Since the spring flooding in the Missouri/Mississippi watershed, I have been haunted by an image I saw as a televised news flash: a farmer, a clean-cut white man in work clothes, standing on sorely cracked red clay ground. The news story was about flooding, from the picture we were to see that the farmer lost…READ MORE >
Back in the day, when my friends and I were young and eager to be out sharing poetry and music, the coffeehouse beckoned. Public, legitimate, no age limits, no alcohol licensing requirement, coffee houses in the Chicago area often had a stage as well, many with hours scheduled for drop in performers on the “Open…READ MORE >
I remember one day in a Waldorf school in a big city where I worked as a class teacher, finding my way down long hallways and flights of stairs to a basement room, with a door, that held a couch, a bookshelf, and a small table with coffee supplies. A colleague was sitting on the…READ MORE >
The daffodils are in full bloom, and that means it is time to get the garden ready to plant. Some weeks ago Michael tilled leaves into the beds of rich red clay that we are enticing along on the journey to rich brown humus. Then he hauled wheelbarrow load upon wheelbarrow load of compost…READ MORE >
A help wanted post on Craigslist piqued my interest. I hadn’t thought of saddle making, but then I didn’t know that not many miles from our place, just west of Ruckersville, Virginia, there was a saddle manufacturing shop. I pictured sewing machines like the oily industrial stitcher in the neighborhood shoe repair shop when I…READ MORE >
My interest in gourds began when I was introduced to the axatse, a rhythm instrument used in West African drumming ensembles. The axatse is a dried gourd that has been emptied of its seeds and covered in netting with small shells attached. When the gourd is shaken, the shells rattle and make a loud…READ MORE >
