August 14, 2022 Today was my first post-covid day out in the world. I went to Mingo Creek and just sat on a boulder next to the stream, not a human in sight. The creek was low, muddy-looking, gray and brown. I looked upstream - it was so shallow that I could have walked on rocks for a couple of miles without getting my feet wet. Not very picturesque. But then. I have been thinking about the old Magic Eye pictures from back in the 1990's - did you know that the Magic Eye phen

July 7, 2022 I want to speak the language of a cloud. I want just to be there, here, to float untethered, to be part of this vast mysterious unfathomable universe. I want to rain, to pour water onto the parched ground, to drink up from waters down below With the droplets from my sisters and brothers, cousins, and elders, to make streams and rivers and oceans. I want to rain sometimes gently sometimes with strength and fury and rage. I want to know that I am life

July 5, 2022 My name is Ash. You might think by my name that I am dry, leftover. Just remains, gray and dead. Don’t be fooled. I am anything but. Do you know how deep into the soil, soul of the earth, my toes stretch? How they tiptoe out, close to the stream drinking in clear water holding tight to the bank so the soil doesn’t wash away? Can you see how the sassy squirrels scamper and sky birds skitter among my arms, seeking safe places to store tasty seeds and to settl

August 16, 2021 How are you doing? For me, there are days when all seems fine but, to be honest, there have recently been more days than not touched by sadness and concern and anger. Today alone we are dealing with the spread of the COVID-19 Delta variant, in spite of the availability of vaccines - which is more likely to negatively affect our precious children. We are watching the take-over of Afghanistan by the Taliban, and grieving for what this means for the women and chi

July 26, 2021 This is the summer when the songbirds fell from the sky. No one is quite sure yet why it has happened. A mysterious illness has afflicted songbirds in Pennsylvania and nine other states, leading to crusty eyes, neurological damage, death, and, quite literally, falls from the sky. I have been trying to imagine a world without birds, thinking about this apart from the great sadness that I would feel with the loss of their songs and beauty. Birds eat pests and inse

July 18, 2021 photo by Darryl Dyck/The Canadian Press via AP I write this because I love you and I want Earth and all living parts of nature to continue and to thrive in love and joy. On Sunday nights, I think about the week ahead and look for words or ideas that will help me move into the week with good energy, hope, and joy - and sometimes I share these thoughts with you. Tonight I do wish that good energy and joy for all of us, and I also feel compelled to make some commen

September 8, 2020 I remember children running through sprinklers Bodies slick and sun-kiss'd brown Laughing slipping sliding on wet grass. Let it last forever. Bodies slick and sun-kiss'd brown Innocents soaking up joy. Let it last forever. No worries cares or darkness. Innocents soaking up joy Happiness is yours, need not be earned. No worries cares or darkness. You are more precious than you know. Happiness is yours, need not be earned. When do you start to doubt this?

May 1, 2020 The last time I was in Kentucky, I tried to teach my mom, almost 92 years old, how to dictate a text. We had not given my sister in Alabama, the recipient of said texts, any heads up about what was coming. She was rightly confused and a tad concerned about what was filling up her text box. On our end of things, my mother and I were laughing so hard at what was showing up on her phone that we fell off the sofa. Literally. We were on the floor. . Oh how I miss an

April 2, 2020 In September 2019, Larry and I took a trip to Port Renfrew, a very small town on Vancouver Island, BC. It was our second visit to this tiny site, our second stay in a yurt at Soule Creek Lodge. It is one of my favorite places in the world. On our last day, we sought out Avatar Grove, an old growth forest that is within the traditional territory of the Pacheedaht First Nation and is home to a tree known as "Canada's Gnarliest Tree." Not sure of the age of this