Category: Social justice

Many of us have been asking the question, “How do we meet these times?” Guidance often comes to me in dreams. I had the following dreams on March 11 about how to respond to conflict, confrontation, and dangerous threats. I believe their guidance needs to be shared. So here they are. Two opposing groups are …

Photo by Linda Gisbrecht Most of us who now consider ourselves able-bodied will eventually experience one or more disabilities, if we live long enough. Some people use the phrase “temporarily able-bodied” as a reminder of this fact. As I age and my body structures show seven decades of wear and tear, I feel this truth …

  February 1 is Imbolc, a time for us to sweep out whatever in our homes and lives is completed or no longer useful and open our bellies, hearts, minds, and souls to new callings, new currents, new commitments. Given what is going on in our communities, nation, and world, how can we leap into …

Nurse log, Prairie Creek Redwood State Park, California, April 2021 What does it mean to know? Where does knowledge reside in the body? Who or what has knowledge? How is knowledge transmitted and received? The answers to these questions go to the root of relationships among humans and between humans and the more-than-human world. Those …

Sergeant Gonell: “Despite being outnumbered, we did our job. Every member of the House of Representatives, Senators and staff members made it home. Sadly as a result of that day, we lost officers, some really good officers, but we held the line to protect our democratic process because the alternative would have been a disaster. …

It’s spring in the Pacific Northwest, a time when plants that pushed leaves through near-frozen winter ground begin their promiscuous blooming. Next to the hardy hellebores, narcissus and daffodils show off their yellow bonnets. Slender willow branches, brown in winter, turn spring-green as their leaves sprout. At Lake Quinault, where we spent a few days …

Image by Jens Rasch from Pixabay Brigid, or Brid in modern Irish, is the triple goddess of healing, poetry, and alchemy. As the goddess of fire, she rules the forge and is the patron of blacksmiths, who through their art transform molten metal into useful, beautiful, and even magical objects. I am the great-granddaughter of …

When I imagine the kind of human community I want to live in, I go to the forest in my mind. In the forest, there is no analogue for racism. No exclusion of certain plants from the web of connection, nurture, and support because of their physical characteristics. That would be counter to the natural …

This week I had a stunning dream: I am in a canoe in a stormy sea. The sky and water are the same color, dark gray. The canoe is crafted from two deer hides sewn together. The canoe is our response to the pandemic. I am being asked to allow my heart to be as …

My grandparents Florence and John Taylor. Florence died in the flu pandemic of 1918-1919. What is the coronavirus epidemic calling us to? Ironically, this disease that separates and isolates us from each other as we try to prevent its spread also calls us into deeper levels of connection. Connection with community, with ancestors, and with …