Behold, mighty Isis of ancient Egypt soars over the earth, her shining wings softly beating the air, her hair shorn and her robe in tatters, gathering the pieces of her beloved murdered Osiris. She spoke magical words over Osiris’s body and he was made whole and alive. Together they conceived the god Horus who is… Continue reading Isis Makes the World Whole for the Solstice
Blog Posts
Giving Christmas a Second Look
For me, Christmas has become mostly a holiday I celebrate with family because they do and then I go off and mark the Solstice with my women friends in an evening of stories, songs, dances and pondering the Return of the Light. However, maybe I was wrong to push Christmas away so quickly. Maybe I… Continue reading Giving Christmas a Second Look
Three Gifts: A Solstice Story
Thanks so much to Mary Sharratt, author of Illuminations about Hildegard of Bingen, among other wonderful books, for posting a piece I wrote about the Solstice on her website. To read it, click here.
Hildegard of Bingen, A Saint Whose Spirit Soared Free
The Medieval world was full of powerful queens and saints, both real and mythical. Second perhaps only to Joan of Arc, Hildegard of Bingen reigns as the woman who, after a thousand years, still moves us most with her life and work. Thirty years ago she was still an obscure saint from Germany little known outside her home… Continue reading Hildegard of Bingen, A Saint Whose Spirit Soared Free
Queendom’s Still Rising: Moving the World Ahead with Music
Queendom is three women based in Oslo, Norway with backgrounds from Ethiopia, Nigeria and Uganda whose music delights, inspires, educates, and makes a global village out of an increasingly divided world. Their amazing 2012 debut album, Still Rising, is brilliantly and perfectly named because the work of these women – which includes not only music,… Continue reading Queendom’s Still Rising: Moving the World Ahead with Music
Reality Is Just a Tango with Time
This appeared in Moondance last fall. I’m reposting it here in case anyone would like to read it. In the fall, as the landscape withdraws into stark lines and the coming cold breathes brittle into my bones, I always mourn time’s inevitable creep forward into darkness. Yet, in very ancient eras — and to many… Continue reading Reality Is Just a Tango with Time
Emptying the Nest and Loving the Universe
This is the time of the year when the nest of many mothers empties as children who are no longer children head off to college. I suppose that the experience is different for everyone, but I am feeling at once a sense of loss of my old life and sadness from missing someone I deeply… Continue reading Emptying the Nest and Loving the Universe
Write a Poem and Rethink a New World into Being
It is said that the first poem ever written was a hymn to Inanna by one of her priestesses, an auspicious beginning to the art of poetry indeed. Yet, I find that when I go to write poems using traditional forms and rules I learned in school, something is missing, or maybe something feels wrong.… Continue reading Write a Poem and Rethink a New World into Being
The Cosmos as the Most Magnificent Masterpiece of All
While I was recently walking along a beach in northern Michigan, I came across an Earth composition – a stone on sand, a leaf shaped like a feather, shells curling around and spilling over all. The photo shows it exactly as I found it. In it I saw four elements – stone as fire, sand… Continue reading The Cosmos as the Most Magnificent Masterpiece of All
Inspiring Summer Reading: Sarah Orne Jewett’s Country of the Pointed Firs
With summer rolling into the northern hemisphere, there is no better time to read Sarah Orne Jewett’s masterpiece The Country of the Pointed Firs. The novel was published in 1896 and tells the story in loving, respectful detail of life in a coastal Mainevillage at the end of the 19th century. Some of her best… Continue reading Inspiring Summer Reading: Sarah Orne Jewett’s Country of the Pointed Firs
Goddess in a Teapot 