Here’s an Off the Shelf book feature I wrote for the Ojai Quarterly this winter about a delightful and quite unconventional SoCal birder and writer named Charles Hood, who refuses to play the role of the “High Church” nature writer, but insists nonetheless that we should stop for a minute, and take a look atContinue reading “Wild Nature: Waiting All Around Us to be Seen”
Category Archives: love poems to the world
John Lennon’s Lullaby
This year I stumbled upon a spectacularly good story about the often-overlooked song that concludes the White Album, a record that John Lennon thought included some of his best work with the Beatles. That song is “Good Night.” You may recall the lush orchestration, the soothing, and Ringo — not John — singing with aContinue reading “John Lennon’s Lullaby”
PCT 2021: Rainy Pass to the Northern Terminus
Walking around Mt Tam
One of the most beautiful and least known poetical flowerings of that outpouring of youth and art we call the 60’s was, arguably, a journey on foot around Mt Tamalpais, in Marin County north of San Francisco. This honoring of “the quiescent one,” this circumambulation, a walk completely around the mountain, following with our feetContinue reading “Walking around Mt Tam”
High Sierra PCT under snow in 2019
This winter turned out to be a very good year for precipitation in the state of California, as experts working with the California Department of Water Resources kind of predicted last fall. This means that right now, in July of 2019, the John Muir Trail and the Pacific Crest Trail through the High Sierra fromContinue reading “High Sierra PCT under snow in 2019”
Soul-making is a crafting, said James Hillman
Soul-making is like any other imaginative activity. It requires crafting, just as does politics, agriculture, the arts, love relations, war, or the winning of any natural resource. What is given won’t get us through; something must be made of it. From The Dream and the Underworld, by James Hillman, a deeply informed exploration of theContinue reading “Soul-making is a crafting, said James Hillman”
Black Friday climate assessment: Katherine Hayhoe vs. Donald Trump on The World
The extraordinary Fourth National Climate Assessment, released by thirteen federal agencies coordinated by the US Global Change Research Program, established by Congress decades ago, came out last Friday. On the day after Thanksgiving, the notorious Black Friday. For some reason. Ironically, if this excellent interview and breaking news segment on the assessment on The WorldContinue reading “Black Friday climate assessment: Katherine Hayhoe vs. Donald Trump on The World”
a poem from the late Paradise
Please Excuse the Smoke Awakenings [from a Paradise resident and poet named Krystalynn Martin] November 16, 2018 A poem I wrote the other night while grieving the loss of my hometown of Paradise: I’m sorry – Please excuse the smoke. It’s just the dreams and hopes of 27 thousand yesterdays. It’s just the minuscule evidence ofContinue reading “a poem from the late Paradise”
Sea lion attacks kayaker with octopus
In an extraordinary incident, a sea lion flung an octopus at a young man kayaking near a New Zealand shore, and was caught live on a digital camera. The clip went viral around the world. National Public Radio’s Rachel Cohen followed up with a wonderfully thorough and appropriately playful story. Check it out: it’s astonishing:Continue reading “Sea lion attacks kayaker with octopus”
Dirt: People of the PCT (Oregon 2018)
This is Dirt, with whom I briefly crossed paths at about mile TK on the PCT. We had a short but interesting conversation that’s still very alive for me. Our brief dialogue touched on two or three or so topics, but seemed full of the immense uncertainty of human life. Quite possibly I might neverContinue reading “Dirt: People of the PCT (Oregon 2018)”
Kit Stolz 