These are the tiny books Bean has made for me in the last week. The Best Mom book is 22 pages with my name written on every page, and as you can see, just larger than a quarter. The other book with st...
What a completely blissful day. These are the new rockers we picked up at a garage sale this weekend, and this is the view looking out onto our back field in Southern Oregon. It goes on and on and we ...
It is easy for me to think I’m learning a lot by bouncing around from web article to web article. And, I actually do have pretty good taste in reading, I think. I’m reading some of ...
Today, Bean and I had some errands to run, and I chose the Pandora Station “Peter, Paul and Mommy” for our musical background. We sang along to Feed the Birds, from Mary Poppins, and some ...
Katagiri Roshi says, “Our goal is to have kind consideration for all sentient beings every moment forever.” This does not mean put a good poem on paper and then spit at our lives, c...
This morning I woke up with a song in my head, and it’s a good one. It’s the one I blast in my car on the way to Poetry Slam. It’s the one I sing along to and throw little gir...
Just the other day the thought hit me that I would rather take a curvy road any day over a straight shot. On a long, straight road, there is no mystery, no surprises. It can become monotonous. ...
Or rather, we have a friend coming over this afternoon, and so the boys are cleaning, and I am cleaning, and we are all getting distracted by the things we are supposed to be putting away. I...
Bean, my first-grader, was telling me over breakfast the other day how beautiful snowflakes are if you look at them closely, and how there are no two alike. He was very happy to share this info...
What does it mean to sink down deep Into who you are and speak your truth And be yourself, and have your own Moment of HOWL, to sound your own Barbaric Yawp over the rooftops of the world? It m...
Tao Tuesdays: Thanks to Amy Putkonen of Tao Ta Ching Daily. Chapter 78 Nothing in the world is as soft and yielding as water. Yet for dissolving the hard and inflexible, nothing can surpass it....
What would parenting be like if we used the Rules of Improvisation in our interactions with our kids? I’m not suggesting this entirely. I’m just wondering. Right now, I’m read...
I like Aha Moments. I’m an Aha Moment Junkie. I have them all the time, and revel in the ways my mind can become excited all over again about a new idea. And then another one, and another one. I...
Let me preface by saying that after writing today’s reflection, I feel raw because of how much I have to learn. This motherhood thing is ever changing, constant learning, every day more to under...
It seems as if the geese could bump into each other in this mist, each screeching into the void sounding out to the others calling the way forward southward, onward toward the next season, the next wa...
There may actually be too many things percolating in my head this morning, for any of them to come together into a cohesive thought, but I’m going to try. I am happy to announce that I do not th...
Did I ever show you this handmade gift from Benjamin this year? Talk about a gift that went straight to my heart. I have never cried more over a present in my life. That he knew my deepest desire, and...
These photos are all from the 2009 show, Strengthen Me with Raisins. Back in 2007, I performed my very first Poetry Show as part of the Rogue Festival in Fresno, CA. I was 39 years old, and I floated ...
“The Apple Doesn’t Fall Far from the Tree,” doesn’t nearly say it all, in our case. At this stage, the apple is still growing, still attached to the limb, still gaining ...
Filed under: Lessons learned from a Rap Artist, and Color Me Surprised. It’s not that I dislike rap music. I get the inherent poetry of the genre. It just hasn’t been a form of musi...
There is a picture circulating of a little girl in an Iraqi orphanage, who misses her mother, so she drew a chalk outline of her mom, curled up within the lines and fell asleep inside her mother. This...
In the dverse poets pub tonight, the topic is trees and Under The Canopy, which fills me with love and light. That is what we do! We care for trees. (A memory from long ago when I was in school –...
Sometimes I shatter; break into pieces and scatter across the floor. My tiny shards reflect light in odd patterns on the wall and once again I am something shiny. I remember a spark, I r...
If I could see what you see; the finished project from a pile of scraps. The angles and lines and tiny details, wheels within wheels that leap from your mind; the magic you create. I run along beneath...