Welcome to Collective Self
Welcome to my author page. I’m Lori Kane, Whidbey Island-based essayist, poet, author, herbalist, home canner, mystic, sci-fi fan, aunt, antiracist. We also host retreats, talks, and workshops: our 2020 series lives on our Silly Dog Studios website. Check it out!
Books hold some of humanity’s deepest magic. In the presence of books, I feel I fully belong. I write to understand and so that someone else might open a book to find exactly the thing they need at just the right moment for them—like other authors have done for me across my life. I write so that others have the experience of drawing in their breath with wonder and delight as they’re reminded of the deep magic at play in our world, and within humanity herself, even here, even now.
My latest collaboration–the Mystic Routine series of eight activity books–lives here on the Silly Dog website. It’s about waking up, centering on what matters most to your community and yourself, and holding on to wonder.
Our latest book Unshaken Wonder: Becoming Playful Elders Together can be ordered from you local bookstore. And is available in digital form on Amazon and in print form on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Powell’s, Books-a-Million, and BookBaby’s bookstore here. It’s for people asking themselves questions like: How do I get back to my playful self? How do I get back to being in love with humanity? What does it take to become a playful elder today? What does it take to encounter wonder daily? What does it take to reconnect with the wonder at our core during times of increasing polarization, isolation, exhaustion, and anger and when confronted by pain, death, injustice, and horror? I suspect that to find unshaken wonder we must be ready to unlearn much of what the old us thought was true. That we must feel a little bit ready to open ourselves up again to new possibilities, people, ideas, and places. Ready to let go of what doesn’t matter in this moment in favor of what matters most to those fully present and together here, right now.
Are you ready?
Recent Writings
Are we still learning? Questions from my community
It’s October 2018. Status update from earth. We’re tired. We’re working hard. Many of us are in pain: hurting, scared, and angry on a regular basis now. I could say most of us but I can only see and speak on behalf of my own community on that. Here, most of us are...
Here at 48
It’s been a more-difficult-than-normal few weeks in the US for many women. Brutal for some. Just about every woman I know has been re-living their sexual assault, remembering their close calls, and/or listening to and comforting friends again who’ve been raped or...
Why I Write
I had a gallbladder attack---a tall, dark gallstone and I passed a wild night in the emergency room---last November. I've been slowly healing with an unhappy gallbladder ever since. Now here in July, just two weeks ago, facing unexpected stress, I found myself with...
Poetry Reveals Our Hidden Roots and Connections
Poetry reveals our hidden roots and connections. Isn't that cool? Look what I just found. This brings me so much joy… The Light of the House by Louise Imogen Guiney (published in Happy Ending: The Collected Lyrics of Louise Imogen Guiney, 1909) Beyond the cheat of...
Am I an empath? What my community has taught me…
I'm heartbroken (nauseous actually) about all the lives lost in Gaza again this week and our role in it. Thank you to my Jewish American and Palestinian friends for keeping this sorrow and pain in my line of site. Thanks to you, I'm doubling down on...
On befriending wonder and unleashing playfulness: a story, a trailer, and two new books
We've had one hell of a fall and winter here. We helped Mom move into a memory care home where she'll have the round-the-clock, large community support she now needs. We've been moving with our own grief and helping each other, and Mom and Dad, with theirs and with...