Green Tribe of Belonging

 On Mother's Day, I had the good fortune to be invited on a plane adventure with a pilot friend. He flew two of us on his small plane to Pella, Iowa - home of the famous Tulip Festival. The millions of tulips were long past their prime, but the buffet brunch we had at the Windmill restaurant was unforgettably delicious. After walking around the park and seeing thousands of tulips that were probably breathtaking a month ago, we drove back to the small Pella airport and flew home.  The tulips were no longer breathtaking, but for me, the flights there and back were breathtaking in the extreme. I sat in the front seat beside Dick, the pilot. I wore headphones to block out most of the huge sound of the engine, and I had a literal bird's eye view of miles and miles of Iowa landscape. I've flown in commercial planes many times, but the view on these is from so far up, and blotted out often by clouds, that only in taking off and landing do you get to study the landscape. On Sunday...

  (I started writing this post several weeks ago, and got sidetracked. But with today's developments, I'm going to finish it here. Maybe the tide is turning.....) I just listened to the book On Tyranny last night before I went to sleep. I had checked it out from the library onto my tablet, and it was about to be returned. I thought I'd just listen to it awhile before it gets deleted, and if I don't like it, I can let it go back and know that at least I gave it a try. Someone recommended it to me awhile back. Otherwise, it didn't seem like the kind of book I'd naturally gravitate toward! However, it sucked me right in from the very beginning, maybe because of its clarity and conciseness.  The focus of this apparently very short book (I heard it all in 2 hours!) was on how governments have evolved, especially since World War II. One recurring theme is that democracies have been tried and have failed in several countries since the war, and now that same thing seem...

 On Easter Sunday, I walked into our Friends Meetinghouse and went to my usual place on one of the wooden benches at the far end of the meeting room. There was a soft folded cloth there to cushion my seat. But as usual, I moved it aside so I could sit directly on the wood. I always do this, and that day I wondered why. There is something about being in touch with the strong beautiful wood that makes me feel more rooted. There is a depth and a quiet energy that calls to me. Maybe, especially when we're quiet, we have the ability to sink into more than the present. Could I be feeling into the past of this tree, the growth rings, the green energy? Rather than being just a convenient piece of furniture, the old seasoned bench seemed to have a life of its own. As I sat quietly, resonating with the wood, I was reminded of a CD by Ken Cohen called Native Wisdom that I listened to long ago. On this recording, he told a Native American story about the beginning of the world: Stone was the 1...

This was a busy day for me, and I was preoccupied with responsibilities: would I get enough done? how much was left on my to-do list? how much can wait until tomorrow? In the early afternoon, I realized I needed some grounding, something to help me let go and relax. So rather than take a nap, I cuddled up on my bed and listened to the next installment in my CD recording of Lord of the Rings . When I'm going to sleep at night, I often listen to a recording of a book I already have read and that I like. That way I don't have to stay awake and can just enjoy the narrative until I fall asleep. Today it seemed just what I needed: listen to the next chapter of one of my all-time favorite books. I didn't want to sleep, just to get my mind free of the worries of the day. As I listened, fully awake and cozy, I marveled at Tolkien's writing and the story which seemed to fit so well with the times we are going through here on earth. Tolkien's land was make-believe, Middle Eart...

This is a message that is being sent to the members of the four Friends groups here in east/central Iowa. Feel free to share it with others who may be interested. And if you're too far away to travel here, you can start one for your own community!  Dear friends, The Earth Care Working Group is regrouping!  We invite you to join interested  F/friends for earth-centered community building, learning and sharing.  We’ll meet on the first Saturday afternoon of each month from 2:00 to approximately 4:00 pm at Prairie Hill’s Common House, 140 Prairie Hill Lane, Iowa City, 52246. During these challenging times, we seek to build on what is positive by creating an opportunity to support and learn from and with each other.  We’d like to take action in incorporating beneficial changes in our lives and communities.  Our first meeting will be Saturday, May 3.  At this first meeting, we’d like to gather to share interests and concerns.  In this way, the group ca...

 It is hard to pay attention to what is going on in our country these days, as well as in the wider world. Of course there are positive happenings too. But what arrives in the news feed tends to be pretty unsettling. Clearly we are in troubled times, not only as Americans, or as people in general. Even if you're a tree or a polar bear, uncomfortable change is coming. And these developments, whether it is political or economic or climate-based, are coming more quickly than we had anticipated. Some days I decide to delete all the news updates coming to my email. I save them for another day. I only want the news to have a certain amount of foothold on my energy. A message that I keep hearing is to gather together in small groups. In just one day last week, I heard from three separate people who live far away and are not folks I see often. Yet they all told me of groups they had joined that were important in giving them support and stability. The groups had different focuses: art, musi...