Talking with a Tree

A few years back, while I was hiking with a friend in Appalachian Ohio, she commented on a tree we passed, expressing sadness for the imprints left by lovers who’d carved into the trunk. We kept moving, and a thought popped into my head, more of a question really. So I spoke it aloud, asking…

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The Capacity to Care About More Than Ourselves

My personal experience, and I know I’m not alone, is that it takes considerable courage to look the climate crisis in the eye. People dislike the climate crisis, to put it mildly, and people are afraid. I am afraid. People who lived through the Cold War are once again living with a kind of existential…

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Environmental Reflections, While Cruising

It’s the last day of a four-day cruise. I’ve been to Nassau, Bahamas, Princess Cay Island, and now a day “at sea,” before returning to Port Canaveral, Florida. I am cruising with three great women-friends! I love them. They each are so powerful in their own, unique ways! And we’ve been friends, each one of…

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Why Monks Can Have Cell Phones

I have been fortunate in my life to get to connect with many places across the globe, in part as a result of my work as a climate scientist. India is one of those places and opened my mind to the diversity of life and the innumerable ways of living it. One of my first…

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My Ideal World

I grew up on a hobby farm in North Branch, Minnesota, studied Environmental Science at Cornell College, and now am working in Social Services and am on the board of Prairiewoods. I love exploring all the different ways of connecting to nature, which is why in my ideal world, I would want it to be like the…

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Responding to Unprecedented Times

As I walk among the trees adorned in golden morning shadows, much of the ground is still hidden from sight. The sky has caught the first threads of sun and is transforming the darkness into an array of pinks and reds that I do not know how to name. The air is crisp and jacket-worthy,…

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Reject Nothing

Things to do But the heart calls me here Thursday Zoomdo, forest communities My muses Overcoming urge to eat Choiceless decision Divine peace pursuit Pursuit of the Divine Here within, no need to pursue Peace through Hulu-binging There without Next episode in 15, 14, 13, 12, 11, 10 … Teachers both Inseparable from the way…

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Kinship/Partners

Part of my unplanned ritual every dawn involves the consciousness of awakening next to my husband, my partner. There is the warm feeling of gratitude before the more reality-driven thoughts of what this day might hold and how we will intersect during the day. This partnership/relationship has been shaping itself for many years and continues…

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A Big Barred Owl

Our friends were driving us home in their car. We were returning from a wonderful dinner on a summer evening. When we pulled up into our driveway there it was: a big barred owl perched on the top of our entryway roof. It seemed happy to stay as we all exited the car. I pulled…

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Be Still, Let Fall

Many spiritual traditions recognize the rhythm of nature, human experience and divine spirit. In attuning to the rhythms of Earth, Esther de Waal writes in The Celtic Way of Prayer (p. 61–62): “A people who farmed and knew the patterns of the seasons, who lived close to the sea and watched the ebb and flow…

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Coming Back to Nature

Growing up on 200 acres of land in the hills of eastern Iowa, nature was woven into the fabric of my life. My family was farmers, and conversations about nature and the weather were commonplace: Were the crops too dry? Was it too wet to bale hay? Praying a new calf wouldn’t be born in…

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Murmuration

This universe This world This life Is a murmuration Thought stream and physicality rejected Protected within the universal tribe Larger something, larger everything Surrounded by those close Strangers distant Neighbors and lovers of lovers Whole unknown Constantly changing Shape shifting, role switching Protected to protector From suffering expected Suffer inevitable Systematic knowing Not a needing…

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Spirituality: What does It Mean?

This Thanksgiving, we are so thankful for the strong women who came before us. Prairiewoods was founded by six Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration, an order of sisters out of La Crosse, Wisconsin. One of our foundresses, Sister Betty Daugherty, wrote the article below on spirituality in a newsletter that was published in the spring…

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Spiritual Contemplation

Spirituality is such a difficult concept to explain. The word brings different meanings, feelings, and thoughts to every one of us. A huge influence on my spirituality is the Native American ideology that everything in nature is spiritual. From the rock to the eagle, to humans, we all have our parts to keep the balance…

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