Start here: Hope is how we give ourselves to the future

It's also a renewable resource

Dear readers,

Whether you’re new to Homecoming or one of my OG subscribers, I hope you enjoy this brief reminder of what we’re about here. Your presence inspires me to keep paying attention and to share my delight and wonder for this marvelous, mysterious world. We need each other now more than ever.

Thank you for being here.

Homecoming is a place to step out of the center, explore the edges, and share our profound gratitude, awe, and wonder at being alive at this wild time on this amazing planet.

You’re in the right place. Wherever you are on this path — if you’re brimming with wonder or weary with grief — you belong here. Welcome.

We’re here to, as Mary Oliver says,

Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it.

This newsletter nurtures storytelling that grapples with our most pressing questions: How do we find hope within systems that feel broken? What can we learn from those who’ve walked these paths before us? How do we honor both the beauty and the urgency of our environmental moment?

Why subscribe?

Homecoming is here to offer hope as an online renewable resource. If you’re passionate about nature and climate dialogue and perhaps also need an occasional dose of seeing the world through the eyes of wonder, awe, and appreciation, you’re in the right place.

The Back Creek Cove egret, before being escorted out by the Great Blue Heron. Hierarchy is real, folks.

Paid subscribers, taking gratitude and giving back

As a paid subscriber, you become a vital part of Homecoming’s mission to nurture awe, resilience, and belonging in a time of uncertainty. Your support sustains this space for the entire community, ensuring that reflections, stories, and shared wonder remain accessible to everyone. More than a subscription, your contribution is an act of reciprocity — fueling a collective journey of gratitude and hope while supporting causes like the Indigenous Environmental Network, Center for Humans and Nature, and the Old Growth Forest Network.

Together, we’re making room for beauty, purpose, and connection to thrive.

I donate 30% of paid subscriptions to an environmental and/or economic justice non-profit. Track past and current recipients here.

Here you’ll find ...

Building Hope essays on teaching, architecture, and encounters with the sublime.

Teaching awakens self-love

💡Every great building tells a story

Wild encounter with the sublime

Reciprocity interviews with Substack’s nature writers, plus NatureStack journal.

🍃 Reciprocity: anthology of interviews

🍃 10 - 13 | NatureStack: shared wonder

Stories of how we, trapped and complicit in destructive systems, might find a way forward.

📖 Shapeshifting

Why I do this

“I tell you this / to break your heart, / by which I mean only / that it break open and never close again / to the rest of the world.”¹

Besides being in awe of nature’s design brilliance, I’m endlessly inspired by the vision and persistence of creative people—writers, artists, my architecture students, foodies, and others. Creative work helps me to hear the voices of ancestor guides and feel their love and compassion. Other days, the children of our children’s children whisper, Keep dreaming, don’t be afraid.

Brody’s advice: when all else fails, take a nap

1. Mary Oliver, final lines of this poem, “Lead”