Essays & reflections

Feb 22, 2024

Resilience Loves...Chosen Family

“I always will, because a web is stronger than a wheel, and people (along with ecosystems and populations and human cells) that are forced into isolation will…

Dec 18, 2023

Radical Compassion & Social Courage

These. They are desperately needed and inextricably linked. See here how one feeds the other, and how you are the home of both.

Nov 28, 2023

Resilience Loves...Cracked Shells

" Nature LOVES shells. So I do too! They’re everywhere, and obviously one of her favorite tools — vessels of protection, of germination, of transport, of…

Jul 4, 2023

Resilience Loves...Crossing Invisible Lines

“Resilience loves…crossing invisible lines. Ooooh, this is the fun stuff. Sure, you can cross visible lines, or just live inside them, but what about the…

Mar 31, 2023

Resilience Loves...Change

"I do, and not just a little. And it’s not an admiring or abstract love, or comfortable, but rather a sometimes tempestuous and inescapable connection, where…

Jan 30, 2023

Resilience Loves...Embodied Wanting

“I really do. And I also hate it. No, just kidding, but who doesn’t get twitchy when they let themselves really want, really yearn? Putting clear words to…

Sep 13, 2022

Resilience Loves...Natural Leadership

Resilience capacity feeds natural leadership…feeds resilience…feeds natural leadership…feeds resilience…now you get it.

Jun 29, 2022

Resilience Loves...Creative Warriors

“Look, beloved, if you are going to protest, for or against anything, bring to it the same intelligence, creativity and innovation that you bring to your…

May 9, 2022

Resilience Loves...Buffering

“Oh, I so do. So, yes. This. Let’s talk about this for just a minute. Picture a pipe with rods running inside it and tightly packed. If you strike the outside…

Apr 1, 2019

A Different Food Chain

Resilience on our farm is embedded in how we live — offering efficiency, safety, and heart. In this article, you’ll see how we conceive of and create a life…

Feb 19, 2019

Montana Parent Lorca Profile

Thank you Julie Kleine and Montana Parent Magazine for celebrating local women leaders for International Women’s Day in their latest issue! You can view the…

Jun 18, 2018

A Hunger for Joy — Lorca’s TEDx

I found when I had told this story here that I had never told it before — not like this. We find the opening when what needs to be talked of is a stronger…

Sep 22, 2017

The Why of Glasses

Folly to mourn healing of the cranium, the return of equilibrium in the timing of an eye’s focus, no more headaches. No need.

Apr 13, 2017

Would you like to hear the eulogy at your own funeral?

Would you like to hear the eulogy at your own funeral? I think I just did.

Dec 21, 2016

“You Can Do This Hard Thing”: The Odd Road to Tougher

A firefighter told me yesterday that when he started working with me on his resilience he was excited because he thought that he was going to come out of it…

Dec 2, 2016

How to Eat Love

Love is going out to kill a turkey in 20-degree weather so that your wife can tend other things. And love is still liking the man who is grinning and handing…

Oct 19, 2016

The Sermon of Lorca’s Animals

When I was asked to speak again this year for the St. Francis-inspired sermon of animals, my first thought was, “What if I said everything I had to say last…

Oct 19, 2016

Profanity for Children

I refrained from swearing near my young children,

Mar 30, 2016

Compash-Imagination

TOOLS: field notebook and good pen, a timer, other humans, and a supple imagination

Mar 12, 2016

How we _really_ honor those we’ve lost

Perhaps you’re lying in bed at night worrying about tomorrow or next week, wishing you could sleep instead of worry. Or you wonder when you stopped loving…

Mar 6, 2016

Ignite Your Creativity

Teaching is about information and understanding.

Dec 8, 2015

Luminations — Being flame…

luminations noun, plural. 1. Gleams, glimmers, perspectives, clarity. See also, dawn, morning, simplicity, resilience, work, love, home. 2. A series of short…

Dec 1, 2015

Luminations — Loosening A Grip on Overwhelm

luminations noun, plural. 1. Gleams, glimmers, perspectives, clarity. See also, dawn, morning, simplicity, resilience, love, home. 2. A series of short videos…

Nov 14, 2015

Fighting terrorism from where you are

Dear ones, this morning I, too, am torn, deeply sad and sorry and worried, reaching out to friends to know they’re safe, aware of refugees without power or…

Sep 28, 2015

Radical Awakeness: Living Among Animals

Spoken to the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Bozeman for the Blessing of the Animals…

May 18, 2015

The Pain-Bearers

Sometimes I think I have come into this life as one of the pain-bearers — not one who takes all pain onto herself, nor one who takes it from others, but who…

Jan 22, 2015

Resilience Myth #3: The Awesome Work Ethic

In the last post , we looked at the resilience Myth #2 : “I’ll evade burnout with careful time management.”

