tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-66081344432466275042012-02-17T11:05:08.114-07:00Connecting people with nature. Connecting writers with words.Connecting People with Nature, and Writers with Wordshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01843366084313026823noreply@blogger.comBlogger721100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6608134443246627504.post-65015878928364332612012-02-07T11:14:00.000-07:002012-02-07T11:14:31.721-07:00

Last night, for the umpteenth time, I snuggled on the couch and let myself be engrossed, mesmerized, entranced, enraged, impassioned, and yes, infatuated, by the movie Last of the Mohicans. James Fenimore Cooper on the big screen - frontier romance writ large, bigger than life, panoramas that spread from horizon to horizon, close-ups that show every vein on every leaf, every scar on Magua's face.

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A poem, and then a few thoughts on metaphor... Headstones carry last century’s news etched into granite gone green, lichen as cold as the shade side of an emptyhouse.  I wait while he kneels at his son’s grave, wander the brittle grass paths, find mothers buried with newborns  Born Died The dates are the same.  No span of life stretches between them.  I find brothers and sisters, a

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Sometimes I miss a certain place, like the aspen draw on the ranch in Wyoming where Thimbleberries grow thick by July, and where snow gathers by October, staying until May.   Sometimes I miss a person, like the young Greek girl Antigone whom I barely knew, but knew well enough to lie on a hill near the Acropolis, beneath the light of a full moon counting the stars as they came out.  “Ena Dio Tria

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Horses have been studying humans from across the safety of a river, or from the overlook of a high ridge, or from across an expanse of grassland, for thousands of years. The oldest archealogical evidence links horses and humans as far back as 400,000 to 600,000 years ago, not as companions, but as prey and predator. When horse and human first touched because of a far more benevolent mutual

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THEY SAY WRITING IS A SOLITARY THING—as if we are all lone wolves howling into the wind with only the moon as our companion.  Yet from the first writer’s conference I attended as a freshman at the University of Colorado in 1970, where Reader’s Digest managing editor John Allen befriended and encouraged me, to a 1996 reading at The Writer’s Voice in Billings, Montana, where Kim Barnes and I read

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On stage for a "Page Wisdom" segment at CampExperience 2011 My great religion is a belief in the blood, the flesh, as being wiser than the intellect.  We can go wrong in our minds.  But what our blood feels and believes and says, is always true.  The intellect is only a bit and a bridle.  I like this quote from D.H. Lawrence (Lady Chatterly's Lover). When I get on my horse's back, he reminds

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I just watched Eve Ensler's powerful new 12-minute video on TED. I immediately wanted to reach out to all the women in my life. And to all the men who love but are confused by the women in their lives.  Please don’t miss Suddenly, my body. Watch it with a friend. Watch it right now. Watch it tonight with a glass of wine or in the morning with a cup of tea. Watch it with your mother, or your

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Well, for one thing, the first two book titles made the list of Oprah's top 27 summer reads.  The third, Becoming Animal, should have, but didn't.  A Small Hotel, Robert Olen Butler's latest work of fiction, is an unapologetic romantic story of a couple in love for nearly 25 years but now in the throes of separation and divorce.  (I first met Butler about six years ago at a Narrative Magazine

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I have a file box on my desk next to my Storyteller Doll with clippings torn from magazines and newspapers -- uplifting stories of people reconnecting to the land.  These stories appear in diverse publications, like Native Peoples Magazine and High Country News, or The Quivira Coalition Journal and the Nature Conservancy, even the World Ark and The Denver Post. The Omeg family in Oregon has

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Sometimes, the most memorable moments for an artist or writer are hidden. Sometimes our work itself is hidden. Several weeks ago Roxanne Swentzell told me over dinner and a glass of Blue Moon that she had inserted a PVC pipe into Mud Woman’s center to stabilize the 10-foot-tall sculpture. “But now I have this space that runs from her head to her heart,” she said. “I need to put something special

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Helen Terry Dunton c. 1912 When I asked my redheaded Great Aunt Violet, who died many years ago but in whose western saddle I still ride, to tell me what she remembered about my paternal grandmother, she said, "Well, besides being a crack shot with a rifle, Helen was part Irish, and part Cherokee, and that wasn't a very good thing to be back then."   Aunti Vi was from the Dunton clan, my

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Bull elk on Lookout Mountain  in snowstorm Writing is not just about what we already know.  It's also about what we wish we knew.  At this juncture, where facts and experience meet curiosity, inspiration takes root.  Passion and our emotional connection to a story may form the heart, but research gives a story legs; it keeps the story moving forward and keeps writer and reader engaged. 

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Ann Lukacs shooting from helicopter I first met award-winning filmmaker Ann Lukacs in Gunnison, Colorado back in 2004 when I was speaking at a Writing the Rockies conference.  My topic, "Embracing Passion: In Our Stories and In Our Lives," seems to be a guiding motto for Ann, too. Last Tuesday, she was the keynote speaker at Dr. Ellie Greenberg's Feminist luncheon in Denver (Greenberg is the

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My mother’s mink stole and two fur collars, one sable, one white, have been hanging in the back of my closet since she died five years ago.  I remember how beautiful she looked to me as a child when she wore her mink—how the soft fur graced her bare sloping shoulders and showed off her own mother’s strand of pearls—how proud my father looked as he offered my mother his arm. The mink stole

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Several years ago, I read the essay "Mt. T's Heart," by novelist Jane Smiley, the first essay in the collection The Greatest Horse Stories Ever Told. I've been fascinated by the idea of "great hearts" ever since--both the hearts of horses, and the hearts of stories.  If the stories we love to read over and over again endure because of this hard-to-measure quality, how can we ensure that the heart

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Thanks for voting everyone!  It was a close race but WRITERS OVER 40 ROCK won by a nose as your favorite blog post of 2010.  Wonder what the winning blog vote indicates about the average age of my readers?  It means you all rock!! 

