Connect to The Wild and Celebrate Life

We often think of celebration as a spotlight: birthdays, milestones, accomplishments.

Moments where we raise a glass to ourselves, to what we’ve achieved, to the little peaks we’ve climbed.

Those celebrations matter, but they are small compared to a deeper kind: the celebration that comes not from what we achieve, but from merging with the whole.

For me, it starts with connection.

When I step outside and let The Wild fill me

Canyon walls, ocean tides, pine-scented air

Something shifts.

The tension eases.

I stop striving and start belonging.

That is the doorway.

Because once I connect, celebration happens on its own.

Not celebration of me or my accomplishments, but of life itself:

Of rivers carving stone.

Of waves collapsing into shore.

Of bristlecone pines standing sentinel through the centuries.

I’ve felt it watching confetti drift like butterflies, each piece catching the neon glow of Times Square after midnight.

The countdown was over, the crystal ball had dropped, the fireworks had flared, but the quiet miracle came after.

Thousands of tiny fragments, weightless and luminous, floating through the air while most people rushed home, never pausing to notice the beauty that was right there above them.

I’ve felt it sitting on a smooth rock in the Narrows at Zion, the Virgin River swirling cool and insistent around my ankles.

All around me, hikers hurried past, determined to say they had “done” the Narrows.

And yet, the real magic wasn’t in reaching the end of the trail, but in stopping long enough to belong to that canyon, to feel the ancient walls rise around you, to listen as the river whispered its timeless song.

I’ve felt it perched on a boulder on Pewetole Island at Trinidad Beach, surrounded by the endless Pacific.

The tide pools were jeweled with sea anemones and starfish, worlds within worlds.

Waves rolled in the deep, albatross stood watch, and the air was salted with eternity.

There was nothing to accomplish there, only to marvel at being small and alive in a place that reminds you that the ocean has always been, and always will be.

Celebration, I realized, isn’t in the spectacle, but in the noticing.

In those moments, I wasn’t congratulating myself. I was acknowledging something bigger. Honoring the simple miracle that all of this - our cities, the canyon, the sea, my breath - exists.

Connection is what opens the door.

Celebration is what comes rushing in.

And when it does, I feel radiant

Goddess-like

Not because of who I am apart

But because we are all a part of something

So profound.

So beautiful.

So complete.

So yes, I celebrate my life. But more than that, I celebrate Life…

What about you?

What does it feel like when you celebrate not just your story, but the Dance of Life itself?

Pewetole Island