[CaringBridge](https://www.caringbridge.org/site/fc6038ef-dc81-3cb5-b94d-190df15335c5) ## [[2025-07-19]] Betsy Toll: >In this vigil beyond time, the path opens with every step, bearing witness to the quiet walk that leads Joanna home. Faithfulness, patience, tenderness, wisdom, and the Earth itself line her path. ## [[2025-07-20]] Went to the wake at Joanna's home in Berkeley today. Shared a poem. Listened to a student of hers play guitar and sing. We exchanged contact info. She told me she likes to set poems to music, and said she would invite me to a gathering in late August. Meditated in front of her body. Let the strangeness and ordinariness of all of it--the petals placed on her body, the things in the room, the sound of group singing outside, the others sitting quietly with me, thoughts--Kelpfest, Timothy and Rebecca, the Bardo Thodol's stages of dying, fatherhood on the way--all sway together. Went out to the backyard and ate some bread. Read post-it notes people had placed on four sheets of paper, for Gratitude, Honoring Our Pain for the World, Seeing with New Eyes, and Going Forth. Two notes I wrote: _Crushed between death and life to release the juice that turns to wine and lights the fire_ _Smiling kindly, patiently upon my own wishes-- enjoying their colors & shapes, their petal-soft transience_ There's still a little numbness in me, a bit of grief more ice than water, and a curiosity about why I was so moved by the news. But I am not rushing anything. Perhaps that's one lesson from the stillness of her body. ## [[2025-08-04]] Anne Symens-Bucher shares: >a poem that was precious to Joanna and one she often shared at her workshops. It's entitled: "I Take to Myself" and was written by her friend, Bill Johnston: I take to myself my broken self: my guilt, my peace, my folly and joy, my sickness, my health; in laughter and agony, hating and loving, my fear and my birthing-- and I am made whole. I take to myself you, my neighbor, cupping your life within my hands: your broken self pure gift to me; not burden, gift, as mine to you-- and I am made whole. I take to myself you, broken Earth; stripped and abused, paved over and poisoned, you mother so freely, abundant in grace: clasp in your mercy, surprise into tears-- and I am made whole. I take to myself your broken self, my dear, near God; broken for broken, for lost and for spent. As fragmented love and nectar of life, you come, gentle God-- and I am made whole.