Usually she is on the road this time of year, singing. This year is no exception. She’ll be front and center this Friday, Saturday and Sunday at beautiful Memorial Hall in Cincinnati.

A few reflections on the day in no particular order if you’ll allow me:

She has practiced a craft, put her gifts to work over the course of her entire lifetime. There are moments when we all have a love/hate relationship with some aspects of our calling, but she keeps showing up. She has never stopped singing. She has never stopped writing.

Someone said the only definition of genius that means anything is the ability to touch another’s soul. Karin’s voice and her songs have the ability to open up interior places that we forgot existed. For many of us, when she sings, something wakes up inside, a dying ember begins to glow, something heals.

She loves to tend the living things: whether checking on a mysterious horse in a distant field in The Netherlands for a little quiet communion; keeping an eye out for the hummingbirds that return to the farm every spring; nurturing the pack of soulful dogs she’s rescued and loved so well over the years, the countless walks, the sound of laughter (or did they rescue her); house plants that have flourished for decades in our home (some now crowd the ceilings); the pollinator beds that eventually spilled outside of the house, thrumming in spring, summer and fall; or even the aging ash tree by the road made sacred in a song — she is a citizen of the earth who seems to hold close to her heart the living miracles that surround us.

She will drop everything and shout to the rooftops that there is a full moon on the rise.

She would rather live with some of the right questions than claim to have the right answers. (In a very early poem she said it like this: Perfection is overrated. Mystery is underrated.)

Her humor tends toward the irreverent. If you’re a good laugher, you’ve got a big head start in her world.

And her smile will still light up a room, every damn time.

I could rave on. I will pump the brakes.

I’m blessed to call her my love and life partner. And it’s a gift to share the long road home.

If you’ve read this far, join me in lifting a glass of something festive and wishing a very happy birthday to the one and only Karin Bergquist. May this coming year be her best one so far.

LJD