Relationships: We build bridges of relationships that stretch us to be people of encounter who stand with all suffering in our Earth Community The Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration (FSPA), Prairiewoods’ founding organization, has committed to a Revolution through Encuentro, or deep encounters with others. As part of this, the FSPA Anti-Racism Team commissioned an…
Every day, the news takes another polling guess at how we can be counted. Which is to say, sorted and divided, red vs. blue. It is the season for casting votes, and I must be clear – the casting and the counting matter. In the U.S., as has happened and will in the future elsewhere,…
“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,…
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…
“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…
Gwen Frostic, Michigan ecologist and artist, wrote in 1973 that activism on behalf of working for a better future for our planet is not in creating big groups, big plans, unions and community ties. It is in being one who goes deeper into the world. To not belong, but to become. When I was a…
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…
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…
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,…
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…