Resisting and Resilience: Rootedness

July 1, 2025 In honor of Canada Day and in deep regard for our neighbors to the north of the USA, I am pleased to post a poem by Canadian poet and photographer Monique Heintzman. Today seems a particularly fitting day for this poem after our Senate has just approved (by one vote) a billContinueContinue reading “Resisting and Resilience: Rootedness”

Resistance and Resilience: Dragon Princess

June 19, 2025 This current blog continues to explore the themes of resistance and resilience in the arts, especially in the context of the current upheavals across the globe and in the USA. Recent contributions may be found at https://spirit-reflections.org/blog/ under “Writings.” This poem is a response to E. Reid’s poem from May 27 whichContinueContinue reading “Resistance and Resilience: Dragon Princess”

Resistance and Resilience: Love

June 2, 2025 Art in any form is resistance. This blog is an invitation to submit any works of art that speak to resistance against the injustices of these current times and to resilience that keeps us grounded in hope, truth, and love. Former submissions can be found here under “Writings” : https://spirit-reflections.org/. Today’s submissionContinueContinue reading “Resistance and Resilience: Love”

Response to “Liberty”

May 27, 2025 As those who follow this blog know, the theme has shifted to how the creative arts can guide and ground us during these turbulent times around the world, but especially in regard to the current administration in the United States. Resistance and Resilience are the key guidelines. Over the weekend, I postedContinueContinue reading “Response to “Liberty””

An Invitation to Resistance and Resilience

May 15, 2025 Over the next several months, or perhaps years, I’ll be concentrating on the themes of resistance as an act of courage and resilience as an act of resistance through the use of the arts. I recently hiked the Rocky Mountains and was captured by both actions expressed in nature all around me,ContinueContinue reading “An Invitation to Resistance and Resilience”

Easter ~ Rise Up

April 20, 2025 Rise Up Rise up, for the tomb is empty,our call clear.Rise up to shine the Light.Grind the dried palmsof betrayal under your feetand raise the lilies of peace.Piece together the torn tunicAnd make it a garment of unity.Drop the silver coinsinto the hands of the hungryand feed his sheep.Turn out the falseContinueContinue reading “Easter ~ Rise Up”

Vermont Night

April 12, 2025 Vermont Night “If the stars should appear one night in a thousand years, how would men believe and adore.” Ralph Waldo Emerson Somewhere outside of Montpeliermiles from the lights of townwith autumn approachingbut not yetI stand under the night skyand gaze up.Such a simple actraising my face to nightmy sight to lightafterContinueContinue reading “Vermont Night”

Spring Ephemerals

Spring wildflowers, March 19, 2025 Ephemerals(plants that flower briefly once in the spring) I walk the woods seeking spring’s ephemerals,turning leaf and rock like a child seeks treasures, here in the woods of the Creek, the Cherokee,here where the creek clatters freely down limestone. Here mottled trilliums blanket the floor;hepatica’s white petals blanket the moss.ContinueContinue reading “Spring Ephemerals”

Advent 2024: Look

St. Naum at Monastery of St. Naum, Macedonia, (c) T. Brett McMahan Advent Day 5, December 5, 2024 You Reading This, Be Ready ~ by William Stafford Starting here, what do you want to remember?How sunlight creeps along a shining floor?What scent of old wood hovers, what softenedsound from outside fills the air? Will youContinueContinue reading “Advent 2024: Look”

Advent 2024: Silence

Advent Day 4, December 4, 2024 Lo, in the silent nightA child to God is bornAnd all is brought againThat ere was lost or lorn. Could but thy soul, O man,Become a silent night!God would be born in theeAnd set all things aright. Whoever wrote this 15th century verse knew a truth about the giftContinueContinue reading “Advent 2024: Silence”