One day in 2021 while sitting at my art table in my bedroom stitching in one of my fabric meditation books, I looked out at the trees and heard an intuitive whisper say, “bury it.” It took me by surprise and I sat with that idea for a few days. Then a few days later, I was wandering around in my favorite local bookstore in the Eastern Religion section and something told me to pick up a booked called, The Tibetan Book of the Dead. I flipped the book open and the page said:

“The Bardo Thötröl is one of a series of instructions on six types of liberation: liberation through hearing, liberation through wearing, liberation through seeing, liberation through remembering, liberation through tasting, and liberation through touching. They were composed by Padmasambhava and written down by his wife, Yeshe Tsogyal…Padmasambhava buried these texts in the Gampo hills in central Tibet, where later the great teacher Gampopa established his monastery. Many other texts and sacred objects were buried in this way in different places throughout Tibet, and are known as terma, “hidden treasures.”

I looked up from the book and had goosebumps all over my body and felt an immediate and clear connection to the message I received to bury one of my fabric meditation books. I went home and chose a book to bury, went out into my yard, dug a hole and buried it. My intuition told me to leave it in the earth for 30 days.

What emerged has been a beautiful, sacred collaboration with the earth. I have now buried and unearthed many of the fabric meditation books I have created. I find the process deeply transformative and connecting to the earth and myself. It is a practice in releasing and letting go, of inviting subtle transformations and mysteries to come into the creative process and weave through my whole being. I find deep ties to what is happening within me to the process of offering these soft books to the quiet, rich darkness of the earth. I find myself reflecting on what has been buried inside of me that I couldn’t see and what past experiences have been hidden inside that are ready to be released and alchemized. This process has been gently powerful and incredibly healing for me.

When I shared this creative experience on Instagram, a few people offered to bury a book for me if I mailed it to them, which I thought was so lovely. I sent one to Vancouver to be buried in a rainforest, one to Vermont and one to Louisiana.

That got me thinking, while I loved this collaborative project already where I create books and send them to others to bury, I would also love to invite people to make their own books and bury them too. So I put that out into the world on Instagram and now people all over the world have joined in!