The act of looking, of paying attention, is akin to prayer for me. It can be transporting….Plants are my doorways to wonder. ~Robin Wall Kimmerer~ The first year I saw nothing but handsome, corrugated leaves with irregular brown markings. They reminded me of the trout lilies in my native northeast forests, so I looked forward …
When my partner George died in October one of the things I dreaded was the coming rainy season. After my brother’s death in June, I was consoled by the beautiful blue and yellow days, the long soft evenings, the silken roses in overflowing gardens. By October I feared I had only darkness and storms ahead. …
After reading my last essay, A Year of Love and Death, on the losses of 2020, both personal and worldwide, my brother-in-law sent me a poem by John O’Donohue called For Grief. My partner George’s Irishness was a wild and wonderful force in his life. In the years before his death, he explored Celtic spirituality with …
here is the deepest secret nobody knows (here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud and the sky of the sky of a tree called life…) and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart ~E.E. Cummings~ In mid-October, I was sitting at the deathbed of my beloved, thinking …
The dying down of the zest for life is the greatest danger to the whole human venture and to the whole venture of the planet. ~Thomas Berry~ This is my fourth celebration of the September-long Season of Creation, and a year when keeping zest alive and well is profoundly challenging. Yet I agree with Thomas …
Love against all odds: celebrating the Season of Creation Read More »
Since the middle of March, when California’s shelter in place started, an acupuncturist friend has been offering weekly meditations via phone. At the beginning of each she asks us to imagine ourselves in a nurturing place in nature. Whenever I receive such an invitation, I invariably find myself sitting on a forest floor, trees reaching …
Since my brother’s death in June, words have been hard to come by, for writing, speaking, even reading. Poetry has been a companion; so much meaning in so few words. And, on these bright, blooming California days, the tender mercies of beauty have been deeply consoling. Perry, who started his landscaping business in college, told …
It’s become an instant cliche as the pandemic reveals the threadbare fabric of our culture: the truly essential people that make day-to-day life possible are often the ones in the most precarious and poorly paid jobs. As grateful as I am to have professional people in my life, I am utterly dependent on the people …
It couldn’t be clearer: the power of interrelatedness Read More »
I am sent to heal the brokenhearted….To comfort all who mourn….To give them beauty for ashes. ~Isaiah, 61~ I am blessed, in this time of forced absence and fearful presence, to live with beauty. As long as I’m willing to climb some steep hills, I can walk among embracing trees, with unfurling ferns and delicate spring …
By the end of the first week of the impeachment hearings, I was as miserable as I’ve been in a long time. Not because any of it was news to me, but because institutions are failing in ways we never imagined. We’ve never seen them tested this much before. That same week the Trump EPA …
Weathering the storm: living with the power of cataclysm Read More »