As the artist-in-residence at Prairiewoods, I recently had the gift of spending a week in one of the Hermitages. The space itself, a compact one-room cottage, invites us to live more simply, to leave behind what is not essential. To slow down and reconnect with our deeper selves and the living world around us. As…
“We should not be ashamed of anger. It’s a very good and a very powerful thing that motivates us. But what we need to be ashamed of is the way we abuse it.” —Mahatma Ghandi Yesterday, I happened upon one of those parody songs that have been proliferating on social media since the start of…
I am listening to the winter season Watching the sunrises and sunsets Marveling at icy fog in the mornings Noticing the beauty of animal tracks in the snow Feeling the pull of the frozen river Meeting sun dogs in the cold My eye following eagles as they disappear in the sun And praying, praying for…
When it’s heartfelt, it feels good to say and it certainly feels good to hear! But sometimes the abundance of our lives seems to drain us. Sometimes we’re sad. Sometimes we’re distracted. It’s hard in those moments to remember to take this natural medicine. But it helps to know how gratitude impacts our brains on…
Can and should the concept of normality, and therefore the expectation of it, go on retreat, not just during this time of pandemic, but always? Should the use of this word, currently said with hesitancy and a catch in the throat, be banished always to the category of the trash heap? For myself, or that…
Two weeks ago, my blog post Word of the Year talked about how beneficial it can be to name the outgoing year with a single word. It can act as the period at the end of the year’s sentence—the summation of a whole year of highs and lows, insights and feelings, growths and setbacks. I…
“We may have ten possible images of tomorrow and for each one of these there may be ten images of the next day, giving a hundred possible images of the day after tomorrow and a thousand of the day after that, and so on, which means that the uncertainty of the future increases rapidly as…
A few years back my Grandma gave me a lovely book of daily meditations called The Book of Awakening: Having the Life You Want by Being Present to the Life You Have by Mark Nepo. (My Grandma knows all the good books!) This book is written as a daily reader. Each day there is a…
In the bleak midwinter, frosty wind made moan, Earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone; Snow had fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow, In the bleak midwinter, long ago. —Christina Rosetti, “In the Bleak Midwinter” How silently, how silently The wondrous gift is given So God imparts to human hearts The…
Each December as one year comes to a close and another is just a glimmer of possibility, I try to encapsulate the outgoing year—and how I experienced it—in a single word. The year I regained my health by losing weight, went skydiving and took a pilgrimage to Italy with my mother, my word was Joy.…