Calling Spirit Fox

At the cricket concert Calling Spirit Fox My grandson Wesley is three, and he is so curious! Where is the fox family, he wants to know. We are walking past the culvert that the mother, father, and three kits occupied in June on our way to look at a snake skin I found earlier in… Read more »

Spirit Images: Symbolic or Direct Perception?

Strong Presence of the Elements Spirit Images: Symbolic or Direct Perception? It was as if the air had been sucked out of the room. Our sense of reality was being questioned! We all sat there, both sides, brought up short by the question. Are the figures we meet in the sweat lodge symbolic, or are… Read more »

Thinning of the Veil: Remembering the Dead

Veil Mysteries on our ranch. Thinning of the Veil: Remembering the Dead When you look back, you often see what brought you to where you are. There are the mentors and teachers, the happy accidents, the inspirations and intuitions you followed, or not. Anthroposophist Rudolf Steiner would say that the dead are also assisting you,… Read more »

Blessed Greenness

 Detail of Gaia, Ceramic Piece by Genevieve Haven Blessed Greenness Carl Jung defines the benedicta viriditas, “blessed greenness,” as …the state of someone who, in his wanderings among the mazes of his psychic transformation, comes upon a secret happiness which reconciles him to his apparent loneliness. In communing with himself he finds not deadly boredom and melancholy but… Read more »

Demeter’s Grief: Reflections on Our Evolution

No wonder she was tempted! Demeter’s Grief: Reflections on Our Evolution Yes, she was a great Goddess, that Medium of a tone of consciousness, and boy, was she pissed! Her daughter Persephone had been abducted by Pluto into Hades and the Underworld. In her fury, Demeter stopped everything from growing until she got Persephone back…. Read more »

Join us Saturday in the Corn Room!

Donald by one of the corn room’s walls. He is 6’6″!         This last weekend Donald and I attended the wedding of Daniele and Jeremy, close friends of our son Jesse and his wife Lisa, at First Light Farm. Jesse planted a corn field for the occasion and hollowed out a “corn… Read more »

The Psyche and the Environment: Guest Blog by Jimalee Plank: The Cure

Jimalee in action. Jimalee Plank is one of my favorite writers, and she has been one of my greatest influences over the thirty some years we have been in a writing group together. She writes beautiful essays on the environment, on children and families, on the stuff of every day life. I am pleased to… Read more »

Prairie Fires and Forest Fire: Flames for New Consciousness?

Fire is an important part of many healthy ecosystems. Suppressed, it often becomes an uninvited guest!   Prairie Fires and Forest Fire: Flames for New Consciousness? The settlers coming into Illinois during the early part of the 19th century suffered many of the hardships of any people populating an unfamiliar territory. Drawn by location and the… Read more »

More “Incidents” As Told by William Edward Peabody

More “Incidents” As Told by William Edward Peabody My great grandfather William Edward Peabody was born in Stonington, IL in 1846. His father William Starr Peabody was one of the colony’s main founders.  The following is excerpts from his remembrances about Old Stonington Colony around experiences that became stories told over and over, stories they… Read more »