Revisiting a Sense of Oneness

It is early September 2024. My windows are open, and the symphony of the woods is lilting through the screen. The crickets provide an anchoring hum, birdsong provides a melody, and the gentle, rhythmic movement of the leaves adds percussion to this morning’s serenade. The early sun is resting on the trees, coaxing the woods…

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…

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…

A Breath of Song Podcast Highlights Prairiewoods

After the August 2020 derecho, Laura Weber, former Prairiewoods associate director and retreat coordinator, expressed the emotions and powerful energy of how the storm impacted the lands and life at Prairiewoods. She used deeply expressive language like the “Gentle giants of unwavering peace” to describe the trees. I was especially enamored by the last two…

We Are Star Dust, We Are One

Every time I come to Prairiewoods, I stroll along the Cosmic Walk path that marks key moments in the birth and evolution of our universe and our planet home Earth. Every time I am struck by how far I walk, across the creek, up the hill, through the woods, across the ridge—through billions of years…