Pleased to meet you, Little Oak. I see you’re growing at an angle. Growing like you’re reaching. Like you’re stretching yourself. Like a pre-teen searching the sky. I’m rooting for you. Praying for you. Singing songs for you in your sleep. I’ll be thinking of you, dreaming of your future. And you may see me…
In last Monday’s blog (https://prairiewoods.org/interior-wilderness/), we offered an exercise to plunge deeper into our interior wilderness in the aftermath of loss. Whatever “storm” we have recently endured, environmental, communal or personal, the loss profoundly affects our sense of self, our identity. Once we have begun exploring our interior wild-scape after a loss, and we begin…
So many of us still remember the first moment we heard about September 11, 2001, when extremists hijacked four planes flying above the United States. Two planes were flown into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York. Another into the Pentagon, the top military building in Washington D.C. Close to three…
Fred Rogers is often quoted as saying, “When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.’” I have never felt the truth of that statement as much as I have in the…
“I simply remember my favorite things, and then I don’t feel so bad!” —Rodgers & Hammerstein So many of us are in various stages of grief. I’ve recently lost several good friends, including Sr. Betty—none to COVID. This grief is compounded by having to distance from loved ones and loved places. So here’s to memories…
On Monday, Aug. 10, when the derecho hit Iowa, we were all shocked by the storm itself and the severe damage it caused. (We literally didn’t know what hit us, and once we were able to read the news I actually had to google the term derecho, as I’d never heard that word.) But the…
(Prairiewoods tree that fell on the labyrinth due to the derecho) Often over the years since I first learned Maya Angelou’s poem “When Great Trees Fall” in 1990, it has consoled me during the deaths of many loved ones. These weeks in light of the derecho and hurricane destruction, the wild fires, the Pandemic, the…
Three weeks ago, the greater Cedar Rapids community experienced a freak inland hurricane known as a derecho. Because of this storm, many of us experienced what it is like to live without food, shelter, gas, electricity and internet—most of us for the first time in our lives. At my house, we learned first-hand how hard…
“I will not say: do not weep; for not all tears are an evil.” —J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King Friday night, I sat with a friend in her driveway, many feet apart from one another, as dusk gave way to night. Around us, her once beautifully wooded neighborhood looked like it had suffered…
Grandmother Oak still stands! I was so happy to read those words in a text from Prairiewoods Director Jenifer Hanson following the derecho storm. Like many others, soon after the storm ended, I thought about Prairiewoods, hoping and praying that everyone was all right. I was sad to hear that many trees at Prairiewoods were…