Excursions : Adventures in Spirit

I've collected them for several years now--river pebbles and mountain stones. They are emblems to me of pleasure and triumph. Pleasure at the memory of days spent outdoors among rivers and mountains. Triumph at having slipped the chain of illness for a while. These emblems decorate the g...

A gentle dawn. To the west the few puffs of cloud are pale against a pale background. To the east the clouds are a layer of soft dove-gray, lightly touched with pink. The sun is behind them, beneath them, not yet up over the Sandias, and the world still rests in a sleepy half-light. My gaze drops...

When I read the first line of Emily Dickinson's “Hope is the thing with feathers," I imagine holding a bird as it flutters to escape, its heart beating fast, a small warm body desperate to be free. It might “perch in the soul," but not if you constrain it. You know it won't be happy ca...