This I Believe

“The call rings forth: imagine a new future in collaboration with Earth’s wisdom, reweave communion with kith and kin, return to the universal tree of life and liveliness.” —Leah Rampy, PhD, Earth and Soul, p. 145 Throughout her book, Leah Rampy tells us to take time to be connected or reconnected to the kith and…

Spiritual Courtyard

The Prairiewoods courtyard is a spiritual intersection red stream flash Left to right Observed if not absorbed yellow stream flash Right to left Do my eyes deceive? Should green be near? Perhaps Earth to sky? This traffic light of mini super beings are simply song birds of the spiritual courtyard enjoying life shared and together.…

Together We Grow

“Behold, my brothers, the spring has come; the earth has received the embrace of the sun and we shall soon see the results of that love! Every seed has awakened and so has all animal life. It is through this mysterious power that we too have our being and we therefore yield to our neighbors,…

Transcending Dualism: Healing What Divides Us

Prairiewoods is currently exploring the characteristics of ecological spirituality, and we turn our focus to an examination of dualism versus non-dualism. First, what does dualism mean? Dualism (noun) 1. a theory that considers reality to consist of two irreducible (cannot be reduced or simplified) elements or modes 2. a doctrine that the universe is under…

Working from A Unified Narrative

“The entire material universe speaks of God’s love, God’s boundless affection for us. Soil, water, mountains: everything is a caress of God.” —Pope Francis, Laudato Si’, 84 I was brought up in a split world. There were sacred things and profane things. Heaven and Earth. Right answers and wrong answers, and the person who got…

Tree Hugger

“Trees heal.” —Susan Bauer-Wu, A Future We Can Love A tree in Gatesville, Texas. I grew up in west Texas, where there are few trees, the southernmost part of the Great Plains. My mother, however, grew up in central Texas, where there are many beautiful live oak trees. On a visit to my grandmother, who…

Becoming the Elder Tree

“Elders belong to the earth, honoring all the names of love. They tend the universe, offering blessing to everything wild.” —Belden Lane, The Great Conversation: Nature and the Care of the Soul Prairiewoods’ Grandmother Oak is one of my most important elderhood mentors. She has grown for three centuries into a beautiful arbor elder, living…

Entanglements

“Instructions for living a life: Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.” —Mary Oliver, Sometimes My lifelong goal as a writer: to articulate the ways that how we treat the earth and the body are deeply rooted, and how grief, love, and care for the natural world in the tending of the dying and dead…

The Divine Shepherd

The Breath is my shepherd in deepest ravines highest mountains. Secured. Assured. Absolute. Divinity of all Creation. Even though organs fail flesh rots kin feed bones whiten  scatter. My shepherd The Breath remains. Divine, Secure, Assured, Absolute, for Eternity. —Keith Knapp, written during a Silent Directed Retreat at Prairiewoods, June 2024   image of a…