WEEK-LONG RETREAT

These are not easy days. Here in the northern hemisphere, nearing winter solstice, we’re deep in the cold and dark. Add to that the count – ten months of COVID-19. Like the dark, the pandemic is here with us. So are other circumstances – embers of rumination and...

Well. We’ve got it. We who, since mid-March, have essentially cloistered – masked, sanitized, distanced. We even disinfect our keys and doorknobs. How in the world did this virus find us? It did. Our symptoms are quite light. We’ll make it fine. But, like you, we have...

In a functioning ecology, the dialogue between wound and medicine is ongoing; there is a call and response always happening.  Francis Weller Do chickens or the eggs come first? They do.   Am I living or dying? You are.  So, it goes and goes. Call and response. The...

This is our friend Jon Trapp. He has spent a career moving through military service and then into work with wolves through the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks. Today, much of his life work is focused on wildland firefighting. Jon’s been all over the...

Keep your eyes on the prize. Alice Wine, 1956 Human Social Ecology – The ways we’re in relation with each other. The ecologies of intimacy – of family, friendship, neighborhood, community. Both/And – Holding as worthy, two or more perspectives that appear to be at...

Fifteen years ago, Richard Louv, a lifelong educator, introduced the term “Nature-Deficit Disorder” with the publication of his best-selling book, Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder. Soon after, Louv and his...

We’re in baffling times. Most of us care deeply – really deeply – about justice for all. We’re profoundly compelled by the urgency to stop the systematic oppression of Black lives. Plenty of information floods social and public media advising white people how to be...

Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better. -Dr. Maya Angelou Here is what I know: hatred is heavier than love. -Sarah Bellamy Yesterday evening, we met with a group of people in a webinar about what the natural world has to show...

Culture is not what your hands touch, it’s what moves your hands. Tyson Yunkaporta We’re in a time of radical uncertainty. Probably, you don’t like it much. And, by now, you may be sick & tired of how reflexively you turn to your screens and click. For...

An Atlantic Monthly article published this week bears the title: Quarantine Fatigue is Real. Got that right.   Here in the middle of this enormous pivot known as COVID-19 we may be a bit less exhausted than we were in our hyper-busy lives before lockdown. On the other...