Author: Sharon

241216 The chief of police, Shon Barnes, in Madison, WI matter of factly reported the stats from the mass shooting at Abundant Life Christian School a week before Christmas: three dead (including the shooter) and six wounded. And then, with a tremble in his voice,  he said, “And all the children…

Sans solace / From the bombed building rubble / They pull a one-year-old child / A beautiful girl

Waiting for the dawn, a traditional Native American ritual, has been through ups and downs, thick and thin, grief and joy, a daily practice for me.  In these recent days, waiting for the dawn has become a source of solace and renewal.

As autumn creeps into our consciousness, I’ve begun to hear a common seasonal exclamation: “Isn’t the cooler weather delightful!” I notice my internal response is “Yes…but…” Yes…to the reduction of high temperatures with their wilting humidity Yes, to the yellowing of the light. Yes, to color emerging on the trees.…

The first sighting was made by my sister visiting from Texas. “Look!” She exclaimed as she pointed toward the porch. Looking up, we discovered within eyeshot a tiny hummingbird flitting among my red potted flowers. It wasn’t until I mounted a feeder gifted by a neighbor that multiple daily visits…

Every fall, after the grape harvest in Tuscany, the fragments of the field are gathered, dried, crushed, and stored in vats to become, when it is time, a sweet dessert wine called vin santo, holy wine. The myth informing the vin santo rituals originates in the fourteenth century when a…