Twilight Journal

ALS (MND) is a terminal disease for which there are no effective treatments. Within a few years, it gradually suffocates and kills its victims, first fully paralyzing them while leaving all sensation and cognition untouched.

This illness stills my legs and quiets my hands, forcing me to write the words you read here using only my eyes. It places me like a stone in this lingering twilight between darkness and dawn. Yet, this rare and terrible gift has opened me to what many rush past unnoticed in their time. As my body fades, my vision has grown bright.

This journal is my message in a bottle to you from a strange shore that you must also someday cross.

Open it and remember death, yes. But in remembering death, remember life. Let mortality sharpen your senses, widen your mind, deepen your loves, kindle your wonder. For we all dance with death. Some just hear the music more clearly.

As I select, revise, and improve entries from a journal kept in 2024, I’m sharing them here. So, the order in which posts arrive may differ from the season in which you are reading them.

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Autumn Journal: Robin

Rain falls softly. Not the downpour of summer, but a patient drizzle that draws a veil across the valley. This reflection is about robins at work in the softened ground— not nesting, not singing, just migrating one worm at a time. Each bird, a fleeting body in an eternal chorus. Rain into rain. Life into life.

Autumn Journal: The Between

After the drought, gentle rain. The stream whispers. The forest breathes. And from the withered ground, asters bloom like stars. This reflection is about flowers that rise not despite the coming cold, but because of it. This is the sacred between: not quite ending, not quite beginning. Just bloom. Just breath. Just now

Autumn Journal: Equinox

Today, darkness and light share the sky in perfect balance. The forest pauses—arms full of summer’s light, already learning to let go. This reflection is about the fall equinox, autumn’s quiet generosity, and the grace of open hands. Spring gives us flowers. Autumn fills our pockets. Letting go is not an ending— it’s the fruit.

Autumn Journal: Fullness

The first true autumn morning arrived, carried on cool air and chickadee song. This reflection is about the season of fullness— when summer’s fire fades, fruit falls, and the world prepares to empty itself. But not yet. Not yet.

Autumn Journal: What Remains is Radiant

Day by day, the self erodes—yet what remains is luminous. Hands falter, dignity fades, memories scatter like leaves. But beneath this gradual dissolution is a vast stillness, beyond stories and names, beyond loss and forgetting. This reflection is about the quiet radiance that emerges as the familiar self washes away— revealing something timeless and unbreakable. All is well.

Autumn Journal: Wheel

Morning lingers in half-light. Geese pass overhead. Cool air slips in. This reflection is about the slow shift between summer’s exhale and autumn’s breath— and how, beneath all change, there is no loss. Only turning. Only return. You are not a witness to this wheel. You are part of it.