Combining 185 voices with 243 tracks from 12 countries into a choir unlike any other. What started as a simple social media experiment, has become a poetic metaphor of our shared humanity and the power of connection. Acclaimed composer and conductor Eric...(

Meet Your Farmer - Tide Mill Farm from Pull-Start Pictures on Vimeo . (Click on the links to view the videos). Love the way these 9th generation Maine family dairy farmers are showing a way of hope—how to nurture and respect all life, run a solid business...(

The things I sometimes omit from difficult dialogues could choke a fair-to-middlin’ sized bulldozer. These omissions are rarely overt. But still they plague me: Could I have been more clear? More direct? More…? I once lived in an artistic rural community...(

Encourage borders, outskirts, and temporary isolation where the voltage of difference can spark the new….By definition a network is one huge edge. It has no fixed center. As the network grows it holds increasing opportunities for protected backwaters...(

Ochres, those naturally occurring pigments from oxidized iron are building blocks of the gods. The variant reds and yellows of the mountain and desert canyons rests our eyes and makes our hearts sing. Meanwhile, back at the ranch The shine on the oil...(

For those of you who pray or meditate on how to help the planet, specifically the Gulf Coast, The Council of Indigenous Grandmothers* has sent the following request (emphases mine): We ask you to cast, anchor, and hold the Net of Light steady for the...(

Last summer I had the front steps fixed in my cottage, built in 1944;  a new front door installed (donated from a friend’s home that was being torn down), demolished the old grass in the front yard and planted wildflowers.   This year I’ve just...(

From: The Freedom to Do Nothing — on Dave Pollard’s blog ‘how to save the world’ When you begin to get free, you will get depressed. It works like this: When you were three years old, if your parents weren’t too bad, you knew how to play spontaneously....(

The small man Builds cages for everyone He Knows. While the sage, Who has to duck his head When the moon is low, Keeps dropping keys all night long For the Beautiful Rowdy Prisoners.    ----Hafiz This TED talk by Chris Guillebeau is well worth...(

So today I went to make carrot ginger soup for a summer solstice gathering this evening…and I found a huge bag of organic carrots in the back of the refrigerator vegetable drawer. They were hairy, if you know what I mean. I was horrified at my lack of...(

As I walk the streets of my chosen village early, early: Very few humans are awake. A few smoker-hacks in the back yard: I smell their cigarettes and coffee. Greet a few gardeners out enjoying the flowers: They’ve got their Dew On. Smell the ponderosa...(

Doe Bay, Orcas Island, June 2010, looking south by southwest.  Early morning, low tide. Graywacke (pronounced ‘gray-wacky’): An aggregate type of very hard sandstone that originates in environments where erosion, transportation and depositing happen...(

The hubris of believing that with wings of mortality I could reach immortality. Or satisfaction. Or peace. Icarus’ folly is not just a myth anymore. The Descent is alive and well and lives ever present as I hit the ground after a swan dive through a plate...(

click on photo for source " ...it may be doubted if there are any other animals which have played such an important part in the history of the world as these lowly organized creatures." --Charles Darwin I recently read an article in Ode, called 'The joy...(

...what’s love got to do, got to do with it? what’s love but a second hand emotion?* Been thinking lately About how love is both universal and probably the most misunderstood human state of being. What’s love got to do with it? It’s easier to say what...(

In my Tempur-Pedic knock-off bed 400 count soft as down baby blue sheets warm comforter made from geese I’ll never know snuggled with my shedding wolf-dog room darkened with richly colored curtains I rest. Floating on dreams of alternate identities. And...(

Lots of blogs have a ‘books I’m reading’ section. They always make me feel a little guilty. I’m always and forever reading piles of paper books, but these days don’t finish too many of them. The real books I’m reading are The quality of soil that little...(

Lying little tremors Who knows their damned source? And yet Maybe they are the extending ripples of the Heart at play with itself. “Our hearts are a storm she trembles at.“ Kuan Yin It is unfortunate that Buddhism's most enduring contribution to the world...(

Last week I had an eye examination, first one in over two years. Good news: my eyesight is almost the same as it was the last time I checked. The bad news: I’m ‘an incomplete blinker’. Now you might think that that malady sounds a little inconsequential,...(

The impersonal violence of a volcano in eruption is contrapuntal to its stunning beauty. We can only assume this enigma exists within each atom of the extant universe . In 2005 I had a dream in which I traveled through time as if in time lapse; “I” was...(

Could it be that I’m in love with each of these magnificent talented souls?...(read more)

  Fissure , cut bait Already. Edan Kai, 4-almost-5, and Jason, his Buddy, get Edan his first fishing pole, April 2009 in Denver. Grandma Beth just thinks everything that little guy does is remarkable. That’s my job.   ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Ok, ok, if...(

Masks of brokenness Masks having it together Time heals both wounds the same. Good thing it's not a race. “Last one to the island is a rotten egg” Collage and watercolor 2/2010 Submission for One Single Impression prompt: mask Thanks to Dreams are my...(

“The life of every man is a diary in which he means to write one story, and writes another; and his humblest hour is when he compares the volume as it is with what he vowed to make it.” - James M. Barrie I’ve been pondering this quote for some time. ...(

Where I spend my work days We talk and talk about trauma looking for a new home lodging in our souls as we work with children Hurt like the evil spirits cast out by Christ lodging in the pigs and making them run into the lake. I’m not sure That it isn’t...(

Gabrielle has been a dear friend of mine since I moved to Central Oregon in 2003.  She is a a bit older—and wiser--than I, so I watch her process of ‘aging and saging’ closely and with great tenderness.   She recently turned 65 and is struggling...(

This is the final of the Lenten Reflections for 2010. Our study group has ranged far and wide, and discovered some important facets of ourselves and scripture. Tomorrow night is our Women's Seder, led by Krayna Castelbaum . The Lenten group will meet...(

Instead of I think therefore I am I feel therefore I know. Emotional logic Rolls away the stone of our collective tomb. And yet, anything done to excess becomes its own grief. I feel therefore I know becomes the better part of cosmic birth control. Left...(

Wandering Around an Albuquerque Airport Terminal - Naomi Shihab Nye After learning my flight was detained 4 hours, I heard the announcement: If anyone in the vicinity of gate 4-A understands any Arabic, Please come to the gate immediately. Well-one pauses...(

I remember the first time I heard the word. It was in 1980 and it was my then computer-geeky Jewish boyfriend’s cat’s name. I once asked him what the word meant and he first talked about it being some computer/engineer concept. When my eyes glazed, he...(