Say yes

also ~ come dream the new story with me this week

Thanks to my dear friend Toria, I got to welcome 2025 from a longtime wish come true: Dance Camp! Two days and two nights of dancing and singing in the mountains of Northern California with wise redwoods and lovely humans. So. Good.

At Dance Camp, I met Jo Cobbett—an amazing facilitator who has a powerful way of inviting you deeper into the true practice of free-form dance—being present with what is. If you ever have the opportunity to dance with Jo, please give yourself that gift.

Something Jo said on the dance floor New Year’s Eve stuck with me, made its way to the front page of my journal, moved through my dance, then sparked this poem. It was one short phrase that threaded through my transition from 2024 to 2025. Her words? “This opportunity for aliveness.” (👁️ + 👂🏼=👇🏼)

Isn’t it lovely to live in a world where we inspire each other?

Speaking of, I have some something inspiring for you—an event called Dreaming Our Ancient Future, happening this Thursday-Saturday. This gathering of wise, big-hearted humans has been created by my dear friend Karna. It’s free, it’s online, and here are the 3 essential things I’d like you to know about it:

• Dreaming Our Ancient Future is an event for those of us who want to imagine an interdependent way forward—rooted in inclusive leadership, regenerative practices, and ancestral wisdom. (Or, in other words, the new story.)

• I’ll be there, sharing poetry. My mentor, Ro Marlen will speak to what I call her cosmology—the European animist ancestral wisdom that actually makes sense of the world we live in. Plus a variety of amazing humans sharing about juicy, timely stuff—including regenerative agriculture, racial healing, the power of reciprocity, regenerative community, land-based knowledge, laughter as medicine, and the future of money.

• Karna and I have been friends for over a decade and through the years I’ve watched her create everything from businesses and events to community and gatherings. What I can say is that she co-creates awesomeness and I know this gathering will be like Karna—potent, inspiring, and rooted in love.

If you’ve felt distraught or overwhelmed by the election and what inauguration has brought so far, you may appreciate Karna’s story of what inspired this event:

“After navigating a nightmare election and walking beside a dear friend experiencing a mental health crisis, I was feeling deeply distraught and scared. Then, on December 4th, 2024, between 3 am and 5 am. I woke up with a clear outline of the online gathering I am sharing with you today. It was an answer to a silent scream of a prayer living in my heart: How did we get here? What do we do now? I'm scared for my marginalized brothers, sisters, and siblings! I'm hurting for the planet. I worry about my kids' future. What the f*ck will AI do to us? HEEEEELPPPPPP! That night, I knew: Stop worrying alone, and get some of your most caring and wise people together! Dreaming Our Ancient Future - Online Gathering was born.”

If any of this speaks to you, I hope you’ll join us and explore what new (and ancient) story wants to emerge in these turbulent times.

Let’s keep saying yes to life,
Kai

a grove of ancient redwoods at Northern California Dance Camp

🎶 I believe poetry is a song that is meant to be heard as well as read. A poem is a journey for the senses as well as the mind. I invite you to sit back and experience me reading this one to you. You can listen here:

Say Yes

In this life you will lose everything
and everyone, even yourself.
It will be excruciating.

AND you will get to love,
to create, to feel, to be alive.
It will be exquisite.

Life will be better and worse
than you thought. Mostly, it will 
be different than expected.

So I will tell you what to expect:
Life will be beautiful, difficult, and holy.
You will be beautiful, difficult, and holy.

A journey of ten thousand 
miracles.


—Kai Madrone

January 4, 2025

the author hanging out with/in a redwood tree