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 ›
When I was a child, I liked and hated the game Monopoly. It was interesting and exciting, but it was also cutthroat, ruthless, competitive, and often seemed to involve cheating by the banker. My vague memories are mostly hurt feelings… Read More ›
“When life hands you lemons, sometimes you have to make applesauce.”
I still cannot speak. To the depth of the pain. The sting. The knowing My heart Will never be. Or Feel. The same. More than A year Later. And I still can barely utter To anyone. What was said. Bitch…. Read More ›
I want to be a lonely mystic dwelling in devotion, constantly dialoging with divinity, drenched in wonder, and doused with delight in knowing my place in the family of things. I want to weave spells from wind and wildness, soak… Read More ›
Welcome to the New Year. One year ago, on New Year’s eve, I buried my father’s ashes. It was an incredible experience to orchestrate the funeral and burial of the man who begat me. He was nowhere near a Hallmark greeting card… Read More ›
Faith is something we get from each other, and sometimes in the most magical of circumstances, faith becomes embodied by the person you love the most.
I’ve spent much of the past four years – since returning to the state of my birth after more than forty years’ intentional absence – trying to understand and make peace with a particular slice of southern culture that I… Read More ›
(1) Today is my mother’s birthday and although she has been dead for more than a decade I still think of her almost every day. At the time of her death I had not seen her for twelve years. Not… Read More ›
This time of year, the general public tends to pay more attention than usual to witches. Much of it is lighthearted – halloween costumes and memes about where to park your broom. Some of it is spiritual – adherents of… Read More ›
Our bounty is in creativity friendship community the myriad small adventures of everyday. We tell of magic and moonrise and listening to the pulse of the earth beneath our feet. Ah, October. Fall has settled into the trees and air…. Read More ›
There are people in my family who believe Christianity to be so inherently oppressive and harmful, that anyone who identifies as Christian is culpable for all of the harm done by all imperial colonization by Christian empires and nations, all… Read More ›
I have greatly enjoyed an odd little book I read over the summer. It is Lucy Cooke’s The Truth About Animals (Basic Books, 2018). Cooke takes us through a journey of animal behavior, chronicling the curious narratives that naturalists, philosophers, theologians, and… Read More ›
You’re not born yet. You’re still an idea A thought. Yet I think of you often. I hope for you. I wonder what life will be like For you. When you arrive Will each breath Be easy? Will you have… Read More ›
Get the kids out the door to swim Sunscreen, lots of sunscreen Summer’s worse every damned year Deadly heat waves are killing people as our civilization begins to crumble Don’t think about that, gotta remember to fill water bottles Pack… Read More ›
Since I began writing for FAR in July 2012, I have written about Mary Magdalen, or excerpted a passage from one of my novels, near or on her July 22 Feast Day. For why I made the controversial choice to… Read More ›
Bear with me. I know that most Christians accept some version of the idea that Jesus, the person, died, and then ‘rose from the dead’ in a supernatural, miraculous way – probably the most common definition of what Christians celebrate… Read More ›
There might be lots of lessons to consider. These lessons might have holes, for I’m not a wise sage, and I’m not really even a mother. As I am a couple of years from 40, I think about what lessons… Read More ›
Here in the high desert it has been raining off and on for the last few days. A giant puddle sits in the driveway and all the trees range in color from subtle shades of sage to emerald. Fringed Chamisa,… Read More ›
I recently spoke with a female relative (I’ll call her Sylvia), the mother of two teenage sons. The eldest just completed his first year of college. During our conversation, Sylvia mentioned she was not looking forward to him coming home… Read More ›
I used to hate Mother’s Day. I have written about this before, so I won’t belabor the point. Suffice it to say, I used to believe that Mother’s Day was the one of the biggest lies of all. It was… Read More ›
I hear this a lot: “You’re Mexican? You don’t look it?” A friend I have had for over 40 years always says, “I don’t think of you that way.” I am never quite sure how to respond to these opinions…. Read More ›
I’ve had two distinct vocations during my lifetime—so far. Three, really, if you count parenting a vocation. Parenting took up a lot of my time for many years. There were aspects to it that were fulfilling, enlightening, and satisfying, but… Read More ›
Today would be my brother Dale’s 75th birthday. To honor him, I’m rewriting an article I wrote for a business magazine in Orange Co., CA, in 1992. Although I was a regular columnist for that business magazine, I seldom wrote… Read More ›
I see it…do you? It’s just within reach and I’m almost there…the proverbial finish line to my Ph.D. That’s right folks, I’m graduating. To say that this has been an easy journey, one that many of you have read about… Read More ›
It is spring and it is warm in California. I haven’t been exercising over the winter because it has been extremely cold for California. I had the bug everyone else had. But, now I am back, and we have just… Read More ›
From the day my Father, Theodore, was brutally and callously murdered in Toronto, on Easter Monday, March 27, 1978, I wanted to meet his killer. I wanted to know how it was possible to do such a horrific thing. I… Read More ›
And so is born the “monster” most people associate with the name Frankenstein–a lone and lonely terrorist who lashes out against a world that has no place for him. One by one, he strangles all the people his “maker” holds dear: his brother William, his best friend Clerval, and his cousin/bride Elizabeth. Yet the novel invites us to have compassion for the creature, even while it condemns the society that makes him as he is. Victor, raised by a devoted mother and tenderly loved by a doting cousin, should have known better. As should we.
I am tired and a bit emotionally exhausted, yet hopeful and in calm spirits as I have returned from my 8 months of traveling through Europe. I left in a rather dramatic impulsivity with little planning other than to leave… Read More ›
This is a poem I published almost ten years ago. It is as if I wrote it yesterday. The image is more or less of the same sentiment as the poem. I publish these again here in memory of my father. ~~~~… Read More ›
