Vital Life Counseling and Coaching

10/11/2026

Men's Retreat Early Bird pricing ends today; Hope for Creation next Saturday; History of Fire -

In late autumn, the seasonal shift seems to suspend time. Trees stand newly naked and awkward, and the days alternate regularly between bitter and brilliant.

09/24/2026

Are you in a major midlife moment? Is the gravity of your life commitments feeling burdensome, depleting or confining? Are you, or someone you know, struggling with big questions of meaning, purpose and how to find vitality in the middle decades of life? Read my article on Midlife Crisis as a powerful transformation from a life of ego to one of soul. Perhaps the walls that feel like they're closing in are actually a cocoon supporting you in a metamorphosis necessary for wholeness and integrity.

Midlife crisis in men can be a transformation, not a failure. Learn how to navigate this threshold and grow into the second half of life.

09/22/2026

Autumnal Equinox questions; Men's Retreat and more -

“All the green in the planted world consists of these whole, rounded chloroplasts wending their ways in water. If you analyze a molecule of chlorophyll itself, what you get is one hundred thirty-six atoms of hydrogen, carbon, oxygen, and nitrogen arranged in an exact and complex relationship aroun...

09/16/2026

Interested in the intersection of faith and conservation? Join me and members of the Lutheran Church of Hope as we partner with the Iowa Natural Heritage Foundation for a morning of embodied prayer, practicing gratitude for life and deepening the ongoing conversation with the divine through communion with creation.
https://vitallifecc.com/hope-for-creation/

09/02/2026

Wendell Berry, upcoming Men's Nature Retreat and Late Summer Longings -

My love affair with the fictional community of Port William, Kentucky began 5 years ago when I read my first Wendell Berry book, The Memory of Old Jack. To this day, I’m regularly visited by the power and spirit in the imagery of its closing passages. The protagonist, Jack Beechum, at the end of h...

03/20/2026

Some thoughts for the Vernal Equinox; Hope for Creation Event in June -

Today, Friday, at roughly 9:46 CT, we mark the Vernal Equinox. Astronomically speaking, this is the time at which Earth transits the celestial equator, a point in our perennial planetary path where our polar axis is perpendicular to the sun's rays. What that means for us on the ground is that day an...

12/21/2025

Surrendering to the Dark; Primitive Fire Workshop in January -

Years ago I came down with a case of pneumonia. Well, it was called “walking pneumonia,” so I figured I shouldn’t let it keep me down. So I decided, true to form, to go about my life with minimal change to my commitments. For close to a month I regularly erupted in wall-shaking coughing fits, ...

10/15/2025

Conservation and Conversation event this Saturday! Sign up now! -

There are countless ways to offer our hearts to what we love. This Saturday we will be gathering to give acts of service honoring our relationship to this earth that sustains us and provides an ever flowing abundance of life, beauty and inspiration.

09/27/2025

Letting Your Care Catch Fire & Conservation Volunteering -

I recently killed a fire before it got a chance to catch hold. One of my favorite nature connection practices is primitive fire using a bow drill. The practice entails generating friction between two pieces of wood to get a glowing coal. You then transfer the coal to ignite a nest of combustible mat...

09/16/2025

The Impulse to Love - promoting conservation, community and reciprocity -

“Action on behalf of life transforms. Because the relationship between self and the world is reciprocal, it is not a question of first getting enlightened or saved and then acting. As we work to heal the earth, the earth heals us.”