Jan 5, 2015

Staying Resilient in 2015: The Biggest Myths — Myth #2

In the last post we looked at Myth #1 : “I just need to work out a more balanced life.”

Dec 30, 2014

Averting Burnout This Year: The 4 Biggest Myths — #1

For a time, I crashed down into a full-on burnout once every ten years: three times in three ways — once through tragedy, once as a student pushing too hard,…

Dec 30, 2014

Adventures in “Deathbed” Conversations

A story and an invitation and a challenge. The story is here in this short Pecha Kucha video.

Feb 19, 2014

Burnout is an open door.

Sometimes I feel I must be an alien, because I really, really love to talk about death, and about burnout. But this is really why. When I start from death, and…

Feb 6, 2014

Resilience is Power. And Peace.

“I just wanted myself back, and then to create something more. After what I’ve been through, I am not going to settle for an average life. I want to have…

Nov 4, 2013

Death, Joy & Homing Pigeons — Pecha Kucha Bozeman

#astonishment #doverelease #homingpigeons #ceremony #whitedoves #beauty #awareness #education #mindfulness #thetenthousandthings

Sep 8, 2013

7th Bozeman Pecha Kucha — The Anti-Internet Experience!

It’s time again! If you don’t know about it yet, you should because you’ll LOVE IT! Such a great Bozeman evening, repeated twice. Tickets sell out each time,…

Jul 25, 2013

On living on the right side of the tapestry.

Death. Love. Emergencies. Sheep. Cleaning. Gardening. Paperwork. Phone calls. Making things. These are all steady players in a season, gardens sometimes…

Apr 6, 2013

Welcome to the world

We give comfort and we receive comfort, sometimes at the same time.

Dec 28, 2012

On receiving salt and light…

A pirate friend of mine recently sent me a note:

Dec 13, 2012

Winter morning video — 12 degrees warm…

What happens when everything freezes shut? Good morning!

Dec 13, 2012

Good winter morning!

Sunrise in the studio…#Montana #morning #sunrise #winter

Nov 6, 2012

Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks video spotlight!

What cuties!

Oct 3, 2012

Pigeon pose…

Making magic again! Gorgeous photo shoot day down at the tipi in the aspen grove on the last day of fall, the very day before the snows swooped into Montana…

Sep 16, 2012

On workbaskets…

These are freedom of creativity, neatness, thriftiness, duty, cleverness, portability, fullness and satisfaction, orderliness, accomplishment, and time. Each…

Sep 10, 2012

This I believe.

We are all together on this ship and some of us will die sooner. Some young. I will grieve again, and comfort. It may be me. Those of us who are lucky will…

Jun 15, 2012

On making an heirloom

One of the most appreciated practices I’ve had in my releases has been the sharing of a white flight feather, something for people to hold in their hands and…

Jun 13, 2012

My doves on the news!

Last night’s Gift Worth Giving wedding was gorgeous! Just a little rain to highlight how beautiful the evening light was, and the details were smooth and…

Jun 12, 2012

For a gift worth giving…

Preparing the lovelies for this evening’s The Gift Worth Giving wedding for Holly CoVille and Joshua Watson. This year’s dream wedding is given to this…

Oct 6, 2011

Lorca Smetana, Owner of Montana Dove Releases, Lives Life as a Celebration

Nov 17, 2010

Thank you, Cherilyn.

We are people in need of still moments. In our hurried world, it is deeply important to mark the events that connect us with a simple, joyful symbol of love.

Nov 17, 2010

Library release with kids!

How fun was that! Over fifty people filled the big new conference room at the Bozeman Public Library for an hour-long talk on the 5000-year history of humans…

Oct 20, 2010

Bozeman Library Presentation and Release

The birds are loving these late October sunny days, but we’ve gotten out the warmers to keep the waterers from freezing at night. The pigeons are just fine…

Sep 13, 2010

Bozeman Chronicle top story!

The “Respecting the Sacred” tolerance celebration and dove release were the top story in the 9/13/10 Bozeman Daily Chronicle. Lovely picture of the circling…