We had a lot of rain while up in Canada, but one evening was particularly beautiful and the world was on fire for a brief window of time.  We often think of endings as only sad, but I find there is a beauty to them as well.  Against the fierce edges of life, things around us suddenly become more vivid.  Endings can bring us gifts of awareness we did not have before.  I am thinking about limits and endings a lot these days.  My father-in-law was just diagnosed with Parkinson’s and has heart disease, my mother-in-law was diagnosed with

I went on a lovely walk this morning, my usual 45-minute walk from my house, up and around Volunteer Park, and then back home.  It was a crisp and clear morning, another short break from the heavy rains we have been getting.  The leaves have largely made their floating pilgrimage to the ground.  They now wait for decay to release them into fertile compost for the new growth of spring still hidden deep in the soil.  Most of the branches are bare now, like dark skeletons in ecstatic prayers of adoration to holy sky.  Some of the willow trees still cling to their leaves, while other trees are