imagine 8 life
 images and words by 
stacey gerrish

I spent four formative years at Northfield Mount Hermon, living in Marquand dorm—and those years shaped the essence of who I am. The friendships I built there remain some of the closest in my life. A few weeks ago, several of us gathered in Denver. For some, it had been decades since we’d last been together. And yet, we fell right back into step with one another—as if no time had passed at all. It was soul-filling, heartfelt, and such a powerful reminder of who I am at my cor

Celebrating the happiness of others requires a generosity of spirit that we often find only in the process. Our desires act as fuel, propelling us toward new horizons. Without something to strive for, we stagnate and become stuck in ruts of our own making because we are unsure of what to do next. Goals are the dreams that we are willing to work for. When we set goals, we take responsibility for our lives and choose to wholeheartedly devote ourselves to our aspirations. Even i

In June I did a bucket list trip to Iceland with "H". We flew over Greenland to get there, and ironically, Greenland is mostly ice and...

A life altering diagnosis. I've climbed all 17,051 feet of Mount Kenya, I've trekked through the Alaskan wilderness completely off the...

I have a vivid memory as a young girl sitting outside my house and a vision of my future strongly appeared, I know this likely sounds...

I'm counting on 2022 to fill my heart.

This is your life. It is. And I need to keep reminding myself of this. This morning I woke up to this message from a friend, after...

The past few weeks with the Covid pandemic have been hard, on all of us. I've been experiencing and feeling loss, grief, anger,...

Holding onto regret is like dragging the weight of the past with us everywhere we go. It drains our energy, leaving less available for life in the present because we are constantly feeding an old issue. This attachment can cause illness the same way watering a dead plant creates decay. We know that something new and beautiful can grow in its place if we only prepare the soil and plant the right seeds. We also know that we create our lives from our thoughts, so dwelling on the

"All the joy and passion you can envision can be yours right now, rather than in a future point in time." Madisyn Taylor The time we are blessed with is limited and tends to be used up all too quickly. How we utilize that time is consequently one of the most important decisions we make. Yet it is far too easy to put off until tomorrow what we are dreaming of today. The hectic pace of modern existence affords us an easy out; we shelve our aspirations so we can cope more effec