Category: culture

  • Against Returning to Normal

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    As our country begins to ease restrictions on closures related to the pandemic, the streets are filling with protests against police brutality and the normal state of our union that is white supremacy. The rage is huge and it is justified. There’s a whole segment of our culture who uses the language of freedom to explain why they aren’t wearing masks, why they want the country to reopen so they can get a haircut when they want to–“This is the land of the free.” Unless, of course, you are a black, brown or indigenous person. We live in a country…

  • Moving through Shadow

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    It seemed that I was incapable of putting things into words in 2016. I wrote only the papers that I had to submit for professional purposes. I wrote no poems. I answered emails so sporadically that I’m sure people must have thought I disappeared. I wrote in my journal but twice. This space sat empty, awaiting something, but it never seemed to come. I gardened. I taught classes. I traveled. I helped to organize a conference. I fell in love. I gathered with friends. I lived life with a heart full of gratitude and mourning. There was a lot of…

  • Another way to connect

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    Well, I’ve gone and done it. I made a facebook page for Delicious Ginger so that people can find classes and other events I’m hosting more easily. If you’re on facebook and want to check out my new little page, please say hello here: https://www.facebook.com/deliciousgingerherbals I think that a lot of new things are going to be brewing in 2015, so stay in touch! xo

  • Herbs to soothe our collective grief

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    On this day of Thanksgiving in America, there are a lot of people in pain. There are people who do not have homes, people who have lost their children to police violence, people whose lives have been torn apart by sexual violence, people who are angry and have many good reasons to feel rage. We cannot escape the pain of living in this world, nor should we try to escape. We could all use a good dose of being present with the realities that surround us every day, whether the media reports them or not. We could all use a…

  • On Becoming a Radical Homemaker

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    This morning when I woke at 5:30, instead of going back to bed and trying to ignore the cat asking for attention, I picked up a book that had been languishing on the bottom of my library book pile for a few months.  (It’s bad when you’re a librarian and can renew as many times as you like!)  Shannon Hayes’ book Radical Homemakers is not a new book at this point, but for me, it’s the perfect book for this moment in my life when I am seeing all the ways that I need to change what I’m doing to…