There are some big things facing us these days: “us” collectively as in the human race, and “us” as in my little family. Some of those collective big things are so big—global climate change, vicious politics—that I have no idea how to repair, heal, or change them. Sure, I know how to complain; I also …
I have been reassembling our freezers, moving turkey and frozen wontons and homemade soup from the inside freezer to the newly empty outside freezer. It’s empty because friends have been able to go home: their frozen chickens, applesauce and tomato paste have gone home, too. I am also re-assembling my office. Strewn across desk and …
I have been thinking that we may have reached the chronic, as opposed to acute, stage of our forest fire saga. For many of us, evacuation orders and alerts are rescinded, at least for now. For others, there’s at least a system to check on livestock and land. People are making plans to sustain a …
One predictable result of a good retreat is the scramble at the end when people start asking, “How can we keep this great community going?” Then follows a frenzied exchange of emails and phone numbers. Equally predictable is that any community formed simply for its own continuance inevitably falls apart. I find this depressing. I …
Wide Spot: Cellular Life In 1837, the botanist Matthias Schleiden and the zoologist Theodor Schwann had dinner together. Comparing their research while they ate, they realized that there was a deep uniformity between Schleiden’s plant structures and Schwann’s animal structures. Both plant and animal tissues were built of cells: autonomous, independent cells, living their own …
“Our fingers imbibe like roots,” begins a prayer by Francis of Assisi, “So I place them on what is beautiful in this world.” Beauty may feel like a shaky reed these days, nothing much to hang our hat on. Most of us are more inclined to attend to what’s ugly: environmental degradation, wars, famines, loss …
I remember looking up at Goat Mountain from the Kohan Garden that evening. We’d had a lightning storm about an hour earlier and now the trees were candling, just up the mountainside from our house. Close enough that if the wind kept up, we’d be evacuated before the night was out. I sprinted home and …
First you heat carbon and iron to 1450 C, then cool it rapidly. This makes the steel hard, but it shatters easily. Next you heat it to a lower temperature, say, 650 C, and cool it slowly. The end result is hard but not brittle, with springy strength. This is tempering. I thought about tempering …
She was getting out of her van by the beach, clearly unnerved by the thick smoke in the air. “Did you hear that they’re evacuating all of Yellowknife?” I blinked; I didn’t know her from Adam, but she sure needed to talk. “Yes,” I said. I felt anxious too. But I know how to listen …
I had a list a mile long, I did, of plans for July. Not only family visits, but writing space, study time, a week-end board planning meeting, a personal retreat week. My overall longing for this month was for big blocks of quiet reflection time, something that’s felt sorely lacking during the last six months. …
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