Category: blog

  • The Lesson of the Pansies

    The Lesson of the Pansies

    For several weeks now I have been observing my balcony porch winter garden. It consists of two small red cedar trees, two box elders, and seven pots of pansies. With just-the-right positioning of my chair I can see, through two long, wide glass panels, all my pansies. This is what…

  • The Advent Imperative

    The Advent Imperative

    A walk through a Nashville church plus a healthy dose of imagination created the image above. 

  • Injured forever

    Injured forever

    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

    Sans solace

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

  • Turning

    Turning

  • Waiting for the dawn

    Waiting for the dawn

    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.

  • Disassembly required 

    Disassembly required 

    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 hummers

    The hummers

    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…

  • Vin Santo

    Vin Santo

    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…