YES, there is tremendous suffering all over the world, but knowing this need not paralyze us. If we practice mindful breathing, mindful walking, mindful sitting, and working in mindfulness, we try our best to help, and we can have peace in our heart…. Even though things are not as we would like, we can still be content, knowing we are
TWO CELEBRATIONS: Of colors. Of friends. Yesterday Kathy and I decided to find some close-to-home autumn colors. So off to the St. John’s woods we traipsed. Through the old stone arch and down the trail. And were richly rewarded. Every few steps produced an ‘Ooh’ or an ‘Ah’ or a ‘Look at that!’ A celebration of the sights and sounds
THESE ARE interesting times. When we have over 40% of the country happily abandoning every value and virtue they were raised in and once believed in, instead following a Pied Piper of mayhem who says, “It’s great! You can say anything and do ANYTHING and nothing happens. Don’t be suckers! Follow me!!” When we have an entire political party of
TO CELEBRATE the equinox and the arrival of fall, Kathy and I took a little day trip to view the colors and to visit the North Shore. It was a misty, foggy, windy, rainy day but the Big Lake—as always—was spectacular. The best colors? Well, right here around home. For another post…
HERE IS a wonderful article about my old friend and mentor, Sigurd F. Olson, who through his books and warm personal communications changed my life. In 1987, with a group of seven fine friends, I retraced the Lonely Land route that the author, David Born, writes about here. There is much about that trip in my next book, A Wild
HOME FROM RAINY LAKE, it is good to be back to the little cabin in the woods we call the Church o’ the Pines. Good to see and hear the humble congregation, hooved, feathered, finned, furred, rooted, and blooming. All seem to acknowledge the changing of the season. The first colors touch the maples and ashes. The squirrels seem even
A BEAUTIFUL DAY for a boat ride, I said to Kathy. Let’s go and see the mermaid on the Canadian side. And so we set out, through the little wild islands and narrows past an eagle on its rocky perch, toward Copenhagen Island and the lady of the lake, created in the 1930’s. It had been years since we’d been
IN SEPTEMBER, when the speedsters and noise-makers have mostly gone, the lake and the island belong once more to the silence. To the timeless and the sense of wonder. In that silence, from the old deck on the rocks, one can hear the chuckling of wavelets on the shore, the last wails of the remaining loons, and almost, perhaps, the
SUNDAY IS a good day to care for bonsais. Perhaps to admire them from my Grandad’s old green-painted Adirondack chair, over 60 years old. This little tree, in a semi-windswept style, reminds me to bend with the winds and storms of life. That being ‘big’ isn’t the most important thing. That being your truest, best self is a good definition
AFTER MANY SUMMER trips and much exploring of the great North Woods with delightful company, it is good to be home again, under the big pines by the river. It will be hot again again today, the mercury approaching 100 (!!!?) But for now the air is pleasant and cool in the woods. The sky blue, the trees green, the