… it would start in an auditorium. Of course it would. And you are there, sitting in the audience, right? But the whole point of the talk is to get you out of your seat and out into nature … walking! Below is a written version of the message–not a…
… it would start in an auditorium. Of course it would. And you are there, sitting in the audience, right? But the whole point of the talk is to get you out of your seat and out into nature … walking! Below is a written version of the message–not a…
In the woods near the Cloister at Three Creeks today, I came across an example of Garlic Mustard (Alliaria petiolata) growing in an apparently undisturbed forest area, and concentrated directly under a large dead oak, with only young red maples surviving in the area. Could Garlic Mustard be contributing to the pervasive ‘oak decline’ we…
My home and secluded hermitage retreat since summer 2020 is an off-grid tract of eleven wooded acres surrounded on three sides by noisy mountain creeks. Human sounds are limited to the sound of airplanes and jets above. This professional-quality video produced by the good folks at F.I.T. wilderness presents a comprehensive tour of the grounds…
Decisions mankind makes today are going to have long term effects. Carbon pollution in the atmosphere takes an average of 120 years to dissipate (the scientific term is ‘half life’ meaning that half of it will be gone and half still remaining). That works out to about five or six generations. What we do today…
“It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there’s no knowing where you might be swept off to.” –J.R.R. Tolkien One of about two trillion galaxies in our observable universe. Estimates are that within any such galaxy, there should be…
My contemplation site. This is my personal beyul (Tibetan: སྦས་ཡུལ), meaning a sacred valley, a place of refuge. This 80-foot cascade is seldom visited. There is no trail to it. It is a mile from my home base and a difficult bushwhack. Deep thought flourishes here. I try to focus on big picture issues—things that…
Today I head out into the unknown, intending to establish a new life in a place that has been called simply ‘In Back of Beyond.’ It should be a challenging adventure. Likely, it will impact my life as much as that notorious 1992 trek into the Alaskan bush undertaken by young Chris McCandless, whose words…
“Behold! we are not bound for ever to the circles of the world, and beyond them is more than memory, Farewell!” —J.R.R. Tolkien Since making the sudden ‘born-again’-like decision, on May 10, 2020 at 2:15PM, to transition from ‘dime-store recluse’ to ‘serious eremite’ (life as a hermit), thoughts and reactions have come to the surface…
Sunday May 10, 2020, 2:15PM. It was a peaceful afternoon nap. I dreamed I was back in the house I grew up in—the one I lived in from when it was built in 1958 through 1966. It was empty, of course. Everybody who lived there but me has passed on. The house itself has passed…
Intrepid Black-dirt excavators hard at work on a road shoulder in Grundy County, Iowa. Okay. We need to talk. We don’t own this world. You do know that, right? Genesis 1:28 notwithstanding. It is bought and paid for by things much smaller than us, much smarter than us (see below), and very, VERY much older…