I awaken with pale pink light flooding the eastern windows, illuminating the spruce and pine treetops in the National Forest. I pull a pillow over my head and float between waking and dreaming as I resist this post-election world.  My dog Disco lies on top of the blankets pressing her black sleek body against my […]

I cling to the calmness of nature’s autumn departure in these agitated times of elections and war. It isn’t easy, but I repeatedly bring myself back to the beauty surrounding me. We’re having an unusually dry autumn in the NY Finger Lakes, but no violent weather. The days are gentle and soft. Of course it […]

I haven’t been on this trail all summer and didn’t plan to walk so far from home today. The trail marks the border between my land and the National Forest and occasionally there are hunters here, but not this early in the season. Today I don’t hear one human sound except my own footsteps and […]

Brilliant and beautiful, Elaine Mansfield’s essay, “Wild Nights: Grief Dreams, Mythology, and the Inner Marriage,” delves into the depths of sorrow through the lens of dreams, mythology and poetry. Her work, which won first place in the C.G. Jung in the Heartland writing competition, explores the powerful emotions and spiritual journey that accompany the loss […]

Good morning, my beautiful migrator. I see your orange wings through your black chrysalis shell. Are you ready to fly today? In the nursery in a mesh butterfly crate, your friends are eclosing from their chrysalises and getting ready to fly.  They were the last to join the nursery and they’ll be the last to […]

They disagreed about most everything. The right food to feed a baby. The best card game. How much a woman ought to weigh and whether or not she should wear a whalebone corset and stockings even in August heat. Whether she should sit by the pool at the country club or work in the garden […]