A Kitten Tale: Sinbad
My kids used to beg for the bedtime story about Sinbad. They knew the real story, of course: our sleek, archetypal black cat had simply appeared, like…
Mary Oliver, and Peonies
In honor of National Poetry month, I am dedicating my April blog to the tender and beautiful poem “Peonies,”* by Mary Oliver. As it happens, my own…
Easter joys and letting go
This Easter, may you be spared a surfeit of sweets! “Huh? What’s that?” you say. “What’s Easter without a major glycemic overload?” When my offspring were young,…
Take to the streets — or to the woods?
We Quakers, seeking to live up to our history of spiritually rooted activism, often feel called to lend our voices to social or political causes. At the…
Ursula K. Le Guin – The Ending Place
The words of the unquenchable, incomparable Ursula K. Le Guin are among my most treasured possessions. Yes, her books. Of course her books — they occupy two…
The Gift of Holiday Grief
Each year I know more people who are sad during the holidays. Many are mourning lost loved ones. That, and my own holiday grief, have seemed regrettable,…
A #NaNoWriMo Salute
It is a truth (perhaps not universally acknowledged) that any process that would spawn an acronym like “NaNoWriMo” must be awful. I have, in fact, heard the…
My Top Five Halloween “Treats”
#1: Memories Me, five years old, all witchy-ed up, including a truly impressive grimacing mask, which my mother had worn thirty-some years earlier. “What an ugly witch…
Aikido: The Real Thing
Studying Aikido, I have found the courage to stand up for myself and others, to be at peace from a place of strength. Ironically (at least to…
The highs and lows of August 2017
What a month. I grew up in the Deep South, so the events in Charlottesville on Aug. 12 set off not only a clangor of alarm bells,…