One of the first things we noticed when we drove into Alaska in July was that vast stands of spruce — and Alaska is full of vast stands of spruce — were dark brown at the top. Seeing them from a distance, as we drove through a valley, we wondered if they were suffering from […]
Spruce family planning Read More »
Ten years ago this October, I traveled to New Jersey and found myself celebrating Samhain. I had no idea on the way there I’d be doing any such thing. But it’s the sort of place where that happens, so I might have guessed. Miriam McGillis has been a friend, mentor, and teacher to many, including
Samhain in New Jersey Read More »
Some years ago I took a photography workshop at the New York Botanical Garden. At the end of a day spent shooting the vast array of flowers in the perennial gardens, Allen Rokach, our teacher, told us to come back next morning with two favorites to share. Everyone else brought in pictures of flowers at their
One of the things that is constantly, and wonderfully, borne in on me as I travel is how utterly beautiful our world is. Everywhere I go, there is beauty easily at hand. And for someone who spends as much time driving from place to place as I do, the gorgeous scene along so many roads is
A few years ago, I realized that daylight has a different sound than night does. Not the usual distinctions, like birdsong, crickets, traffic. When the sun rises, I hear a difference in the world. A tone, very subtle, with more vibrance in sunlight than the velvety sound of night. I haven’t found an explanation for
The Place Where You Go to Listen Read More »
There is a great mystery on this journey: that I seem to choose some places to go, and that others call me to come. Alaska called. Before leaving home, I gave little thought to going to Alaska. In the mayhem of leaving, I barely gave thought to where I was going once I pulled out
Denali: the Great One Read More »
I fell in love with Homer as we drove down the uninspiring last slope of Route 1 into the town, but I have no idea why it happened then. I’d been driving along the Cook Inlet for the last hour, with one magnificent snow-capped volcano after another looming up across the water, so Kachemak Bay,
In love in Homer, Alaska Read More »
The first thing that happened in Alaska was that we lost our sense of time. There were three of us at that point. George and I had picked up our friend, Guy, in Whitehorse, in the Yukon, where he’d flown up from Vancouver. We drove to Destruction Bay the same day, staying the night
Timeless in Alaska Read More »
I so hoped it would be another year, even a few more months, before I wrote this. But great spirits come in their own time, and leave in their own time, and Splash, my companion and spirit guide, has left in hers. She turned 14 in April, and then, in May, we found out that