Guten Tag, Reader,

“What are you noticing?” I ask, holding out a piece of bark-beetle-decorated wood to the circle gathered in a forest on a hot early autumn day.

One woman takes our “forest microphone” and holds it to her heart. I always suggest sharing wordlessly, but this is the first time anyone actually takes me up on it. Once her silent share is complete, she holds the microphone back into the circle.

Another woman takes it, looks at it, and breathes out slowly.

“The tree said ssshhhhhh,” she says quietly. “Not ‘SHUSH!’ like my mom shushes me. Not ‘be quiet, don’t be obnoxious, don’t be too much!’ But ‘Ssshhhhhh.’ The tree invited me to lissstennnn.”

After two days in Montana’s Swan Valley on a retreat called DESCENT,* nobody in our circle finds it quite as radical anymore.

I, for one, know exactly what she means. I was called to shhhhhh and listen by the walls of Lodore Canyon and the waves of the Green River back in August.**

What I’ve been hearing has become a bit clearer in the weeks since our return. The trees have helped me sort it out, and the daily cards have also been useful translators. A shift is coming. New shores are waiting. Focus. Conserve your resources.

The message is not altogether what I want to hear.

Or let me put it this way:

Parts of me are anxious, annoyed, and inconvenienced.

Other parts, including the Self with a capital S, are delighted, relieved, excited.

They understand that the current discomfort is caused by expansion, outgrowing, and shedding.

How fitting for the fall season.

Fall is also the season of switching from outward expression to internal processing. And I am planning on doing more of that in the coming weeks.

Months, probably.

I will go through my journals and listen to the desires, ideas, and visions I’ve written about. Many of them circle around writing, making, creating. More tangible products. Less time on Zoom.

What I do already know will affect these Joy Letters.***

There will be more writing, but in new formats and realms.

And in different rhythms.

The Joy Letters aren’t going away.

This will still be the place where you get to peek behind the scenes.

I will continue to share what I am learning about finding forging our path through the midlife wilderness.

You will still get first dibs when my journal dreams become reality. Like these ones:

• the 2026 Advent Calendar
• the 2027 wildHER retreat
• the 52 Seasons Guide to Observation and Discovery

These emails just won’t land in your inbox every other Sunday anymore. Sometimes it will be more frequent, then longer pauses.

While I write something else, somewhere else.

I will see you here again soon, though.

Stay curious,

P.S. I’d love to hear from you: What do you hear when you sshhhhhh and listen?

* DESCENT was the first of four seasonal retreats facilitated by the brilliant Katie Weaver. You can still join her for the remaining three, and I highly recommend you do if you are craving a little more magic in your life: https://www.meadowlarkguide.co/experiences

** I wrote about it here

*** This is Joy Letter number 150, and I thought for too long about what I should write in my celebratory email. So I decided not to write one at all. You tell me if I succeeded. Maybe the public pause-button-pushing is the perfect celebration.

If you found something valuable in today's letter, why not buy me a coffee? I am keeping my writing AI-free, which means a lot of creativity goes into it. You can leave a tip for me here or Venmo me @sylke-laine.