Simple Thoughts and Me … on Nature, Spirituality, Hope, some Science and the ongoing Star Wars Saga.

  Wednesday (April 19, 2023) 12pm Truth Comes First: Contemplating The Language of Post-Pandemic Pre-Teens There’s always so much to be grateful for on the path of humility in the quest for enlightenment.   Around every corner and beneath every rock there is a shining light of truth waiting to be discovered.   I uncovered some personal truths this Winter that profoundly affected me and led me to dedicate my own time to our beautiful pre-teens at Unity.    Reflecting over the past 10 years of working in the office at Unity, in retrospect, I recognize the milestones along the way that have led me to this turning point. Since 2017, I have been harboring a secret wish to work with our Unity Pre-teens (Uniteens), exploring and brainstorming curriculum for them in hope I would gain the spiritual courage it would take to be a part of their lives.   I was finally drawn--divinely guided--to speak up and say that I am personally ready to fill the space of working with our Unity pre-teens (

  Thursday, Oct 20 (2022) 11AM   Observing Autumn with the Neighbor's Cat Today, my soul awakens. Quiet. At rest. I sat outside with the neighbor’s cat and took in the glimmering light of Autumn. Have you ever looked at an autumn leaf?   I mean, really looked at it?   Did you see the changing color of the leaf itself? The edges of green fading into yellow? The burnt brown color of almost-dryness?   Did you notice how orange leaves can only be seen from a distance?   Like an artist’s palette, an orange leaf disappears up close. As you approach an orange leaf it changes to hues of red and yellow.   Did you notice how some trees drop their leaves all at once in a finale of swirling about in a funnel wind? In less than a minute’s time?   While others hold onto their cloak, letting go one leaf at a time.      Some leaves fade their green into spotted patterns. Some, edges first.   Some drop to the earth completely green and others dry right on the tree. I was hard pressed to

  Thursday, March 31 (2022) 6pm Fire is Dry and Hot, But Nothing Can Stop A Yucca Plant   The air after a wildfire, in the surrounding land untouched, is hot—a repressive dryness suffocating the ones left.   Among the charred remains of the burned ground stands the Yucca, impermeable by flame, a magical sight.   The blackened trunks of trees and shrubs belie the flames that flooded the land just 2 nights prior and show signs of resilience.   The creek bed now lays bare and exposed, open in its meandering across the charred land.   Wildlife paths are untouched resistant to flames. The hotter areas lay blackened in ashes as a giant campfire.   After yesterday’s rain, the new green shoots of prairieland grasses are already protruding from the black land, unstoppable, even blessed by those same ashes that threatened to destroy the forest. On the hogback, the flames thwarted by the rocky soil and dormant winter grasses, had little to burn in Spring. Afterall, the remnants of last week

  Thursday, January 6 (2022) 11AM   ‘Thoughts On Moving Toward the Acceptance of Sentience & Preference’   As I reflect upon the interconnected nature of sentience, data measurements, subjective intentions, innate instinct and fixing mistakes I head straight to the dictionary.   Webster’s Dictionary defines ‘sentient’ as "being responsive to conscious of sense impression, being aware or finely sensitive in perception or feelings".    There is a growing awareness and acceptance of the possibility of a deeper sentient 'beingness' among animals across a wide variet of species formerly considered as not having physical/neuron feeling of physical pain, altruism or emapthic emotion. Our notion of sentience seems to have culturally evolved out of the act of anthropomorphizing our feelings onto animals, plants, things—any non-human.   However, examples of real animal-human interactions has shown behaviorally that animals do exhibit raw feelings, thoughtfulness and co

    Saturday, December 18 (2021) 8PM   ‘A Quiet Reflection on the Nature of Winter’   Two nights ago was the Big Winter Wind Storm of 2021.   It took me two days to notice the Big Blue Spruce uprooted by the house on the corner, lying on its side, roots splayed in a circular pan shape. A Standing One at least 50 years old, laid to rest.  In 2023 it will remain where it lays today barely changed. How slowly the nature of time leans on the living until the moment of impact, especially in Winter. It seems every town has a place they call the Ponds.   At our Ponds, the cattail bogs, already dried out from an unseasonably warm Autumn, are frozen and suspended in windswept animation, completely still, leaning into the storm’s path as it swirled across the plains. In the aftermath came the freezing temperature of winter’s edge, the motionless landscape stopped in its tracks.   The edge of thick iced over ponds where the water fowl once socialized are hard as a stone and boast the beauty

  Thursday, December 16 (2021) 10PM ‘Vivid Momentary Insights’   I didn’t understand Shakespeare until I turned 53. It was like a cloudy sky opened up and shone the light of clarity on my perception—a key unlocking the door of my consciousness. Word appreciation. Understanding my own struggle. Bringing with it reward. An understanding of others. May Sarton (in House By the Sea) speaks of journaling as a means of “trying to sort out and shape experience”, and growing old as “…accepting regression as part of the whole mysterious process. The child in the old person is a precious part of his being able to handle slow imprisonment. As he is able to do less, he enjoys everything in the present, with a childlike enjoyment.” And so as the child inside emerges, she brings clearer vision to a present life once crowded by daily distractions disguised as self-truth. Within it, what’s really going on in and around oneself is finally revealed as if a clouded veil you have lived with for year