Choose life
07/29/2010

What should I blog about today?  The fact that Congress, despite the leak of 92,000 classified documents that portray how abysmally the war in Afghanistan is going, approved another $37 billion in supplemental war funding?  Or that it will adjourn for the summer without addressing global warming?  Or that the U.S. has delivered exactly NONE of the aid money pledged to Haiti earthquake relief?

Or, should I look closer to home, where the wildflowers we broadcast are filling the yard with the most delicate and color-saturated blooms of purple, orange, pink, and red?  Or that the raspberries are ripening daily, each one filling our mouths with their exotic sweetness?  Or that the full moon has been as bright as day each night? 

Back in the magnificent Methow
07/19/2010

Micheal and I arrived back in the Methow last week after a month in Santa Barbara.  We'd left our property in the throes of a long, wet spring: garden planted, watered, and mulched with straw; weeds under control; birds raising young in their nests.  A month later we returned to find the weeds chest-high along the driveway and in the unplanted field in front of our house; the garden knee-deep in pigweed, orchard grass, and other undesirables; the birds’ nests empty; the alfalfa cut and gone.  Summer had arrived and settled in before we did.

Challenging the myths that perpetuate war
07/14/2010

My friend Paul Chappell, a West Point graduate and veteran of Iraq, who left the Army in November 2009 as a captain, has written two books on ending war.  He says that peace activists must actively confront and debunk the myths that perpetuate war.  The following ideas his and are expounded upon in his books.*

The yin and the yang
07/07/2010

The first half of Thanissara and Kittisaro's interview on balancing spiritual work and social activism is now online at Shambhala SunSpace...and here (click on Full Post).

http://www.shambhalasun.com/sunspace/?p=17369

Pastels from a peaceful place
07/05/2010

I'm having my first art show on Thursday, August 5, at Eden, a home decor store at 17 W. Ortega Street in Santa Barbara!  If you were in my one and only high school art class, you'd know what a surprising development that is.  As many of you do know, I'm a largely self-taught artist who started by drawing pictures on my sons' lunch bags....until they got to junior high and asked me to stop.  When I moved back to Santa Barbara, my husband Micheal encouraged me to explore other media (ya think?) and introduced me to pastels.