true and know you are safe, know, without a doubt, you’ll be okay.
But ask the animals, and they will teach you, or the birds in the sky, and they will tell you… –Job 12:7 (NIV)
Credits and References: Douglas fir by harum.koh. Used with permission. Even Now by Esther Hizsa, 2026 Belted Kingfisher by Andy Morffew. Used with permission.
The word for this new year that came to you –of all the words, this one and of all people, you– what if it isn’t what you should be but what you already are? What if it isn’t what you should do but what God is already doing in you? What if it’s both what you seek and what you already have? –Esther Hizsa, You Know Enough
Whole was the word on the back of the star I picked from the church bulletin board– a yellow star like all the others, each hiding a different word for the year. The one in my hand read whole.
I put it in my pocket, walked around with it, wrote about it and lost it.
A week later, our contemplative group made mandalas with our word-for-the-year. I perused the magazine cuttings, spread out on tables and counters, let images and words draw me and arrange themselves on a circle of green. It had to be green, something in me said. I cut out letters, spelled Whole and glued them on the dark space in the middle.
Afterwards, I propped the mandala on my spiritual direction chair so I could see it when I was writing or working, and it could see me.
Whole: something I already am, something God is doing, something I’m seeking, and, my mandala-spiritual-director added, something that’s seeking you.
The koan accompanied me on my hillside hikes or rides through the valley, but the mandala got in the way whenever I needed to sit where it was. I temporarily placed it in the closet and forgot about it until I found myself falling in love with the land, making friends with lilies and birds, saving gray water for the silver birch in our yard when stage three water restrictions were announced. I realized: just as separation from God is an illusion, so is our separation from all living things. I am connected to creation, whole in relationship with the forest, the mountains, lakes, oceans and stars.
I pull out my mandala again and know why it had to be green. I begin to see how each word describes my budding relationship with creation:
Open Awake Burial Honest Pilgrimage Connection Desert Finding
I know why each image I chose was of wilderness– welcoming the ocean, walking in a forest, sitting in the mountains, finding myself face to face with a tree, floating in a clear blue lake, painting the stars–
this is me whole.
“Uh-huh,” my mandala-spiritual-director nods.
I look out my window, at the hill where I say hello to purple and make eye contact with deer. I see my friends: the dry sage, the tall fir, the endless blue sky. “Uh-huh,” they say.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination, calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting – over and over announcing your place in the family of things. –Mary Oliver, Wild Geese
Credits and References: Photos by Esther Hizsa. This Is Me Whole by Esther Hizsa, 2026.
Three mountain passes (Sunwapta, Bow, Kicking Horse)
Three national parks (Jasper, Banff and Yoho)
Three hundred kilometres (301.5 to be exact): Snaring River Campground, north of Jasper, to Hoodoo Creek Campground in Yoho by way of Lake Louise in Banff NP
Five days (Six overall)
One rider: me
My ride: Penelope, Liv Avail XS road bike. Gracie (Trek road bike) and I rode the Icefield Parkway in 2008 and 2017 with Fred and my siblings. Now, it was Penelope’s turn.
Highest speed: 69 km/hour (coming down Sunwapta from the Columbia Icefields)
Lowest speed: 3.9 km per hour (Going up Sunwapta, I walked for a km)
Flat tires, avalanches, fires, bears, near accidents: 0
Collective number of hours of solitude in the saddle: 22 hours
Number of hours with cell reception: less than one.
Campgrounds and Route: Thursday July 2:Snaring River Campground to Honeymoon Lake Campground (68.5 km) Friday: to Wilcox Campground at Sunwapta Pass (55.5 km) Saturday: to Waterfowl Campground (67 km) Sunday: to Mosquito Creek Campground over Bow Summit (32.5 km), Monday: a rest day Tuesday: to Hoodoo Creek Campground via Lake Louise and Kicking Horse Pass (78 km)
Support: (finding campsites and setting up tent and tarps, bike maintenance, cheering me on): The Fantastic Fred
Beautiful views: Unlimited
How did it feel? At times a push, at times a breeze. Most of the time as if I were submerged in God, embodied in creation. As I rode down each mountain pass, I let out the loudest “Woohoo!” I could muster and felt tears in my eyes. My body in God’s body overjoyed.
Tangled Falls, Jasper NP on my way up to the Columbia Icefields (Sunwapta Pass El 2035 m)
Friends rooting for me.
Fred and the Athabasca Glacier at the Columbia Icefields, Jasper NP
On my way up Bow Pass, Banff NP
The tiny sign in the photo says Bow Summit Elev. 2,115 m, Banff NP
Peyto Lake at Bow Summit, Banff NP
A rest day at Mosquito Creek Campground (Bow Mountain), Banff NP
The longest eisw (78 km with headwinds) and third mountain pass
Wapta Falls, Yoho NP
When Jesus commands us to love our neighbours, he does not only mean our human neighbours; he means all the animals and birds, insects and plants, amongst whom we live. –John Philip Newell, Sacred Earth, Sacred Soul
Credits and References: Photos by Esther & Fred Hizsa and a kind tourist at the Goats and Glaciers Lookout Penelope Bikes the Icefield Parkway by Esther Hizsa, 2026
Fred and I are camping in Jasper National Park. I love being outside and recall what Victoria Loorz said about “relationship-ing” with Creation: we are in relationship with creation, and she with us. With this in mind, I notice what I notice.
A vibrant orange Wood Lily says, “Hello.” I see more of them as I ride on and stop for a closer look. The petals form the flower unlike any lily I’ve seen. Daisies flank the trail, welcoming everyday pilgrims to notice the beauty all around.
A very large raven watches us cook dinner in a picnic shelter at Lake Annette. He paces back and forth a few feet away, eyeing us. I get the feeling he wants us to know he’s willing to share this space as long as we understand it belongs to him.
Back at the campground, we’ve just missed meeting a grizzly with two cubs.
Black spindles fill the southern landscape, evidence of the 2024 fire. I pray Tonglen for the forest, breathing in the death and loss, and breathing out a blessing for new seeds sprouting, new homes under construction.
Every day, jagged, snow-capped peaks catch the clouds. Rain comes and goes, making any firm plans to hike or bike impossible. I sense them saying, Let this moment unfold and see what happens. Trust that all is well, and you will be given what you need.
Another dinner in another shelter, another bird eyes us, chirping until we choose the table away from the nests the swallow guards. She never leaves her post or takes her eyes off us, and never asks us to leave.
I listen to the silence, the wind, the birds, the raindrops on the tent, and feel connected to the deep peace of the trees, mountains, clouds and sky. I feel an ease within.
Deep peace of the running wave to you Deep peace of the flowing air to you Deep peace of the quiet earth to you Deep peace of the shining stars to you Deep peace of the gentle night to you
Moon and stars pour their healing light on you Deep peace of Christ the light of the world to you. —A Gaelic Blessing
Credits and References: Wood Lily by Esther Hizsa. Used with permission. Making Friends in Jasper by Esther Hizsa, 2026 Raven by Fred Hizsa. Used with permission.
An Everyday Pilgrim 