In this moment, is it still possible to face the gathering darkness, and say to the physical Earth, and to all its creatures, including ourselves, fiercely and without embarrassment, I love you, and to embrace fearlessly the burning world? ~ Barry Lopez ~ My youngest nephew is standing at the gates of adulthood appalled by …
I was going to write an essay about the Earth Charter but got derailed by a line in a news article. The charter is a blueprint for a way forward, setting forth sixteen principles, four in each of four pillars. Respect and care for the community of life; ecological integrity; social and economic justice; and …
All people everywhere possess an innate hunger for, and right to, what is sustaining, good, and beautiful. ~ Bill Strickland ~ Thirty years ago this summer I was hiking through a forest in upstate New York with my 5-year-old son. He had skipped ahead around a curve and came running back, wide-eyed. He took my …
We discover who we are in the midst of the deep voices of the universe. ~ Brian Swimme ~ The word transformation is coming from every direction these days. My email inbox is full of invitations to webinars and symposia proposing to further the transformation of economics, health, education, our relationship to the natural world, …
Inside, that’s where I store these moments, accumulated in a cabinet of noticings and happenings, brought out when I need them most, to illuminate. I must go into the world to find new things. They are always there. Always. ~ Dara McAnulty ~ In the face of devastating news from every direction, I have been reading …
I fell down a 300 million-year-old rabbit hole recently, and had such a good time there I’m now bringing you with me. I was looking for something else and came across my photographs from a visit to Joggins Fossil Cliffs in Nova Scotia. The Canadian Maritime provinces were the first places George and I visited …
One clear blue and gold fall day near the beginning of seventh grade, I stood on the shore of the Hudson River with a group of classmates, contemplating the oyster shell fragments at my feet. That was the year we learned about our town, Croton-on-Hudson in southern New York. The instructor for the day told …
…Be joyful Though you have considered all the facts. ~ Wendell Berry ~ Given the losses, both personal and communal, of 2020, and the fact that we were in pre-vaccination pandemic, I knew from the beginning that this year would be a quiet time of recovery. It was also, though I didn’t guess it then, …
The Haudenosaunee Confederacy of the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, and Seneca nations in what is now upstate New York has been meeting for 1,000 years. United by a common goal to live in harmony, each meeting, large and small, is opened with the beautiful and incantatory Thanksgiving Address. This enfolds each gathering in a culture of …
Blue is light seen through a veil. ~ Henry David Thoreau ~ I have tens of thousands of photos in my files, the vast majority flowers. They are often of the same flowers, taken in different years and at different places, so the numbers don’t reflect the number of species. But still, in all those …