Insist on Color
We humans crave brightness and a rich color palate. Life is full of enough muted living; give us bold.
A Snowball Walk in the Woods
There are winters when it seem to snow, relentlessly, mercilessly, every day. The types of winters that wiped out half of the pilgrims on the Mayflower. “Hungry? Eat more snow!” kind of winters. This was not that kind of winter in New England. And now that we’re well into March, when the sun is higher…
Poetry | Birds | Garden and Home | Seasons | Writing
Stories in Time
Now through the white orchard my little dogromps, breaking the new snowwith wild feet.Running here running there, excited,hardly able to, stop, he leaps, he spinsuntil the white snow is written uponin large, exuberant letters,a long sentence, expressingthe pleasures of the body in this world.Oh, I could not have said it bettermyself.— Mary Oliver, The Storm…
Poetry | Learning | Personal Growth | Seasons | Writing
What Falls Away is Always
Great Nature has another thing to doTo you and me; so take the lively air,And, lovely, learn by going where to go. This shaking keeps me steady. I should know.What falls away is always. And is near.I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.I learn by going where I have to go.— Theodore Roethke,…
Geysers and Ice
Iceland is known as the land of fire and ice, for all the volcanic activity you can find nudged up against the Arctic Circle. Visiting in February, there’s ample opportunity to experience ice, but less so fire. You just don’t get eruptions that frequently, even here. But you do get plenty of geothermal activity. They…
Exploration | Nature | Seasons | Stargazing | Travel
Finding Aurora
“The Aurora Borealis is a fickle phenomenon. A week can pass without a flicker … then bang! The Northern Lights come on like a celestial lava lamp.” — Nigel Tisdall I went to Iceland expecting to be disappointed by the weather. I’m not a pessimist by nature, but the forecast simply didn’t look good. There…
Art | Nature | Productivity | Seasons | Writing
A Wisp of a Moment, Captured
On a recent walk I noticed the recently painted median strip dividing the road featured artwork now and then. It seems they painted the road in autumn, as the oak leaves returned to the earth to close their cycle and begin again. A few rebels, wishing for immortality perhaps, found the opportunity to capture the…
Deliberate Reflection
“Productive activity has nothing to do with being swept away by the inertia of busyness. It is not about quantity, either. Rather, it is a deliberate choice of where and how to direct one’s attention.” — Brad Stulberg, The Practice of Groundedness We seek solitude, when possible, in the quiet places. Places of stoic beauty with…
Community | Nature | Relationships | Seasons
An Unusual Winter
Winter is different this year. The ground, frozen for weeks leading up to the New Year, thawed in a warming trend that hit New England in the first few weeks of the year. We sometimes say we’re grateful when it rains instead of snows here, knowing the general equation of one inch of rain equalling…
Tossing Aside the Blindfold
“In the eighteenth century, when educated European tourists visited the Alps, they deliberately blindfolded their eyes to shield themselves from the evidence of the earth’s horrid irregularity. It is hard to say if this was not merely affectation, for today, newborn infants, who have not yet been taught our ideas of beauty, repeatedly show in…