By way of a response to the political debate held this week, we invite you to view and engage some local initiatives that inspire hope and conviction to lift voice for those in greatest need. This week the Nuns on the Bus toured the state of Iowa to highlight incredible initiatives and to lift awareness…
Once a year, my beloved dog Phineas has a playdate with dozens of other dogs, cats, guinea pigs, bunnies, bearded dragons and donkeys from around the corridor. I’m not sure who enjoys it more, me or him. (OK, it’s probably me.) Prairiewoods’ annual Blessing of the Animals gives me and Phin a chance to meet…
“And time, we now know, is actually a persistent illusion? What we understand as past and present and future all exist within some sort of eternal now? What? And we’re each made of billions and billions and billions of atoms, because everything everywhere is made of atoms? And atoms aren’t really things or stuff at…
What are you noticing as we begin the autumn season? What are you seeing, now several weeks after the derecho storm? I am noticing trees and stumps and so much beauty. The forest in my neighborhood has opened up again. As I move along with the trees, the light pours in. The canopy is open…
As the Prairiewoods artist-in-residence, I have the privilege of spending time at Prairiewoods in a variety of seasons, meandering through the prairie, visiting Grandmother Oak, slowly turning in circles as I walk the labyrinth. A little over a year ago, I waded into Dry Creek—not dry at all!—and perched on a rock with the water…
“Conversation is perhaps our greatest hope not only for healing the rifts in human understanding but also for restoring and reinspiring our relationship with the natural world, which is our first and most profound home. Care of the world is always essential, and care arises from conversation.” —Thomas Dean, Introduction, Tallgrass Conversations: In Search of…
In his book To Bless the Space Between Us, John O’ Donohue offers prayerful poems that can only otherwise be known as blessings. “The word blessing evokes a sense of warmth and protection; it suggests that no life is alone or unreachable. Each life is clothed in raiment of spirit that secretly links it to…
“To make a prairie, it takes a clover and one bee, One clover, and a bee, And revery. The revery alone will do, If bees are few.” —Emily Dickinson When I was a child, I was known for being able to fall asleep anywhere. Once I laid down on a busy sidewalk to snooze while…
When my niece was really little she looked across the table at our Aunt Sherri and said, “I can feel the love coming out of your heart and going into my heart.” I’ve also felt this love from (and for) Aunt Sherri ever since I was little, although I didn’t quite have the words to…
“The spiritual function of fierce terrain … is to bring us to the end of ourselves, to the abandonment of language and the relinquishment of ego. A vast expanse of jagged stone, desert sand, and towering thunderheads has a way of challenging all the mental constructs in which we are tempted to take comfort and…