Wild Thoughts

An orchard full of questions In grasping for answers –when we hold too tight– we squeeze the juice right out of the question. In search of definitive, black and white certainty we unwittingly plot a rigid path that narrows with each step. It’s hard not to dig in, once we’ve…

Mud and Muted Miracles I’ll be honest. April is not my favorite month. The snow is either gone or too crunchy or punchy to play with. The ground is still frozen so garden prep can’t really happen. It’s a time of in between known here in the northland as Mud…

What does it mean to pray? What does it mean to pray? Gathered together or on our own? For some, it’s a direct line to a creator. For others, it’s more of a universe thing, tapping into a connection, say, with the natural world and ‘sending’ it. For still others,…

A Winter Walk Ah, Winter, you often maligned sometimes scowled at beauty of a season. I get it. If people are only shoveling or driving upon slippery roads, some of your shine can wear off pretty quickly. Dear reader, if you are someone lacking either the gear or the gumption to…

Seeing Solstice There is a pause now this quiet Solstice time before light slowly lengthens. The temptation? To count the days. To hold our breath until daylight stretches into evening and early morning forces back the darkness. What a relief it will be these light-starved eyes to see again no…

Thanksgiving greetings to all of you from The Wild Institute.  As I considered posting the annual Thanksgiving Wild Thought, I found myself pausing, not quite able to just post it as we enter into our 2nd Thanksgiving with Covid19 still so prevalently in our midst. My wish for you, whether you…

The maples steal my breath with glowing leaves the colors of fire. Likewise the birch golden against deep blue sky. Walk among them now on a crisp sunny day. Inhale the shades of red, yellow, and orange until, in your exhale, you could almost breathe fire from the glory of…

“Hope is the thing with feathers,” so says Emily Dickinson. “When despair for the world grows in me I go and lie down where the wood drake rests in his beauty on the water, and I come into the peace of wild things.” Borrowed, of course, from Wendell Berry. When…

Spring Polarities It’s the freeze at night, thaw by day cycle of early spring that gets the sap flowing. Freezing creates negative pressure that condenses cells in the tree. Thawing causes positive pressure, which expands those cells. The sugary sap of the maple thus flows up and down the tree….

Insurrection We humans are quite a mess these days. Ranging from blind rage to unsettled to terrified. Maybe we’re always like this, but right now we seem particularly public in our display. What are we to do with this onslaught of emotions? I ask myself that a lot these days….