Welcome to “Life in the Real World”. The world of humans is an often noisy and chaotic place but right outside my door I find the world of nature has a realness to it, an ordinary magic with everyday miracles.

I hope this newsletter will be an oasis of peace and beauty, a soft place to land in challenging times. I hope you will find it grounding, meditative, sometimes illuminating, and full of genuine curiosity about this strange thing we call Life.

Here are some of my favorite posts:

A Walk in the Park

A Walk in the Park

I walk in the park to remind myself how I want to walk through the world.

2022 Essays

Many Ways to Pray

·
February 27, 2022
Many Ways to Pray

The spiritual traditions tell us there are many ways to pray. I resonate with Mary Oliver in her poem, “The Summer Day”: I don't know exactly what a prayer is. I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass, how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields, which is what I have been doing all …

2024 Essays

Just for Today

·
October 13, 2024
Just for Today

Just for today, let me sit in the quiet and watch the fog dance in the light of the rising sun. Let the only disturbance be the splash of a fish, jumping from the water.

2022 Essays

Soft as a Feather

·
January 2, 2022
Soft as a Feather

It’s 7:30 AM, the morning after Christmas and most of the world around me is still asleep. The sun is about to peek over the horizon, the temperature is just above freezing and there’s a very light breeze from the east/southeast. The only birds nearby are the crows behind me and some ring-billed gulls diving and chasing each other across the cove. In th…

2022 Essays

The Cootie Portal

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February 6, 2022
The Cootie Portal

It’s a cold morning, just below freezing. Most of the lake has melted but the edges and the coves, where the water is shallow, have a thin layer of ice. I’ve taken my seat on the ground in a cove with a small hill behind me that graciously blocks the north wind. A layer of ice covers about 20 feet of ice between me and the open water. The sun will rise …

2024 Essays

The Work of Love

·
November 17, 2024
The Work of Love

“Every day we should be thinking about how to make room at the table—pulling up as many chairs as are needed so everyone has a seat.” - Chef José Andrés

2023 Essays

Smiles in the Ice

·
February 5, 2023
Smiles in the Ice

She's got a smile that it seems to me

I walk in the park to remember how I want to walk through the world.

I’ve been walking in a county park near my home in Kansas City, Missouri for over a decade. I’ve heard the term “becoming native to place” and perhaps that’s what I’m doing. I want to know “all my relations” as the native people so beautifully say and I’ve come to know many of their ways, their habits, their attitudes and their beauty. My newsletter offers moments to pause and encourages others to notice all the beings in their own world.

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Visual poet, nature photographer, artist, writer, systems analyst, person who just wants the world to be a kinder place. "Let what you love find you. Be faithful to it. It will teach you how to live.." - Oriah Mountain Dreamer