Just as the days lengthen, the earth gently stirs and birdsong sounds out at daybreak, the first tender spirits of Nettle appear on the trails here at The Ground.

Nettle shares a panel of nourishment to fortify us as we emerge from our winter dreams. Whenever I work with nettle, the word, “tonic” is brought forward as acknowledgement of the plants willingness to restore vigor and well-being.

What does it mean to be well nourished?

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about coherence—what it means, how it feels, and how it relates to both our inner world and the way we build together.

To me, coherence is more than an idea. It’s a state of being. A frequency we can tune into through practices like meditation, breathwork, time on the land, or anything that brings us back into presence and flow.

Sometimes it’s less complicated than we make it. Sometimes coherence is simply feeling the ground beneath our feet and remembering that we are here.

It looks like it is time to move...again.

Our landlord, heartbroken, decided he needed to sell the house he had raised his family in. The arrival of A.I. has all but decimated his long-time income streams of website design and video production.

After less than a year here, I was just beginning to settle in on a deeper level, and am now tasked with the need to create another place to call home.

Peter Gabriel wrote a song for the closing of the Pixar film WALL-E called “Down to Earth.” If you haven’t heard it, I hope you’ll take a moment to listen. It speaks of returning, of remembering, of coming back to the place that holds us. The ground beneath our feet. The earth that asks nothing but that we show up.

That song is how The Ground got its name. The lyrics live in this place the way good things do, quietly, insistently, returning at the moments when we most need reminding of the spirit behind everything happening here.

I almost didn’t notice it.

Tucked in a drawer in my room at the retreat center in Peru was a book: The Cosmic Serpent by Jeremy Narby. I had brought my own books and my journal — as usual, I had a plan. I set it on the dresser. But it kept drawing my attention, the way certain things do when they aren’t quite done with you. I finally picked it up. I didn’t put it down for the next ten days.