“Elaine, would you mind if I used this photo as an inspiration for a new watercolor? If I’m happy with the result I’ll send you a print. I’m in love with the stones and the dog. It’s
Read more →My Land and Home
On a late summer evening, my friend Lisa and I walk in the old forest where she lives not far from my home. I admire the roots of trees clinging to the sides of a steep gully
Read more →I dropped into a Deep Well of Grief this morning. I grieved for dreams shattered, especially for younger people, for dying humans everywhere, for a struggling world and suffering planet. Then I did what I do when
Read more →This ancient prayer of Thanksgiving comes from the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) people. The prayer is used to give thanks, bless gatherings, and greet the day. I plan to read it at a Thanksgiving gathering this year and hope
Read more →“Why don’t you write about the Iroquois?” my son Anthony said. His eyes gleamed with enthusiasm. “The people who lived here had a Matriarchal Democracy. Perfect!” “Good idea,” I said. “It’s embarrassing how little I know.” Five
Read more →I wake up gently, yawn, and bury my head in warm blankets. “You should get up and meditate,” an inner voice suggests, ever so sweetly. She has many ideas, most beginning with you should…. I ignore her
Read more →“I won’t plant vegetables this year,” I told my two sons this winter. I said it often to convince myself. I’ve grown vegetables since 1970, but the weeds were more persistent than I was last year. The
Read more →“Only from such a place of loss and longing can we begin remembering ourselves home.” ~Toko-pa Turner, Belonging: Remembering Ourselves Back Home,
Read more →Birds make great sky-circles of their freedom. How do they learn it? They fall, and falling, they’re given wings. ―Rumi. In April, the female claimed the nesting box closest to my house, just down the driveway where
Read more →“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that have been built against it.” ~Rumi On June 3, I’ll create a ritual of remembrance for my
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