A View From Beyond Reason
I’m sitting on a bench overlooking the sparkling sea off the western side of Cape Breton Island. It’s a deliciously quiet afternoon, a reprieve from the building project going on next door. The workmen have stopped. I hear the dull din of traffic from the highway and...
Love in the Dark
A few days ago, I started humming a tune. It wanted words, and so I started singing, “What on earth am I meant to do?” The song had an ancient, mournful spirit, as if were a lost hope looking for light during these troubled times. I stood up from my chair and walked...
No Speak
I'd like to dedicate this story "No Speak," to my friend Ellen Jaffe, who passed on March 16, 2022, and will be missed dearly by many shining spirits. No Speak No Speak is a remarkable child. She’s about four years old. She has a large, round head and her auburn hair...
Time to Shrive
In his book, The Practice of Dream Healing, Edward Tick writes: …in our contemporary moral vacuum, public figures seem to see it as their duty to resist and deny the need for shriving. Shriving. It’s an old word, so unused and unpracticed that it has slipped out of...
Looking Back at the Looking Glass
In his book, Mirror rorriM, Mark Pendergrast takes us on a time-travelling tour of the looking glass, and he's left me enthralled by the impact that mirrors have had on human societies. Pendergrast is mostly interested in the development of the mirror as a technology...
Hogs and Heroines
Lately I’ve been reading Maria Tatar’s new book The Heroine with 1,001 Faces. It came to me in the mail several weeks ago, a gift from my friend Jean Sheppard, who just knew I'd be all over it. For decades I’ve been disheartened by the way the fairy tale princess has...
The Princess in the Mirror
It’s amazing how long a picture from a fairy tale can stay with you. For years, I have had a picture in the back of my mind. A princess has been turned into a withering old woman with balding red hair and grey wrinkled skin. She’s stuck in a dusty garret in a castle...
The Story Keeper
I know this woman. She’s a story keeper. Her hair has gone white now, but right away you would notice the snapping light in her eyes. Her skin is crinkled and grey, and her hands are covered in spots. The joints are knobby and arthritic, but she still writes. She’s...
Entering the Land of the Soul
The fairy tale has been called "the land of the soul." It's a terrain we can enter. We can gaze into wells, wander through forests and castles, swim in lakes, and climb glass mountains. We can dive deeply with the mermaids or soar to the heavens on the back of the...
Stillness Rising – A Song for Earth Day
"Stillness Rising" is a meditative song that takes us into a quiet place to consider what we might hear from the Earth with the rising of stillness.Stillness Rising There is too much noise between usNo stillness yet,Listen for it and so shall IAnd the channel will...
Original Thoughts
Pity the tight, constrained, over-edited lines living their conventional lives lined up in perfect order little scouts, doing what they're told unable to speak for themselves… Original Thoughts Oh, do you mind? May I break through the lines to ask a few questions on...
Daughter of Erysichthon
In Metamorphosis, the Roman poet Ovid tells a story about a man named Erysichthon whose exploitive behavior leads to a harrowing end. At the same time, he has a daughter who offers a very different way of thinking about humanity's relationship with the natural world....