I am fortunate to work at a school with such an incredible arts program. Whether students spend one year here or fourteen, they have many chances to share their creative selves with teachers and each other daily. From performances at Grandparents and Special Friends Day, to Revels and Spring Festival, our students consistently blow us … Continue reading
The skin of the planet is fragile. Watch. Listen. You can only listen. By listening, you may see a sparrow warming itself in steam on the corner of your gutter. By listening, you may see the first crocus shimmy up from the frozen Earth. A sentry, the first scout. You may hear the fall of … Continue reading
I heard once that it is a beautiful thing to wake up singing. To test one’s vocal chords in that mystery which is the voice, an illustrator for sheet music. Before the sun has peeked over the edge of its nightly slumber, when the moon is till sharp and in focus, this is when you … Continue reading
“It’s easy to be blind to the all the treasures we hold / Get up to the mountains, I get up high / And I take a look around before it all passes by” from “Hallelujah” by the Reeltime Travelers …perched-awed-humbled-ancient rocks-stable-pieces shining-some red, some black… Boulders, stacked one on the other like pieces of … Continue reading
I sit quietly in an ornately decorated Portland church, hands in my lap, surrounded by the smell of incense, colorful stained glass windows, and the solemn but soaring crystalline melodies of a choir singing Fauré’s Requiem in Latin: Fac eas, Domine, de morte transire ad vitam (Grant them, O Lord, to pass from death to … Continue reading
“It is spring again. The earth is like a child that knows poems by heart.” – Rainer Maria Rilke – Do you remember last year’s songs? They do. Now, it’s time for us to sing along. ps. Check out Nikki McClure’s similarly beautiful rendition of April (from her 2013 calendar). Continue reading
She opens her eyes in the morning to see dust in her room floating in the air. The light catches it in streams. She thinks this is beautiful. He is on his 30th hour without sleep, but peers into his patient’s body, chest cut open, at a live, pulsing heart. It is burgundy and navy … Continue reading
Well, Happy New Year! In 2012, I rang in January 1st surrounded by friends old and new in Seattle. My mantra for the year was to “dwell in Possibility.” That was certainly the case! I did much galavanting outdoors and spread my wings anew this year. January 1st of this year was much less eventful, … Continue reading
I wake up to the sound of water on asphalt, falling from the sky in a mist. Outside, mountains of foliage have convened in street gutters in soggy, decomposing piles. The streets glow with a sheen of wetness, a shade darker than we’ve been used to, a consistent wetness that won’t leave for many months. … Continue reading
in the midst 