The Invitations We Don't Always Recognize

Yesterday, I invited someone into my office.

That may sound ordinary, except my office is a few steps away from our coffee shop, which is a few steps away from our home. Every so often, I look around and think, "This is a little unusual."

A therapy office next to a coffee shop? A farmhouse store surrounded by fields, woods, and a river? A place where someone might come for coffee, conversation, a workshop, a walk, or simply to sit?

And then I remember—maybe it isn't unusual at all.

My older brother is a barber. When I tell people that he cuts hair and I am a psychotherapist, I often hear, "You know, those jobs are actually kind of similar."

At first, I laughed. But the more I thought about it, the more I understood. Both require presence. Both require trust. Both create a space where someone sits in front of you and allows themselves to be seen.

Maybe that is what The River Runs Through has always been about.

An invitation.

The field. The old table under the maple tree. The chairs that somehow found their way here. The coffee. The tea (please be patient with Rob—his tea-making journey continues). The trails through the woods. My office.

Different spaces, but the same invitation: connection.

This is also where shamanic practice enters my story.

I know the word "shamanism" can bring up questions. For me, it is a practice of relationship—relationship with ourselves, with nature, and with the seen and unseen aspects of life.

Through practices such as journeying between ordinary reality and non-ordinary reality, ceremony, connection with nature, and deep listening, shamanic practice invites us to expand beyond only what we can think and analyze. It invites the wisdom of the body, intuition, imagination, and spirit into the conversation.

As a psychotherapist, I have spent decades helping people understand their thoughts, emotions, and patterns. That work is meaningful. Yet I have also learned that understanding something does not always create transformation.

Sometimes we need another doorway.

A different way of listening. A different way of connecting. A reminder that we are not separate from the world around us.

That is why the coffee, the conversations, the therapy, the art, the ceremonies, and the walks along the river all belong together.

They are different invitations into the same thing: connection.

If you are curious about shamanic practices, you are welcome to join one of our workshops, send me an email about your interest, or make an appointment. And if you're simply curious about what this place is all about, come by the farmhouse store, have a cup of coffee or tea, browse, sit awhile, or take a walk.

You don't have to know exactly what you're looking for.

Sometimes you just have to show up.

Come for a bit. Stay awhile. See what finds you.