Into the deep

Helping Friendly Newsletter, 10.24.25

Oct 24, 2025

drawing of hot pink heart center within messy spiral of green watercolor and black loops

GM! ☕️

Samhain / Halloween is coming. And so we enter what some call the “season of the seed,” a time for planting in darkness what we hope will break through in spring. The harvest is done, and next we will enter the fallow season, where new life quickens underground and unseen. “Into the deep we go.”

I first came to love the seed metaphor during my chaplain training. More often than not, chaplains cannot fix things for their patients. But they can plant seeds for comfort and calm: A chaplain’s “less anxious presence” won’t undo a health crisis, but it could help ground a difficult decision. A kind word in passing at the nurses’ station may encourage a staff member to lean on their chaplain later, in a more challenging moment. When a patient declines a visit, a gracious exit demonstrates non-judgment and makes the chaplain more accessible, should needs ever change. These seeds aren’t the whole of what a chaplain does, but the idea helped me find my equilibrium time and time again.

Sometimes, and especially in times of uncertainty, the best we can do is plant with intention. When direct impact is impossible, or it has an impossibly long horizon, seeds are a way to move forward in the here and now. They are a language of beginnings in the absence of guarantees. “If we want a garden,” The Highwomen sing, “we’re gonna have to sow the seed.”

And yes, on our less enlightened days, we naughty humans plant troublesome seeds. Violence, shame, ridicule, exclusion, greed, neglect, and myriad lesser evils also take root and demand reckoning. “If you plant ice,” The Grateful Dead warn, “you’re gonna harvest wind.”

This too is part of our story. It is why I favor rhythms and cycles over a straightforward linear march. Reliably, the seasons bring us back around to awareness, intention, and, when necessary, repair. What we desire continues to emerge through a slow process of careful tending—even as events, by turns, give us reasons to celebrate or bring us to our knees.

It has been a while now since I’ve done my work at a patient’s bedside. But chaplains aren’t the only ones who plant seeds: Parents, teachers, leaders, artists, activists, caregivers, and many others do so constantly with determination, love, and hope for the future. The long work belongs to us all.

And so here I am, writing another letter, sowing this tiny seed in the world. Thank you for being here and for your own hopeful plantings. Through gestures both grand and granular, we will work these fields together.

🖤

Jenny

P.S. Feliz Día de los Muertos to all who will celebrate! Blessings to the ancestors.

Here are this fortnight’s 5 things to consider:

1.

My nervous system doesn’t love a protest, so I was proud of myself for attending No Kings last weekend. Though l doubt the efficacy for near-term policy change, I’m optimistic about indirect impacts:

Courage and commitment are contagious. Protesters now have an(other) embodied experience of strength in numbers. We forged neighborly connections, near and far. And every protest leaves a historical breadcrumb, so future generations can learn from our experiences. I hope they will also know their ancestors loved them. You might say, we are planting seeds.

At the same time, protests do not transform reality overnight where ICE is concerned. Though it is difficult, I hope we will continue to bear witness and show up with courage. Here is a good outline of how allies can support immigrant communities during raids, along with Legal Aid Justice Center’s rapid response toolkit. There are also important elections underway (hello, Virginia!), so please get out the vote.

2.

Resilience in nature: Oakland, California’s Old Survivor is the last remaining old-growth (~500 years) coastal redwood in the East Bay. “The name says it all: that sense of an entity that has survived the devastation of the forest around it, that now serves as the anchor from which the rest of the forest recovery will germinate.”1

view of old redwood, looking up — Old Survivor. Photo by Oakland Geology.

3.

Planning: SMART goals work well where you need structure and consistency. HEART goals inspire and connect you to deeper meaning. These frameworks do not operate as a binary, nor must we choose between mind and heart. They’re best together.2

SMART GOALS
S - specific
M - measurable
A - achievable
R - relevant
T - timebound

HEART GOALS
H - honest
E - energizing
A - aligned
R - realistic
T - transformative

4.

Writing advice from Narnia:

“TO A SCHOOLGIRL IN AMERICA, who had written (at her teacher’s suggestion) to request advice on writing. / 14 December 1959. / It is very hard to give any general advice about writing. Here’s my attempt. (1) Turn off the Radio. (2) Read all the good books you can, and avoid nearly all magazines. (3) Always write (and read) with the ear, not the eye. You shd. hear every sentence you write as if it was being read aloud or spoken. If it does not sound nice, try again. (4) Write about what really interests you, whether it is real things or imaginary things, and nothing else. (Notice this means that if you are interested only in writing you will never be a writer because you will have nothing to write about…) (5) Take great pains to be clear. Remember that though you start by knowing what you mean, the reader doesn’t, and a single ill-chosen word may lead him to a total misunderstanding. In a story it is terribly easy just to forget that you have not told the reader something that he wants to know—the whole picture is so clear in your own mind that you forget that it isn’t the same in his. (6) When you give up a bit of work don’t (unless it’s hopelessly bad) throw it away. Put it in a drawer. It may come in useful later. Much of my best work, or what I think my best, is the rewriting of things begun and abandoned years earlier. (7) Don’t use a typewriter. The noise will destroy your sense of rhythm, which still needs years of training. (8) Be sure you know the meaning of(or meanings) of every word you use.” - C.S. Lewis — *Chronicles of Narnia* author and prolific writer C.S. Lewis was also a “mentor by mail.”

