The Mothering of the Pacific Northwest
The Healing Wisdom of Land and Sea
One frosty February morning in 2022, while driving to work in Baltimore, I said aloud a prayer, “Universe, if I’m meant to leave public education, give me a sign—and let it be…a hummingbird.” I immediately felt dismayed. I had no connection to hummingbirds and had never even seen one in real life. The whole thing felt absurd, the result of temporarily suspending my skepticism to try a practice I’d just heard about on a podcast, which encouraged listeners to ask the universe for a sign by spontaneously blurting one out. With an exasperated eye roll, I let the request go and forgot about it.
Later that evening, I was having dinner with a friend who just returned from a trip to México. She gifted me a pair of beautiful earrings. I traced the delicate carving of the bird and asked her, “What birds are these?”
“Hummingbirds,” she replied casually. “I saw them and knew they were for you.”
Stunned, I told her about the prayer I’d spoken that morning. She raised an eyebrow, her eyes glinting with knowing, and said, “I mean, you don’t have to listen to it.”
[Image of the earrings, taken by me]
Today, in June 2025, as I sit in my 270-square-foot lofted microunit in Seattle, I’m still just as stunned—filled with awe at the way life continues to unfold in such mysterious, mystical ways. Hummingbirds are now a constant presence. My ears perk up at their familiar chirps, and every now and then, one flutters within arm’s reach, reminding me of the quiet magic hidden in what once felt absurd. They’ve appeared during moments of deep spiritual communion, in the depths of despair, and—like many who live in the Pacific Northwest know—in the simple rhythms of daily life. In hindsight, I am grateful to the hummingbird, an ambassador of my benevolent Korean ancestors and Spirit, who has guided me to the land stewarded and revered by the Coast Salish tribes.
This deepening connection has also expanded my relationship with the Dreamworld, where I have become aware of land and ancestors communing with me. Taproots, ocean waves, a pair of bald eagles, and a red horse are just a few of the guides who visit me in my sleep, offering counsel through images too mysterious for words but deeply felt in the wisdom stirring in my heart. The mothers and grandmothers of my maternal line whisper healings that quiver through my psyche and body as I drift in the liminality of the sleeping and waking states. These experiences help me re-member that I am both an extension of Nature and a bridge between the seen and unseen realms.
This inner communion with the unseen also shapes how I experience the world around me—like the quiet, steadfast presence of Tahoma, colonially known as Mt. Rainier. The four flight of stairs to my humble abode rewards me with a view of her, standing tall and majestic, unbothered by the weather or anything outside of herself, for that matter. On cloudy days when I couldn’t see her, I would feel disheartened. Even in experiencing the disappointment, she has taught me that the knowing is enough. So now, even when Seattle’s gray cloud days obscure her from view, I still feel her presence in my sacral and solar plexus. She settles me into my own sense of inner-knowing.
Just as Tahoma grounds me in stillness, Mother Water—known to many as the Puget Sound or the Salish Sea—offers a source of deep healing. This past fall, she appeared to me in a dream, confirming a call to hold a healing ceremony for my maternal great-grandmother who lived in North Korea. Until then, I never even considered the existence of a great-grandmother, having never known any of my grandparents. Early one morning, just as the sun rose, I walked to the edge of the Salish Sea and performed the ceremony, just as I had rehearsed it in my mind—it felt natural and true.
[Image of the ceremony, taken by me]
In my current season of grief—brought on by the separation from a partner and the dissolution of a collective—her brackish embrace awakens me to the medicine of my own salty tears. So I allow myself to cry with abandon and without judgment, offering flowers and songs to the sea as expressions of gratitude and veneration.
“There must be something strangely sacred in salt. It is in our tears and in the sea.” -Khalil Gibran, Sand and Foam
When I turn from the shoreline and walk among the trees, the forest meets me with the same devotion—offering a different kind of healing, one rooted in texture and spaciousness. The plush moss invites me to blanket myself in my own softening, the hearty lichen insists on celebrating the ecosystem that I am, and the mighty elegance of the evergreens lights up a remembrance of my inherent belonging, simply because I am here—breathing among them, with them.
As I settle in the Pacific Northwest, I am settling into my sacred being and becoming—held in my unbecoming by the gracious mothering of this land. With a deep bow, 감사합니다.