Live Sustainably? Start Within

Sustainable living begins with a resilient self. Do you cringe when you hear of a "new way to improve your life"?  If so, you're not the only one. But isn't it our nature to long for more, or better? for growth? to stand out amidst the surrounding chaos? Our world, flooded with info bytes and…

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I Dreamt of the Soil: For the Gardener

I awoke to the most luscious dream of digging in the soil. Dark, firm-but-soft and deep, it received my shovel as if it were a spoon sinking into a fresh, warm batch of fudge. There’s no difference in the delight for me, really, though I taste my garden soil only by accident when the earth…

People: A Little Perspective, Please

Low, charcoal clouds race by my window, like a herd running from some unseen danger lurking in the distance. Three of my four hens have jumped down from their roost to see what’s going on. The long sheet of thick black plastic I laid over a new garden bed vibrates and leaps, yanking at the…

Hymn of Dawn

Hymn of Dawn January 18, 2015 Stretching upward, a choir of dark feathered branches fills the pale aqua hovering above the lightening peach that breaks from the smouldering umber mountain silhouette horizon beyond my window. Dawn: the trees in celebration reach their paintbrush-bristles upward stretching toward heaven, branching, forever branching from branch to limb, from…

December Morning

                  Where is the bleakness that some discover In waves of arctic cold, undulating into my bones then retreating like ocean waves, waking every cell, lifting each hair in my nose, on my arm to urgent attention?   Icy crystals form, growing, living for moments Bely the…

The Dirty Business of Growth

I was recently commissioned to do calligraphy for the cover of a book in which the name "Adam" is a key focus. Meaning "Red Clay Man" or "Red Soil Man," the name "Adam" is a rich word picture for each of us as humans. It can serve an impetus for introspection as fellow members of…

October Fog: What Does the Dim Light Reveal?

Late October begs a thick fog, masking things hidden, things we might ought to fear, things potentially deadly; at least in the Halloween movies. But something amazing happened this morning in the fog. This morning, pastel layers of fog-shrouded tree lines slowly come into view here from my breakfast spot, the high deck overlooking distant…

Bruised From Fighting Life? Align Yourself With the River

I've been AWOL. Not just from blogging but from parts of my life. It’s been a very difficult few weeks, depression trying to settle into my soul, my house, my heart, my brain. My eyes are weary from trying not to squeeze shut to hold back hot tidal waves of tears, but to be presentable.…

Stop and Smell the Roses: 5 Steps to Avoid Missing the Moments Intended for You

What Are You Finding?It was while bending one milky stem of a dandelion around the frothy yellow flower-cap of another that I heard her elderly voice: "What are you finding?" Thinking the lady about to reprimand me for having pulled something from the edge of her well-manicured lawn, I hesitated; "Just making a daisy chain,"…

The “I Should Be Able to Manage Without Meds” Blues

Springing ForwardThe sun is finally streaming through tangerine-pink clouds and the cardinals have arrived on my deck; hints of spring all around, save that darned, pervasive cold. Despite the "springing forward" we're about to do this Saturday, clocks in hand, we're still humans, one foot saddled in clay, trying to release ourselves from the doldrums.This…