IT IS, OF COURSE, altogether amazing how the entire moon can balance on the tip of a balsam bough. How is it there are so many extraordinary things in this ordinary old world? The world we think we know. There are, as Uncle Bill Shakespeare once said, more things in Heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our poor
AN AUTUMN EVENING walk round the Church O’ The Pines woods. A centering walk. A hopeful walk. A walk of deep breaths and the fragrance of fallen leaves, the last golden carpet from the last maple. It held on so long and steadfastly. A blue canoe in a red sunset, the desire to take it out for one more spin.
IMPORTANT NEWS: Beautiful Osprey Wilds Environmental Learning Center, one of my favorite places on Earth (and where my son Bryan Wood happens to be Executive Director) is asking for support. They need help in their vital work of connecting kids to nature. And grown-ups, too. They are in the midst of their annual Benefit Week, raising funds for scholarships, classes,
‘A MAN’S GOT TO believe in something. I believe I’ll go fishing.’ So says the inscription on one of my coffee mugs. It’s a good inscription. So today my young friend Kent dropped by to take me fishing. I told him this is probably the first time in 5 decades someone has taken ME fishing! But this was Muskie fishing—a
YESTERDAY I TOOK KATHY for a walk in the St. John’s University woods, full of big oaks and maples and one of our favorite fall destinations. It was, as always, a tonic. The glorious colors and the stately trees, the crunch of leaves and fragrance of the forest, simply the chance to be outdoors beside a blue lake under a
OCTOBER SUNRISE, Church O’ The Pines. The morning gossiping of chickadees. The laugh of a pileated woodpecker. The reflecting Father of Waters…. All the congregation, surrounded by beauty. We wish you beauty. We wish you Good Sabbath.
THIS IS AN ANCIENT Limber Pine, perhaps 3,000 years of age. Perhaps the oldest tree in all of Canada. The glorious photo was taken by my son, Bryan, on a pilgrimage to the Canadian Rockies, far off the beaten path. The image speaks deeply to me, as he knew it would… Here is a being rooted in the high ground
IT IS A BEAUTIFUL MORNING at the cabin in the piney woods. The chickadees and jays and red squirrels are all proclaiming its virtues. And their own. But today I will be traveling. Appearing at the Detroit Lakes MN Public Library at 2pm. And later at the Bagley Library at 6pm. I suspect we may talk about books! Perhaps play
OUR LITTLE GATHERING around a virtual campfire has expanded once again. Followers of this page now number 13,000 souls! It sounds like a lot, but I do hope it feels safe, and warm and familiar. A place to share humor and silliness and dreams and beliefs and travails, a place to pull up a rock or a stump and ponder
THE WAY OF A STREAM is the way of all that is good and free and wild. It is the way of shadows and light, of music and of gentle harmonies, and the fragrant breath of the living earth. To come to the bank of a stream is to come as a sort of pilgrim, seeking the sacred essence of