By Anna Blaedel Yehuda Halevi, 12th century rabbi and poet, wrote: “A thing for fools, this,Love,But a holy thingTo love what death can touch.”  It is, indeed, a foolish thing, and a holy thing, to love enfleshed life. A risky thing. A courageous thing. Death can touch it all. This is my final...

By Anna Blaedel I recently spent the day in the cemetery I have returned to throughout my entire life, with five elders I love dearly. All of us kin, claimed by various bonds of love. Our gathering was thick with history and shared knowing. Our sense of connection – with each other, with the land...

By Anna Blaedel This year, every day, as a practice, I sing. I sing, and I take notice of and catalogue an encounter with joy.  These are survival strategies, for living through this onslaught of chaos and catastrophe. Singing strengthens my lungs. Deepens my breath, and reminds me to breathe....

By Anna Blaedel On my mama’s refrigerator is a small magnetized plate that reads: “Bez práce nejsou koláče.” Translated from the original Czech into English it reads: “Without work, there are no koláče.” (Koláče, the sweet, yeast-based Czech and Slovak pastry known for its soft dough and delicious...

By Anna Blaedel I recently added a photo to my altar, published by the Associated Press, of a woman standing in front of an enormous military machine. She is holding a bottle of water in one hand, staring straight ahead, no more than a foot of space between her and a war machine carrying federal...

By Anna Blaedel(photo credit: RubinObs/NOIRLab/SLAC/NSF/DOE/AURA.) During this Pride month, I have been reading Tourmaline’s gorgeous new book, Marsha: The Joy and Defiance of Marsha P. Johnson. Tourmaline shares and celebrates Marsha’s life story, in all its “messy, infinite, beautiful glory.” It...

By Anna Blaedel A recent conversation among valued colleagues included our shared sense that the prayer we are praying most these days may be, “What the actual fuck?” We were naming our experiences of wordlessness, our felt sense of powerlessness. A world on fire. A world in which cruelty,...

By Anna Blaedel This year, as part of my Holy Week observance, I built an asparagus bed. A number of years ago, my dad – my gentle, patient, generous dad, who is now well over a decade into living with Parkinson’s – got it into his head that I should grow asparagus. And sometime early in the...

By Anna Blaedel I have a little notebook I received from a local Bhuddist eco-grief chaplain. On the cover, screen printed in blue ink, are the words “Choose Joy.” Every day since January 20, I have noted some encounter with joy, some moment in which life’s beauty opens me, is revealed to me. My...

By Anna Blaedel Dear ones, sweethearts: I wanna start by asking how you’re doing – are you ok? But what a question. No one and nothing is ok. But. And. How are you doing? Are you ok? Breathe with me, will you? At least three deep breaths. Breathing together, we conspire together. Every morning,...

By Anna Blaedel Yesterday, I took my tears to the trees, and walked through the woods crying, and singing.  Four intentions are grounding my practice, these days: Feel my feelings, and help them flow.Be in movement; move in rhythm with life around me.Remember: while the feeling of love may come...

By Anna Blaedel For the last few years, I have kept my Christmas tree lights in a red Panettone tin, gifted by dear friends at the height of the pandemic. There’s a love note still taped to the top, wishing health and happiness in the coming holidays, and year. Neither friend celebrates...

“Home” will always be troubled by unrepaired, unaccounted for, untended histories of violence. Our food, our gatherings, no matter the motivation, tether us to relationships between people, systems, and the planet itself. We make 'home' anew through meaningful acts of repair – both as large and...

By Anna Blaedel My youngest nibling, who has not yet lost a tooth but whose older siblings have, is eagerly awaiting an encounter with the tooth fairy. In this precious kiddo’s mind, both a lost tooth and his own money are needed to entice the fairy’s visit. He was recently showing me his small...

By Anna Blaedel Last night I dreamt of hurricane winds rushing through groves of olive trees. Though it did not storm where I live, so many storms are gathering, intensifying. In my dream, the sound was chaotic, loud, disorienting. Heartwood groaning under unrelenting, chaotic pressure. Ancient...