May 26, 2023 The spirits have dispersed, the woods faded to grey from midnight blue… —what is this enchanted place? ~Derek Mahon, The Dream Play   Is it possible to fall out of love with a magical place? This perpetual fog along the coast paints everything in a flat, dull light. Santa Barbara looks unspeakably […]

May 20, 2023 Amazing grace! How sweet the sound… I once was lost, but now am found, Was blind, but now I see… Through many dangers, toils and snares I have already come; ‘Tis grace hath brought me safe thus far And grace will lead me home. ~John Newton, Amazing Grace   I haven’t been […]

May 12, 2023 To be held by the light was what I wanted… waiting for the healing after the storm which has been our life. ~Linda Hogan, To Be Held   I awoke last Saturday to find that one of my cats had had an anal gland rupture overnight. I’m tempted to blame it on […]

April 29, 2023 I don’t know much about the spiny sea urchin, except that it knows more than I about the sea, the sea that names itself unnameable movable horizon. ~Anita Endrezze, The Gulf of California It’s weird, not shopping for sugar. Don’t get me wrong, I still eat it. But it started losing its […]

April 24, 2023 …I swear in the days still left We’ll walk in fields of gold ~Sting, Fields of Gold   Whenever we’re expecting a visitor, I start channeling my prairie women ancestresses. Time to pin the braided rugs on the jute clothesline and whack with the rug beater. Gather wildflowers from the far end […]

April 15, 2023 …time is different now and dawn is different too… you are waiting to see what direction you should face and if you were born in time or was it wasted… ~Gerald Stern, In Time   What is a world without time? What is life without a schedule? Imagine never looking at a […]

April 13, 2023 I dwell in a lonely house I know
 That vanished many a summer ago, And left no trace but the cellar walls, And a cellar in which the daylight falls 
And the purple-stemmed wild raspberries grow. ~Robert Frost, Ghost House   As we roll our way through April, I continue my trend […]

April 1, 2023 Before you leave, the fortune teller reminds you that the future is never set in stone. ~ Erin Morgenstern Lately I’m realizing the truth of something Dr. Peebles has said to me several times. We come to this schoolhouse called Planet Earth complete with (but consciously unaware of) everything we’ve already learned […]

March 25, 2023 By one account the cards contain all knowledge of the universe collected by ancient Egyptians who agreed to transmit this knowledge covering tablets with symbols thus concealing the doctrine ~Lawrence Raab, Eight Landscapes from the Tarot Deck   Without much conscious deliberation, I’ve recently decided that if it’s not fun, I probably […]

March 21, 2023 Flow on, river! flow with the flood-tide, and ebb with the ebb-tide! Frolic on, crested and scallop-edg’d waves! Gorgeous clouds of the sunset! drench with your splendor me… ~Walt Whitman, Crossing Brooklyn Ferry   The rain has gone from being an exciting novelty to a dreary inconvenience. Another atmospheric river has parked […]

March 18, 2023 A perfect note now fades along the lyre Of grace: oh, she may turn again In days of darkness to a picture flashed By stillness and fruition on her brain; Finding delight—as in a treasure cached. ~Jean Anderson, In Molten Sunlight   The squirrel’s back in the avocado tree. That’s the first […]

March 15, 2023 Everybody’s thinking about the rain… Wonder if the sun is gonna come again, things are looking bad… Tell me if you gotta build a world what that world would be… Tell me if it’s gonna be a home for all humanity… ~Cat Stevens, The Rain   News reports insist I should be […]

March 14, 2023 The good tool smooths rough lumber underneath an unforced hand, unwarps the warped board, trues the untrue edge… With good tools The edge falls plumb and all four corners square. And there is order… ~Andrew Hudgins, Tools: An Ode   We’re constantly bombarded with conflicting information and instructions. How to be, what […]