IN THE MIDST of a Minnesota spring blizzard, and what sometimes seems a blizzard of bad news and negativity, here is a timeless poem. Wonderful for today. For any day. A poem like this is like a message in a bottle, a candle in the night. And just as the bird’s song “sweetest in the gale is heard,” a candle’s
AT THE CHURCH O’ THE PINES this morning, silence and peace-and-quiet are not the order of the day. Rather, many joyful spring hymns are being sung and there is much welcoming back of friends and relatives who traveled south for the winter months. A rambunctious ruby crowned kinglet sings from the pines and balsam firs by the riverbank. Our little
IT IS A FINE DAY in the Pine Point woods, as two of our favorite migrants among the passeriformes—perching birds—have returned. The little yellow-rumped (Myrtle) warblers have traveled from the southern US and Mexico, on their way to the North Woods of northeastern Minnesota and Canada. They are usually the first of the warbler tribe to push the boundaries of
THERE IS A WAY of looking at the world around us that is so old and honored, so wise, so self-evidently true, that it is almost completely at odds with the way we normally live our lives. It is a way in which we see and acknowledge Nature as being inhabited by teachers and teachings, and more than that–as a
AT THE CHURCH O’ THE PINES on this Sunday morn the congregation is excited. They are excited because any day now—perhaps any hour—their friends and relatives that we call ‘snowbirds’—but they aren’t actually the real kind of snowbirds we just call them that—will be returning from the south. Sometimes very far south from what humans call another whole CONTINENT! There
ON THIS APRIL DAY, spring has arrived at the old caretakers’ cabin at the Church O’ The Pines. The canoe was taken out onto Old Man River, there to discover wood ducks and Canada geese and mallards and map turtles. Last night the first full choir of wood frogs and chorus frogs throbbed under the stars, and today the snoring
GOOD MORNING from Orchid Corner at the Church O’ The Pines…Where outside along the river, Sparky the Cardinal is singing his heart out; Canada geese are gabbling, wood ducks squealing, sand hill cranes trilling as they fly over; and the full, glowing disc of the sun rising over sparkling water. After a fine, soaking rain for the forest, it is
GOOD FRIDAY OR HOLY FRIDAY is remembered and honored as a reminder of many things. Of the universality of suffering, and the ubiquity of death. Of the power yet stupidity of evil. Of the feeing of hopes and expectations dashed. Of the pain of mourning. But it is also the day for Christians that symbolizes the Divine taking human form,
OF ALL THE TEACHERS I have known, I have found none greater than trees. So many teachers and teachings have enriched my life that I wrote a book about them, accompanied by drawings of favorite scenes. A few of the things trees can teach us: Reach for the light. Grow from the bottom up, and from the inside out. Be
I’VE LEARNED THIS LITTLE LESSON before, and I will probably relearn it many times again. You never know when you write a book, when you share some words and thoughts and feelings, where they will go or who they may touch. Even a humble, silly little book. When I received an email from France, from old friend Doug Cushman—artist and