Shelter, in This Place

“Director’s Notes” are excerpts from our monthly email newsletter, “Stories from the Garden.” Subscribe and see past issues here.

Dear Friends,

We hope you are well as we move through this strange and uncertain time. We are all concerned for our world and for so many in it. And yet, I imagine we are all experiencing the powerful, beautiful forces making themselves seen, and deeply felt. We are participating in a collective remembering of the fact that everything and everyone is connected; we are as vulnerable to virulent pathogens as we are to contagions of generosity and solidarity. We are no doubt witnessing and feeling the vibrancy of our imaginations when met with stillness. Not only are creative minds making beauty and cultivating resilience, they are reimagining practices, ways of being, and systems that will thrive on the other side of this moment, and on entirely new terms.

Certainly, these very ideas were habits of mind for W.S. Merwin. They have long served as beacons for The Merwin Conservancy, and they shine all the brighter now. While we navigate this uncertain moment, we offer here an invitation to immerse yourself in the stillness and beauty of this extraordinary place. Over the past few weeks, our Director of Programs Sara Tekula has worked closely with artist duo Susannah Sayler and Edward Morris (Sayler / Morris) to produce an extraordinarily beautiful experience. Threshold (Meditation Edit for The Merwin Conservancy) is an adaptation of a video work the artists made for an installation at the American Writers Museum in 2017. It is an invitation to enter W.S. Merwin’s meditation dojo, at the heart of the palm forest, an invitation to shelter, in this place.

With much aloha,

Sonnet Coggins
Executive Director