Just Sitting is related to the full moon, tides, and that idea that the earth is mostly water and so are we. So I thought it’s not hard to believe that the moon would impact our internal energies and water tides too—if we can tune into them. I call it “just sitting” as this is the…
“Wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit, and as vital to our lives as water and good bread. A civilization which destroys what little remains of the wild, the spare, the original, is cutting itself off from its origins and betraying the principle of civilization itself.” ―Edward Abbey, Desert Solitaire…
Two events—Prairiewoods’ Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) eight-week class and a weeklong silent retreat—deepened my sense of oneness. Both experiences helped me slow down and become more aware of everything around me. One example is eating. In the MBSR class, we ate a single raisin in excruciatingly slow fashion, first examining it visually, then feeling…
The Prairiewoods courtyard is a spiritual intersection red stream flash Left to right Observed if not absorbed yellow stream flash Right to left Do my eyes deceive? Should green be near? Perhaps Earth to sky? This traffic light of mini super beings are simply song birds of the spiritual courtyard enjoying life shared and together.…
“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,…
“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…
“Elders belong to the earth, honoring all the names of love. They tend the universe, offering blessing to everything wild.” —Belden Lane, The Great Conversation: Nature and the Care of the Soul Prairiewoods’ Grandmother Oak is one of my most important elderhood mentors. She has grown for three centuries into a beautiful arbor elder, living…
It is my great privilege to live On a North bank of Indian Creek Where in our back yard, The creek flows from East to West. And where forty or fifty yards downstream The creek begins to make a grand U-turn Achieved with great dignity Over another hundred yards or so Which, when once complete…
“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…
My favorite poet, Mary Oliver, wrote in Sometimes: “Instructions for living a life: Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.” —Mary Oliver, Sometimes Straightforward, simple directions for telling a bit of my story. When I received a congratulatory birthday note from the Iowa House on my 80th birthday, I gasped in astonishment! “80, how can…