A few years ago, our associate director, Laura Weber, wandered out to the garden here at Prairiewoods and took a photograph of the compost pile. Thus began one of the all-time great ongoing arguments (alright, more a good-natured verbal sparring than an actual argument). Laura saw the image as deeply beautiful, indicative of the work…
Dear Prairiewoods Family, Hello and much love to each of you. This is my last blog post as the ecospirituality coordinator at Prairiewoods. I have been thinking about this post all week, and it is hard to find the words for all that I am feeling as I take my leave of Prairiewoods as the…
I am practicing nature photography as a prayerful experience and I’ve learned so much from two wonderful books by Christine Valters Paintner, The Soul’s Slow Ripening: 12 Celtic Practices for Seeking the Sacred and Eyes of the Heart: Photography as a Christian Contemplative Practice. Both books are excellent. I’m also deepening my contemplative photography practice…
Dear Prairiewoods friends, A few years ago, I planted a peony bush in my little yard. This year it is blooming for the first time—there are two blooms! I am beyond excited! Have you ever nuzzled your face into the face of a Peony? It’s, like, the best thing ever; it’s like a silky flower kiss…
I value the trees in my yard as friends. We go through the seasons together. Trees give me joy, strength, hope. Meeting Face to face, or so it feels, we meet, (two sides of a window, the blossoming tree and I) we breathe, we deeply breathe, together, the same soft-bright sky, above us both,…
Hello, dear Prairiewoods family! The other morning, I looked out my kitchen window and saw a monarch butterfly caught in a spider web in the corner of my window. I was both excited to see the monarch and sad that it had been caught in the spider’s web. I wasn’t upset with the spider; I…
“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…
I just finished reading a truly heart-awakening book called To Speak for the Trees: My Life’s Journey from Ancient Celtic Wisdom to a Healing Vision of the Forest by Diana Beresford-Kroger, a botanist and medical biochemist from Ireland who was orphaned as a young girl and then raised by her wise Celtic community of relatives…
Hello, Prairiewoods friends! I hope you are faring well today and enjoying this extended weekend. Spring is unfolding beautifully at Prairiewoods, and I am excited to share it with you. Prairiewoods and Metro Catholic Outreach (MCO) have been partnering since 2014 with our shared vegetable garden, the Green Prairie Garden, located on the land at Prairiewoods.…
AAAWWWHOOO AAAWWWHOOO Who cooks for you?? Still Still Blink Swoooooop Clutch, hold, hold, hold Swivel to peer, search, scan AAAWWWHOOO AAAWWWHOOO Who cooks for you?? Still Still Ruffle Gaze Swivel If you guessed it was the magnificent Owl that captured my imagination in last week’s blog entry, you were right! “Who cooks for you?” is…