Every year I bring back wood frogs, peepers or toads to this property to increase my amphibian population… this year with a drought underway the peepers captured my heart because a bizarre heat wave hit Maine just after the coldest… Read More ›
animals
Butterfly – Soul Transformation by Judith Shaw
I offer this look at the life and stories of Butterfly as a healing salve for our very troubled world. In this time of great, world-wide transformation, as we grapple with the many, many racial, social, economic and environmental injustices… Read More ›
Caprine Community by Laurie Goodhart
Two recent posts, Community Immunity by Natalie Weaver on May 6, and Carol Christ’s May 11 essay, Women Invented Agriculture, Potter, and Weaving…, have spurred me to focus and finally share something that I’ve meant to for a long time. … Read More ›
A Beary Peaceful Day by Sara Wright
It is overcast and a few drops of rain are falling. I have been out talking to Tree Bear (TB), a yearling who has brightened my life in these dark soul days. Tree Bear comes up the mossy pine strewn… Read More ›
My Green Spaces by Esther Nelson
I don’t do well being cooped up (staying at home) all day and every day. Thankfully the state of Virginia, where I currently live, has kept their parks open during the COVID-19 pandemic. For two months, I intentionally scheduled a… Read More ›
Cow, Nursemaid to Humanity by Judith Shaw
Our human connection to Cow goes back to the days of prehistory. Aurochs (wild oxen), cattle’s wild ancestors, are found in prehistoric cave art throughout Europe, India and Africa. About 10,500 years ago modern cattle were domesticated from only 80… Read More ›
Tribute to Charlie Russell (1941–2018) by Sara Wright
“Learning entails more than the gathering of information. Learning changes the learner. Like dwarf pines whose form develop with winter’s design, the learner is shaped by what he learns.” “Talking with Bears: Conversations with Charlie Russell” G.A. Bradshaw
May – A Time of Becoming by Sara Wright
Returning home to Maine in April has allowed me to experience winter turning her ancient wisdom filled face towards the maiden of spring. Although the month has been chilly, and until two days ago snow covered tree stripped mountains still… Read More ›
Dolphin – Friendly Guide, Ambassador of Peace and Play by Judith Shaw
Anyone who has seen dolphins frolicking in the sea, understands the allure of these mysterious creatures who live in the water and yet are not fish. Highly intelligent and communicative, Dolphin inspires a sense of joy in our hearts. Often… Read More ›
Canada Goose by Sara Wright
Canadian Geese have been on my mind a lot lately. This past winter I have missed the skeins of geese that fly back and forth up and down the river appearing every single morning like clockwork. In Abiquiu when winter… Read More ›
Walking in Moonlight Before the Pandemic by Marie Cartier and Kimberly Esslinger
For this month’s blog my wife, the poet Kimberly Esslinger, and I have written a joint poem— Walking in Moonlight Before the Pandemic and what is done to the least of these…. Where is the god of woman…. Read More ›
The Portal: How Do We Know What We Know? by Sara Wright
Every morning I walk to the river in the velveteen hour between the vanishing blue night and the coming of the first scarlet, pink, lavender, purple or golden ribbons that stretch across the horizon. Sometimes clouds with heavy gray eyelids… Read More ›
The Serpent and the Goddess by Judith Shaw
The otherworldly energy of Snake – it’s vitality, its uncanny ability to sense danger, and its ability to shed its skin and reappear as if reborn must have invoked feelings of awe in our ancestors. All across the pre-historic world… Read More ›
When the Cranes Come by Sara Wright
When the Cranes Come I remember who I am – A woman with wings. When the Cranes Come I listen with rapt attention I am a woman with wings. When the Cranes Come I am pulled into a primordial field… Read More ›
The Ability to Feel and to Feel the Feelings of Others by Carol P. Christ
The term “panpsychism” is made up of two Greek words: pan, meaning all, and psyche, often translated mind or soul. Panpsychism is the view that (forms of) soul or mind or consciousness are found throughout the web of life. This… Read More ›
When Every Day Will Be Tu B’Shevat by Ivy Helman.
