“If human life is unsustainable as we have become accustomed to living it, it is likely up to survivors—people who have stared into the abyss of catastrophe—to imagine and enact new ways of living.” ..Robert Jay Lipton, author whose subject has been holocaust, mass violence, and renewal in the 20th and 21st century. How do… Read more »

Norma Jean Churchill, a cherished member of our family for the past three decades, departed from this world in the early hours of April 10, 2024. At the age of 92, she passed away in the comfort of her own bed, in her home by her beloved Las Gallinas tidal creek, just as she had… Read more »

This Spring’s beauty has never been greater. I know, for some of us elders, this is how it feels every spring—a green fuse filled with fire of blooming: California buttercup and shooting star and purple cups of Douglas Iris and now spires of lupin, tiny whispers of trillium, and blue-eyed grass. Such delicate, sturdy presences… Read more »

While visiting Cologne, Germany, this month, I was surprised to see flocks of wild parrots skimming low over the waters of the Rhine before roosting in the large trees along the river’s edge. Parrots are not native to Germany but are probably descendants of pets that have escaped or been deliberately released, naturalizing in this… Read more »

I am reprinting one of my favorite Mother’s Day posts. More and more I realize how much my mother’s and my grandmothers’ influences reach my own grandchildren today and perhaps, one day, their own. Mother’s Day Memories: Sweet, Bittersweet Every year Mother’s Day brings two big memories, both when I was a preteen, one sweet, one bittersweet…. Read more »