How an Oak Helped Me into the World When I was six, I met my first oak. I was a shy child, having grown up on a small farm in central Illinois. When I entered first grade, I had little experience being away from my mother, grandmothers, and little sister Judy. I was not used to the… Read more »

Lessons from Serpents and Goats Life’s stories, heeded, have their lessons. Writing this next manuscript educates me about my own stories, yet another zen whack!  Most accounts of the Garden of Eden creation story leave out the details of the Serpent. The Old Testament tells how the Serpent tempted Eve to eat the fruit from the one… Read more »

How Napa County Mirrors World Concerns:United Nations Dialogue Our land use issues in Napa County are those addressed in the 2016 United Nations Harmony with Nature virtual dialogue. The purpose of the dialogue was “to inspire citizens and societies to reconsider how they interact with the natural world in order to implement the Sustainable Development Goals in harmony… Read more »

Finding Conscious Activism I go back and forth about the working title for my current manuscript. At first I called it Fire and the New Consciousness: Finding a Path to a Conscious Activism.  It morphed into The Uninvited Guest: Finding a Path to a Conscious Activism. The first had an introverted tone to it; the… Read more »

Peter Pan, Pirates, Neverland—and Grandsons One of the pleasures of grandsons living on the property is getting to witness magical moments like this: Wesley and Sabien’s preparation to attend the Pirate Festival in Vallejo. We have been having a lot of pirate activity here since five year old Wesley discovered Peter Pan. It started with the… Read more »

Fire and the Danger of What We Exclude In writing The Uninvited Guest: Finding a Path to a Conscious Activism,  I have to work in fits and starts. Is it always that way when you are riding the edge? I am working something through. This morning I realized there is an underlying myth that’s been tailing me for ages,… Read more »

Arrival of the Uninvited Guest Today I submitted my application for a two week residency next fall at Mesa Refuge, Point Reyes Station, California. I worked over the weekend summarizing my project, a manuscript that has been resting in the dark ground of my imagination over the last year. I had to write a one… Read more »

I remember sitting on the splintery, wooden pews of our country church, listening to scripture.  The minister’s monotone voice competed with the drone of the microphone, “Look at the birds of the air… Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow.. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, will he not much more… Read more »

Land Use and Spirit When was it that we stopped considering Spirit of Place first, and use of the land only in concert with Spirit? My family came from Ireland and Wales a couple of generations back, and land was and continues to be a presence that endures, like a good mother. Everything stems from her and through… Read more »

Another First: May Day-ed! I was napping in the back room when a loud rapping came at the closed door. Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam! It was hot and we had been out to the Napa Home and Garden Show, so I was pretty out of it when this rapping occurred. Knowing my young grandsons were… Read more »