tender starts 🌱✨

a mini-retreat on the vulnerability of new beginnings

Hello Dear Friends,

This is a last call for you to join me and my friend, Krissy Kludt, as we hold some creative and contemplative space to welcome the Spring Equinox. We’re hosting a free, online event called tender starts: a mini-retreat on the vulnerability of new beginnings.

It’s this Thursday, March 19th from 7:00 PM - 8:30 PM ET.

About the Event

Spring is on its way. As we welcome this season, and the gifts of renewal it brings, we also hold this newness lightly, knowing that emergence is often a vulnerable time.

New life is beautiful, but fragile. Seedlings spring up from the ground in hopes of receiving the nourishment and warmth they need to become all they’re meant to be. We hold our hopes and dreams close, tender, waiting, never knowing for sure what will come.

Emergence always carries a risk. Opening ourselves up to new life also opens us to disappointment, grief and loss. How do we hold our hopes and ourselves tenderly as we step into spring?

In this free mini-retreat guided by poet Krissy Kludt and writer Bethaney Wilkinson, we’ll reflect together on the tenderness of beginnings through poetry, meditation, journaling prompts and (optional) sharing. We’d love to step into this new season with you.

Please note: This is a live event and it will not be recorded.

The Zoom link will arrive the week of the event from krissy@writingthewild.org. If you do not receive it, please check your spam folder! Email krissy@writingthewild.org with any questions.

About Bethaney Wilkinson:

Bethaney Wilkinson is a writer, facilitator, and spiritual director rooted in rural middle Georgia, where she lives with her husband Alex and their two dogs, Isla and Bear. She has an MA in theology from Fuller Theological Seminary and a BA in educational studies from Emory University. She is the author of The Diversity Gap: Where Good Intentions Meet True Cultural Change and A More Beautiful Way to Live: Nine Practices to Unlearn Habits of Anxiety, Fear, and Urgency.

About Krissy Kludt:

Poet Krissy Kludt is the founder and executive director of Writing the Wild. Her debut poetry collection I Could Walk Forever and Know So Little released March 5, 2026 from Green Writers Press March 2026. Her work appears in anthologies The Nature of Our Times (Paloma Press 2025), Taking Liberties (Cutthroat 2025), and Stories from the Trail (Wayfarer Books 2024), and in other publications, including Terrain.org, The Wildness We Tend, and Humana Obscura. She lives in the Driftless region of southwestern Wisconsin.