Before road signs, maps, and advice columns on SKOOL, folks looked to the stars. Didn’t matter if you were herding cattle or crossing deserts and oceans those old lights didn’t move much. And sometimes, steady is all you need. The stars have seen it all. The plains once filled with jaw-dropping grasslands and wildlife, now carved into highways and concrete.But they don’t complain or campaign for attention. They just show up.Same spot. Same rhythm. Night after night. These days, we chase our dreams like they’re for sale. But maybe the answer isn’t trying harder or giving up. Maybe it’s older. Quieter. Already here. Sometimes the wisest thing you can do is stop pushing the plan and look for the thing that hasn’t changed. Not every step needs to be bold. Not every answer comes wrapped in dollar signs. Sometimes guidance is just… there. Something you notice when you finally slow down enough to see it. A thought to sit with by the fire: What’s the steady thing in your life that’s been pointing the way all along?

Some animals command attention with power. Others with mystery.Then there’s the coyote, the one who slips between the cracks, always half a step ahead of the story being written about him. You’ll find him at the edge of town, or the edge of legend. Adaptable. Clever. Untamed. While the rest of the world fights to dominate or disappear, the coyote endures. He laughs at the rules, rewrites the map, and survives on wit, not brute force. He’s not trying to be the hero.He’s just trying to stay wild. To stay free. Some say the coyote is a fool, a nuisance, a problem.But look closer. He’s the boundary walker. The edge-dweller. The one who shows us where we’ve lost our way by refusing to walk it. He reminds us that there’s more than one path to freedom. That sometimes survival looks like mischief, but what it really is… is mastery. 🔥 Something to ponder around the camp fire: Where in your life are you clinging to the map, when you know deep down you were meant to follow a different trail?

What Ponderosa Pines Can Teach Us: Every Ponderosa wants to be tall, strong, steady. But the ones that rise? They’re the ones that weather challenge. That shed what they don’t need. That reach for the light instead of hiding in the shade. But not every tree in the forest is meant to lead. And that’s by design. Born with thick bark, high limbs, and a quiet genius for survival, These trees don’t just endure fire… They need it. Without fire, the forest chokes. Too many saplings. Too much shade. Disease settles in. What looks like protection becomes a slow suffocation. You’d think sparing every tree would make a stronger forest But it’s the opposite. Avoid fire long enough, and when it comes… it takes everything. Nature doesn’t hand out growth without refinement. Not to trees. Not to us. The question ain’t whether fire will come. It’s whether you’re growing in a way that prepares you To bend. To burn. To rise And help a few others rise with you. 🔥 So here’s a thought to ponder around the camp fire: Are you spending your energy avoiding the burn… Or trusting that the right challenge might reveal how you're meant to grow?

There’s an old apple orchard tucked behind a bend in the creek, long since abandoned by the people who planted it. Time and weather have had their way with it, branches broken, fences swallowed up, nearby adobe houses now melting in the rain. In the late part of the year, the trees still give. Apples fall thick in the tall grass, soft with rot, sweet with sun. I saw a young mule deer buck step out from the cottonwoods and into that orchard. He moved quiet, careful. His coat was turning with the season, and his antlers still wore the last threads of velvet. He stood there for a long while, listening. Then he lowered his head and began to eat. Just a few apples. Slowly. Like he understood something most of us forget: you don’t have to take everything just because it’s there. Later that same day, a black bear came through. Older, heavier. He knew this orchard. Knew the scent of fruit starting to ferment in the grass. And he went at it hard, snuffling, tearing, crushing overripe apples in his jaws. Gorging himself drunk on the sweetness. By the time I saw him again, he was stumbling, weaving through the orchard like someone who’d had too much at the back‑porch barbecue. That, too, felt like a lesson. The orchard offers. It gives, even a hundred years later. And the difference between the buck and the bear was how they received it. There’s a grace in knowing when enough is enough. It’s easy to believe that to be poor and hungry is always noble, and that comfort or abundance is some kind of moral failing. But maybe it’s not what you have, or even what you desire, but how you receive the gifts given to you. Whether you receive the gift with reverence and stewardship… or consume it without thought. 🔥 A thought to ponder around the fire: Not every blessing is earned. Some just fall to the ground like apples. What matters is how you step into the orchard.Whether you enter with humility. Whether you walk away with balance still in your body and heart. Perhaps how we receive and steward the gift we receive is everything.