The last tomato of the season is shivering on the dying vine. The marigolds, too, fading from first frost. Cabbage worms are devouring final remains of collards and kale. A diminished red blossom drops to the earth as the geranium is carried from front porch to basement home. All that aliveness, once luscious, bursting forth--now busted open, breaking down, whispering their wintering wisdom: rest. remain. behold, the cycling seasons. be held, in and through.  I do not know how to practice gratitude without also opening to grief. I do not know how to grieve, without honoring the gratitude...

By M Barclay Among all the other hard and beautiful and complicated happenings of November, on the 20th sits the annual ritual of mourning, Trans Day of Remembrance. Like so many rituals that are captured by the attention of the many, I find the day’s public disconnection from its roots and its most critical matters challenging. If you care to read about what I mean, here’s a too-long piece I wrote two years ago when I was very much in my feelings about it. I still feel those feelings. Every year. But this year, or at least this day, as we find ourselves just over a week from the messiness,...

By Rev. Anna Blaedel The Machine by Rainer Maria Rilke The Machine endangers all we have made. We allow it to rule instead of obey. To build the house, cut the stone sharp and fast: the carver’s hand takes too long to feel its way. The Machine never hesitates, or we might escape and its factories subside into silence. It thinks it’s alive and does everything better. With equal resolve it creates and destroys. But life holds mystery for us yet. In a hundred places we can still sense the source: a play of pure powers that--when you feel it--brings you to your knees. There are yet words that...

By Donnecia Brown God of the meantime, draw us near in the currency of now. Gift us the sweetness of ease as we remember that nothing will be the same and yet all moments exist within you. Divinity of the becoming, grant us the staying power that we might remain in our bodies. Meet us at the gathering of childlike curiosities. May the sacred missions embedded within collective storytelling hold us in truth as the systems that intrude our memories of being are disarmed. My maternal grandmother stood on the front porch, smiling and waving. “I am creative,” she joyfully affirmed. “That pie just...

On September 10, 1935, lesbian poet Mary Oliver was born. Exactly one year later, my friend Larry Sonner entered the world. On September 10, 2019, my precious nephew Oliver took his first breath. A poet I never met, now dead, whose tender wisdom breaks open my heart and connects me with life, who teaches that both poetry and the beauty of the world can save us. A tender man, whose deep friendship forever changed my life, who died last year from covid and whose gentle voice still finds me when I’m sitting quietly on my porch, listening to birdsong, sipping coffee. A fierce and fantastic...

By Elle Dowd I spend a lot of time dwelling in my hopes for the world-as-it-could-be. My thoughts are full of poetic overtures and grand romantic gestures - not for the sake of a lover (in the traditional sense), but for all of humanity. I am hungry to create, to build, to connect. I think a lot of us are. I see the future in splendid, sweeping strokes. I’m a dreamer. Sometimes my thoughts zoom out so far that I get lost floating around in the universe of my own imagination. And the longing I feel to cultivate all of these visions into something useful and fruitful drives me to meet and love...