Watermelon  You know what summer tastes like—the pink flesh of a generous earth, this rounded life fully ripe, fully flavored. How could you be ashamed at the tug of desire? The world has opened itself to you, season after season. What is summer’s sweetness but an invitation to respond? There is only one way to eat a watermelon. Bury your face in the wetness of that rosy slab and bite. -Lynn Ungar from Blessing the Bread  I leave on Monday for two weeks away with my beloved in a warm, breezy place with little internet access and nothing but wide

The lovely Kristin Noelle has created a beautiful new blog called Trust Tending: Reflections, Conversations, and Art to Nourish Life Beyond Fear.  She offers a monthly theme, regular reflections, and these wonderful sketches that are so profound in their simplicity.  This month the theme is nature and she invited me to participate in a written interview with her about the role of the seasons in my own life.  Stop by to see the perfect sketch she created to accompany my words (reminds me a lot of this visual meditation I posted last month) and linger over some reflections by me on

The darkness embraces everything, It lets me imagine a great presence stirring beside me. I believe in the night. -Rainer Maria Rilke, Book of Hours The Christian feasts of All Saints and All Souls on November 1st and 2nd honor the profound legacy of wisdom our ancestors have left to us and continue to offer. In some denominations, we celebrate and honor the dead for the whole month of November. In the Northern hemisphere the world is entering the dark half of the year. The ancient Celtic people believed this time was a thin space, where heaven and earth whispered to

Today is the Autumn Equinox and we enter my favorite half of the year.  These days have been marked by a heaviness here at the Abbey though.  My mother-in-law who has Alzheimer’s has been declining rapidly as of late.  And in the last couple of weeks our sweet old dog Tune has developed canine cognitive dysfunction, which essentially leads to increased confusion, anxiety, and distress, similar to Alzheimer’s in humans.  She is on medication now which is helping, but still the signs are there.  The anniversary of my own mother’s death is less than a month away.  As fall begins its brilliant journey I am being thrust