Tomorrow is Tu B’Shevat, the New Year of the Trees, or their birthday. It is the day of the year when all trees, regardless of when they have been planted, turn another year older. The rabbis standardized this day in… Read More ›
Wolf – The Call of the Wild by Judith Shaw
Howling wolves on a winter’s night sets the human heart aflame with fear – their legends are terrifying. Yet there is another side to Wolf. Deeply relational by nature, wolves are highly intelligent animals, excellent hunters and devoted to family…. Read More ›
Forgive Me My Ancestor(s) by Elizabeth Cunningham
When I was a child in the 1950s we often played cowboys and Indians. There is a photograph of my brother and me in no doubt inauthentic costume complete with feathered headdress. In kindergarten I named myself Morning Star. (I… Read More ›
The Storyteller by Sara Wright
When I walked into the space a bolt of light shot across the room and struck me so forcibly that it felt like it shattered the cells beneath my skin. Did this occur before I glimpsed her bronzed moon shaped… Read More ›
Flicker’s New Year Gift – Part 2 of 2 by Sara Wright
[Continued from yesterday…] All sentient creatures are negatively affected by the deaths of one species. And still people refuse to see. As I wrote about the loss of trees and woodpeckers old tree memories surfaced without warning. Resolutely, I faced… Read More ›
Flicker’s New Year Gift – Part 1 of 2 by Sara Wright
January 1st dawned clear and cold as I meandered through the frosted scrub and under the graceful Cottonwoods that line the Bosque by the river. I hadn’t planned on a walk because it was so frigid but the ethereal light… Read More ›
My Feline Familiars by Joyce Zonana
When I made my breakfast, Ginger watched and waited for his own; when I worked at my desk, he slept beside me or walked across my keyboard; when I relaxed in front of the TV in the evening, he immediately jumped onto the couch and curled up in my lap. I prided myself on living alone, on my solitude—but in fact I was never alone. The cat was a constant presence in my life, a silent witness to all my actions, my deeply intimate, silent companion.
Mess and Magic, by Molly Remer
Maybe beautiful things don’t only grow from peace, maybe they grow from the soil of living, which holds both blood and tears muck and magic. Last week I tried to work on my book while the household debris whirled around… Read More ›
Archy and Mehitabel by Barbara Ardinger
Archy the Cockroach and Mehitabel the Cat were introduced to the world in 1916 by Don Marquis, a columnist for the New York Evening Sun. Marquis was more than a mere columnist; he was a social commentator and satirist admired… Read More ›
Firebird’s Song by Sara Wright
In response to Carol Christ’s latest post… She came on the wings of the Owl flew out of the crack of our imagining, swooped low over the underground forest hooing, hooing, hooing screeching and clacking – Haunting the night with… Read More ›
The Man with the Hat by Sara Wright
I met a man on a rumbling train who had hooks in his hat. A fisherman, I thought with the usual dismay – brutal images of dying fish gasping for air exploded in thin air. Memories of my grandmother who… Read More ›
Turtle – Slow and Steady Wins the Race by Judith Shaw
Turtle moves slowly through the world carrying its home on its back and has done so for over 200 million years, offering us its special wisdom – all you are and all you need is inside of you.
Ant Hill by Sara Wright
Yesterday I gave a poetry reading at a local library beginning and ending with thoughts about how Climate Change is affecting all living things. I am a naturalist who holds the radical belief that all living things are sentient. I… Read More ›
A Place Below the Cattails by Sara Wright
As a woman with Passamaquoddy roots when I first came to Abiquiu I was invited to participate in the six pueblo celebrations along the Rio Grande which made me feel blessed, grateful, included, and at “home.” My own people’s lives… Read More ›
Crane – Guide to Royalty, Longevity and Balance by Judith Shaw
Cranes, seen gliding over the water, searching for food in muddy wetlands and flying overhead in beautiful formations, are graceful, elegant birds – masters of three worlds – air, land and water.
