Two weeks after returning from my NOLS sea kayaking course in Alaska I am still reflecting on this one kelp with its holdfast attached to a small rock.

The holdfast reminded me of one of my favorite environmental philosophers, Kathleen Dean Moore—and especially of her essay “Holdfast” in her book by the same name.

It is an essay about connectedness and our relationships to the natural world.

Even more, it is about being a parent of a human child who does not have a holdfast, and who is free to move away from home.

Such a wonderful thing, and also such a hard thing.

We humans don’t have physical roots or holdfasts. But we can have attention, love, care. We can notice. We can ask good questions.

We can embrace one another literally, and we can hold fast to one another in prayer without ceasing, in memory, in holding one another in the light and in our hearts.

This one moment at low tide on an island in Prince William Sound is on my mind and in my heart this morning, and so I took time to remember the place, and the people I was with, holding them in my heart as my pen and brush called the memory back to the center of my attention.

A sketch of a piece of kelp anchored to a rock on Olsen Island is surrounded by handwritten reflections and a quote about connection to the land and nature, along with details about the location and date.A book titled Holdfast: At Home in the Natural World by Kathleen Dean Moore, featuring an underwater scene with seaweed on its cover, rests on a wooden surface alongside a pen and an electronic device.