My busy and exciting day of teaching begins with my early walk to the rain garden. Yesterday, my friend and colleague, Suzi Banks Baum, and I strolled the campus after teaching our workshops and she showed me this lovely rain garden where the bees and butterflies alight on the bee balm and echinacea and milkweed and other pollinators.

Here at the International Women's Writing Guild Annual Conference, every moment of our day is rich with learning, sharing, supporting, writing, revising, reading aloud, networking, encouragement, play, reflection, deep listening - it's complete immersion and saturation! The most lovely kind of saturation, very much like the lush and thriving rain garden, buzzing with growth and life and nourishment - all this cycling and recycling – regeneration – of this sweet, small, powerful garden of wildflowers and weeds. Here's a very short slideshow of my experience there this morning.