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 ~ Faced with devastating news from every direction, I have been reading an incandescent book. […]
The 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 Haudenosaunee Thanksgiving Address. This enfolds each gathering in a culture of
The Haudenosaunee Thanksgiving Address Read More »
At the end of the day, it’s because there are people who are deeply committed and are fearless. And are not going to be stopped. That’s how history happens. ~ Ted Howard ~ It was seeing the black curving lines of the fading flower above that made me think occasional Halloween posts might be fun.
Wild times, spooky beauty: happy halloween Read More »
Half Earth is different. It is a goal. People understand and prefer goals.~ E. O. Wilson ~ On spring mornings thirty years ago I woke to a dawn chorus of birdsong so loud and rambunctious and beautiful that it filled me with joy every day. The birds had a lot to say as they flew
The geography of hope: saving half the Earth Read More »
There are legendary people and places in the drive to save seed diversity, and then there’s the legend. Nikolai Vavilov was a Russian plant geneticist who was active in the 1920s and 30s. Urbane and erudite, full of charm and curiosity, Vavilov made friends with everyone from local farmers to government officials. On a quest
For the past two years, I’ve celebrated September 1, the World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation, with a collection of quotes from Pope Francis’s 2015 encyclical, Laudato Si. It was he who launched the day in 2016, joining a tradition started by the Orthodox Church in 1989. This has grown into the
The season of creation Read More »
This is a photo of my refrigerator, filled with its usual groceries, though much more attractively arranged than usual. It represents some of the best and most exciting news I’ve ever heard. It goes back to a question environmentalist Paul Hawken posed: what can we do to reverse global warming? Standard research focuses on ways
Project Drawdown: breakthrough solutions for climate change Read More »
The dream shapes the world, the Achuar people told John Perkins on his visits to the Ecuadorian rainforest that forms the headwaters of the great Amazon River. They asked for his help to protect their sacred land — the heart and lungs of the planet — from the dream of the west, with its insatiable
Blessed Unrest: the Pachamama Alliance Read More »
When you look at the mountain above, your reaction is likely to be colored by what is most important to you. Skiers may think of the thrill of the trip down, climbers of the trek up. Mining executives of the coal or metals to be found there. Road engineers of the challenge of finding a
Rights of Nature: a breakthrough in imagining Earth Read More »
Laudato si — Praise be! — are the opening words of each of the verses in Saint Francis’s beautiful Canticle to the Sun, and is also the title of Pope Francis’ 2015 encyclical defining the Catholic Church’s doctrines on the care of the earth. Last year I discovered that September 1 had been chosen as the annual World
Laudato si, repictured Read More »