Gail and I are about half hour’s drive away from the Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area in southern Nevada, just west of Las Vegas. As you can see by Gail’s coat and hoody, it does get cold in southern Nevada this time of year, even with global warming. But this was December 21, Winter […]
I sit in the back of the class of fifth graders. We are all on the floor, listening to Mr. S explain the topography of the Grand Canyon. We recently spent two days there on a field trip; I went along as writer-in-residence. Now it is after lunch. Like me, many of the children (the […]
Growing up back in the 1950’s, I didn’t get hooked by the dinosaur craze that gripped my brothers; it was enough to watch the Flintstones and their pet Dino sell cereal, vitamins, and whatever else wanted to sponsor their television show. I was just glad that my brothers stayed out of my stuff while they […]
The 2012 Hetrick Family reunion was all but over. Elders, adults, youth, and children all containing the same genes were packing up and heading out. Just three remained seated on folding chairs in the driveway of the old homestead farmhouse. As westerners, were their bodies simply still in a different time zone and thus were […]
As we come out of the introspective pause in Occupy activism and burst into the American Spring, the season of extraversion, here’s what I’ve come to realize about Why I Occupy. First, let me be absolutely clear that I am basically a raging introvert whose primary color is self-reflective blue…the exact opposite on the color […]
THE Canyon – it is indeed Grand In this segment (Part I), we focus on the Natural / Geological Story of Grand Canyon – a Story told by the Ancient People, as well as by today’s geology scientists. As we look over the South Rim, that Story traces what we see today back into […]
We two like to think of July 20 as the one truly global holiday. When man set foot on the moon 42 years ago today, human consciousness shifted. Humans looked back at Home. That Milt played a part in making that happen still amazes me. So I propose we set this day aside to do […]
If I’ve become a Westerner, it’s because of the Light. The clarity that comes with dry air enlivens my body, mind, and spirit. Yet this summer solstice finds us driving East, into the increasing haze of humidity co-created by the thickening vegetations and stands of trees. By the time we hike half a mile along […]
“When the river is ice, ask me mistakes I have made. Ask me whether what I have done is my life.” William Stafford There was no ice on the Virgin River when we hiked the Zion National Park trail on that March Sunday. But Stafford’s words always haunt me whenever I am near a […]
“The new year dawns bright, clear and mysterious. May it be one of inner peace and world peace for all living things.” (from a Unitarian Universalist Service Committee holiday card, saved and savored since the mid-eighties) We welcome January, the gate of the year. This first month refers both to the goddess Jana, the Mother of […]