5.

I created a film club challenge to celebrate a friend’s birthday and am sharing the template here. The idea is to watch 75 unique movies across various categories and themes. You can make it a solo mission, turn it into a race, or compare notes with friends. Have fun, movie lovers!

“There is no end. There is no beginning. There is only the infinite passion of life.” - Federico Fellini

handwritten text: tiny reviews — and shop notes

I’m switching my ratings system to a qualitative LOVED, LIKED A LOT, or JUST OKAY. This tier system was devised by the fantastic Deedi Brown of Deedi Reads (thank you!). I appreciate both its simplicity and the room it leaves for interpretation.

HOW TO DO NOTHING

Next week at Commerce Street, we will hold the second meeting of our creativity book club. This month’s selection is Jenny O’Dell’s How to Do Nothing. I first read this book when it came out in 2019, so this was a re-reading. Though I’d forgotten the density of the prose, it does hold up.

O’Dell wants us to reclaim our attention from big tech, and she makes a case for doing so by opting into the world, rather than dropping out. The lifeline she offers is bioregionalism, i.e. close observation and participation in one’s local ecology. (If you’ve begun the inevitable middle-aged slide into birdwatching, you’re already on your way! 🙋🏼‍♀️)

Attention and observation are important foundations for creativity, so protecting and/or reclaiming them is necessary to the process. I love O’Dell’s ideas, but readers should be ready for a heavy lift. Don’t let the title fool you.

**LIKED A LOT**

THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE

I love a scary read to take me through the spooky season. Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House has topped my list for years, but I still haven’t followed through. I’m honestly afraid! Will this will be my year? [Cue suspenseful music.] **TO BE READ**

red yellow and pink wall art with concert posters — Portland, Maine. Photo by Tom Dillon.

TINY MUSIC REVIEWS

Andy had the good fortune to land us several free tickets in Charlottesville (thanks, babe!), and we traveled to Richmond for another fave, so it’s been an active month.

Leftover Salmon. These guys have been jamming forever, and they still bring it. They’re a Colorado band, but C’ville earned bragging rights when local musician Jay Starling joined them on keys and dobro. This is jamgrass (bluegrass + jam/rock) with Cajun flavor. Or, as the band calls it, “polyethnic Cajun slamgrass.” **LOVED**

California Honeydrops & The Infamous Stringdusters. The Stringdusters are a genre-busting bluegrass band who rock fairly hard on their (you guessed it) string instruments. The Honeydrops are groovy, improvisational “retro-soul” with a kickass horn section. Both sets were cool, although IMO the Honeydrops stole the show. **LIKED A LOT**

Don Was and the Pan-Detroit Ensemble. This is a jazz funk ensemble led by bassist Don Was, featuring incredible horns and a world-class female vocalist (Steffanie Christi’an). They’re currently on a Blues for Allah tour, which means they rework that Grateful Dead album in its entirety within their set. This was an interesting and creative, but brief night of music—encore wrapped by 9:45! **LIKED A LOT**

Tedeschi Trucks Band. Tedeschi Trucks Band will take you to church. This is always a soulful experience, and they are a big band that jams. Led by married duo Susan Tedeschi and Derek Trucks and backed by horns, percussion, more guitar, bass, keys and vocals (all the things!), TTB consistently comes through on both musicianship and message. Who else is jamming Jimi Hendrix’s “Manic Depression” in the middle of “Let Me Get By,” their song that is is not only about surviving, but also about breaking through and thriving when we lack control or power? This band’s shows are both a comfort and a calling-in. **LOVED**

Even a king gives sometimes,
even if he don’t care.
Forget what we said last December
’cause it’s been a hell of a year.
🔥😭
- TTB, Let Me Get By

P.S. If you’ve never heard Susan Tedeschi sing, drop what you are doing and check this out.

ICYMI, two weeks ago I shared these 5 things to consider: tiny actions, survival skills, deep roots, saving the meeting, and thresholds.

Thank you for reading! This newsletter is a labor of love. 💌 To support it, you can upgrade to a paid subscription, share this post, or engage my services. You can learn more about my work at jenniferlphillips.com.

photo of me smiling with a flower crown and a tee shirt that reads, "connection over compliance"

Have a great weekend!

I’ll see you in your inbox again soon.

Peace,

Via Jenny O’Dell, How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy. “To look at [Old Survivor] is to look at something that began growing in the midst of a very different, even unrecognizable world: one where human inhabitants preserved the local balance of life rather than destroying it, where the shape of the coastline was not yet changed, where there were grizzly bears, California condors, and Coho salmon…This is not the stuff of fable. Indeed, it wasn’t even that long ago. Just a surely as the needles that grow from Old Survivor are connected to its ancient roots, the present grows out of the past.”

I didn’t invent these: Gregory Doran is credited with the SMART acronym. I encountered HEART goals via Courtney Cunningham.

Jenny Phillips

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