A Shared History
Shared history has immense power. I didn’t know how much until my divorce. It wasn’t only my future dreams that vanished with my husband, but the comfort of shared history that had been far more a source of strength for me than I’d realized. We were the same age, so we shared the same jargon, [ Read More ]
The Zany Tale of How I Became an Astrologer
When I was about to get married for the first time, about a thousand years ago, a friend gave me an engagement gift of a reading with a famous astrologer for me and my fiancé. When I got to the astrologer’s house for my reading, I could see she was a tough old bird and [ Read More ]
Now My Hair Needs a Plastic Surgeon, Too? You’ve Got to Be Kidding
I admit it. I loved my hair. All those wild red Irish tresses were as much my signature as the freckles that went with them. By age 30 I knew I’d never let my hair go grey, red was too much part of me. What I didn’t know then was that color would be the [ Read More ]
Garden Magic and Valentine Soup
As the first spring planting catalogs are hitting my mailbox (which is currently knee deep in snow) it occurs to me that for those of us dreaming ahead as we browse the hopeful seeds and bulbs to come, it might be fun to know of the lovely magical garden folklore that’s rooted in mystical cultures [ Read More ]
GMO. OMG.
Many years ago, a brilliant metaphysician/herbalist admonished me never to eat anything God hadn’t made. Our bodies, she said, and the planet with all its bounty, had grown out of the same beneficent Source and were therefore genetically programmed to work perfectly together both to protect health and to heal or repair when needed. Whether [ Read More ]
A Thought for the New Year
I’d like to offer you a profound and provocative poem, with which to start this portentous New Year … this one is shaping up to be a year of both spiritual and political drama far beyond the norm. The world is more volatile than ever now…as if there’s an energy explosion in progress, bubbling up [ Read More ]
I Love My Dog
I’m in love with my dog. There’s really no other way to express it. He’s a former pound-puppy, rescued from the Humane Society at 5 months, now grown to 120 pounds of pure, unadulterated love and devotion. When Dakota went off to college five years ago, and my nest was disturbingly empty for the first [ Read More ]
The Christmas Cap
There it was on top of the armoire, quiet in the dust of the years, the bright red newsboy cap that had been my Father’s favorite as long as I could remember. Like the tin soldier in Eugene Field’s poem Little Boy Blue, “awaiting the touch of a little hand, the smile of a little [ Read More ]
What Would Jesus Do About the Catholic Church?
I was raised an Irish Catholic. 6 a.m. Mass most mornings, Novenas every Tuesday night, First Fridays every month and as many rosaries as could be squeezed in between. To say nothing of choir practice for the Sunday Mass. I was taught by the long-suffering nuns and was usually their chosen debater to be sent [ Read More ]
Maybe This Says it Pretty Well
People don’t look to the long-ago poetry of Edgar Guest for soaring metaphors or complex pentameter. He was often called the People’s Poet because of his commonsense-able thoughts about life, rendered in the form of simple verse that was full of homespun wisdom and spiritual decency. When I was writing the What Would Jesus Do blog I remembered this poem [ Read More ]