Nature
Nature
Nature
Vacant Lots: A Butterfly Hunter Considers the Sacred
The simplest definition of “sacred” in the Oxford English Dictionary has always seemed to me to be “set apart,” and that’s probably why I’ve never felt very happy with the word. I’ve never much liked the idea of things being “set apart.” Somehow, in my staunchly Republican family, I acquired a stubborn egalitarianism. But I
Be Careful of Little Lives
Go to the ant, you sluggard; consider her ways and be wise: Which, having no chief, overseer, or ruler, Provideth her meat in the summer, [and] gathereth her food in the harvest. –Proverbs 6:6-6:8 Scripture praises ants, children are mesmerized by them, and yet ants in the garden are so commonplace as to be easily
Ode to the Great Black Swamp
The classroom rug was a little crusty, stamped with squared-off primary colors. At its far end, the beautiful Miss Chantry sat cross-legged in white stockings and a plaid wool miniskirt, while the rest of us sat “Indian style” upon the rug before her. From a stack of old favorites, she selected a crisp, clean book
Recycling a Well-Tended Garden
Recycling a Well-Tended Garden She side-bends and stoops after decades of puttering limber-up work-in-dirt yoga, knee bends to growing graces. Her garden sprawls on its back, open palms to June sun, humming a hover and rest like the blue darner. Her fingers spread compost, sifting the strumming of vegetable patches into mantras – mantras learned
Mongolian Shamanism: A Return to the Beyond
The revival of an ancient religion has taken Mongolia by storm. Decades of oppression and religious conversions could not stop Mongolia’s first religion, Shamanism, from surviving. The hundreds of years of Chinese influence over Mongolia before the turn of the 20th century brought in heavy pressure for the region to convert to Buddhism. A majority of
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Novels and Collected Works
Blood Relative
My dad grew up on a farm in Indiana. His parents stocked the property with different breeds of animals, all consigned to death for food because the family wasn’t rich and was doing what it needed to do to survive. From early on, my dad studied the relationships between animal intelligence, behavior, and appearance. For
Willow
My head was hurting. A lot. Not quite to the point of wanting to throw up, but close. Not a migraine which I do not get. It was a sinus headache, which I do get thanks to some unpleasant encounters with a baseball during my childhood. I have Tylenol for such occasions, but it was
Yellowstone: A Ticking Time Bomb
Nature is a vast and inspiring phenomenon. All rivers flow to the ocean, clusters of water droplets form clouds, and trees produce the oxygen we breathe through a process known as photosynthesis. There are countless mysteries to the planet we call home. One of the most beautiful yet hauntingly dangerous of these mysteries is the
Mitigating the Los Angeles Water Crisis
Los Angeles, like many other cities across California, has been in a drought for a long time. California is prone to dry spells between large droughts, but this drought is much worse than any other seen before. In fact, scientists argue that “most of the region is in an unfolding ‘megadrought’ that began in 2000
Hemp as a Water-Saving Alternative to Cotton in Arizona
Cotton, one of the staple textile materials used in the United States, is a thirsty crop. Many locations that grow cotton, such as Arizona, are in the midst of serious droughts and water shortages. Because Arizona is lacking the sufficient levels of water to grow cotton, water basins, aquifers and the Colorado River are being