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Dear Susan ... It is New Year's Eve, a cold, wintry day and I am listening to your CD WildLives while some holiday shortbread is baking.  What a lovely surprise to receive the compilation--thank you for this unexpected gift. A few hours ago, when I decided to do some baking, I searched among the few recipes I brought with me when I left the ranch in the Black Hills six years ago, but the

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This silence in the timbers.A woodpecker on one of the trees taps out its story. Robert Haight*Each tree, too, has its own story, its own family, its own tribe. And even though we do not know if they give their lives willingly, we could not live or breathe without them. We fell them for their timber, for fuel for our fireplaces, and to grace our homes during the Christmas season.  We thin them to

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Coors Baseball Stadium, Denver, Colorado We create ceremony and ritual around all other parts of our lives—baptism, bar mitzvah, feast days, confirmation, graduation, death, we even create ceremony around sports (think of Monday Night Football or the all-American baseball game), yet our culture does not have very many examples of rituals which honor the creative part of our nature.  Let me

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November 2010 issue EN ROUTE TO ORLANDO, FLORIDA, I spent the first 20 airborne minutes browsing the November issue of United’s inflight magazine, Hemispheres, which boasts over 7 million readers worldwide. Here’s a sampling of the pieces that caught my attention, with an eye, of course, toward nature and writing themes: DISPATCH: Notes from All Over--a good place to submit very short, human

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When our bodies and minds are in motion, writing can be difficult.  And I've been in motion the entire spring, summer, and fall -- to galleries and tea houses in Santa Fe, to the Heard Museum and Gila River in Phoenix, to conference centers and family gatherings in Oklahoma, to the piers and missions and merry-go-rounds of Santa Barbara where I celebrated my sister's 60th birthday, to the

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It was tempting to stay--to keep our rafts pointed downstream and our oars in the water--at peace with each other and with life on the river.  How simple to spend one's days floating, contemplating water dappled by sunlight, molding palmfuls of river clay with our fingers, writing unhurried thoughts into the pages of our journals, sharing morning coffee and evening stars.  How simple, this

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WHEN Orion Magazine announced recently that they were bringing back their popular department, "THE PLACE WHERE YOU LIVE," I thought of a zillion things I wanted to share about the landscape I call home, and the people with whom I share it.  I also thought of the ranch in Wyoming, which my grown children still call home.  A large part of my heart still lives there - will always live there.  But

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THE LIFE FORCE that moves through us, and through every drop of water and layer of slick rock, is as familiar as our own breath, yet as hard to grasp as the wind that rustles the cottonwoods.  We are told that the elements of science are kin to the elements of human nature: that those with Fire in their souls possess a radiant energy, an enthusiasm that brings color and vibrancy into the world;

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I’ve been spending the day with two poems—both written by western women (both over 40, by the way), both published, both about a man and a woman—but both paint very different portraits of the relationship between a husband and wife. The first poem, “Denial” by Pat Frolander, just appeared on TED KOOSER'S COLUMN American Life in Poetry and is included in Pat's chapbook Grassland Genealogy (

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According to The New Yorker's Summer Fiction issue, the odds of anyone writing anything of substance after they turn 40 are not good. That's disheartening, since I haven't seen 40 for more than a decade and in 2 days I'll be one year closer to 60. Sam Tanenhaus, editor of the The New York Time's Sunday Book Review, expands on that theory in his essay "How Old Can a Young Writer Be?" According to

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THE WYOMING GLOW I brought home with me after this year’s Literature & Landscape of the Horse Retreat at the Vee Bar Ranch lasted for days. I literally beamed. Not surprising after a week immersed in some of the things I love the most—horses, stories about horses, other writers and artists, and the wide-open western landscape. “I missed you all so much the minute I got on the plane, it nearly

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OKAY, so the connection is a stretch.  But when COPPER NICKEL (the journal of art and literature published by the University of Colorado Denver) announced their first fiction and poetry CONTEST, I had to check it out.  The term copper nickel was originally applied to the Indian Head cent coin.  From 1913-1938, U.S. mints began producing the Indian Head nickel. The front side of the coin features

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Please scroll down to April 15 to read the first "8000 Writers Descend on Denver" installment about the Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP) conference in Denver last weekend. "What is to give light, must endure burning."  This is the motto that has, for 36 years, fed the brave editorial direction of The Sun magazine.  I wasn't able to attend the INTO THE FIRE reading by Sun authors

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The program booklet for AWP’s annual conference and bookfair was 322 pages thick – no kidding. The Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP) has been “fostering literary talent and achievement” since 1967, but this is the first year they’ve done so in the West. What happens at AWP? Keynotes. Dozens of featured readings. Dozens of panels. And at least half a dozen off-site parties every

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The Spring Equinox is a time of earthly balance, when day and night are everywhere the same—a good time to envision the rest of the year with clarity and focus. My creative life is out of balance right now—I know this. Whenever I’m not spending enough time engaged in the creative process of writing my brain gets cob-webby and I get cranky. Half-formed thoughts congeal and cloud my vision.

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Have you ever been hiking in the woods and come across canine scat and wondered coyote or dog? Or found deep imprints in the snow and wondered just how fresh are these mountain lion tracks? No? Well then, have you ever been browsing the books at your favorite bookstore and wondered What made this publisher buy this book? What kind of query letter did this author write? Would this agent be

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Last Thursday, Larry and Debby, neighbors in our small mountain community of less than 100 homes, sent out a plea to help them look for their lost dog. Molly, a beautiful Golden Retriever they had rescued when she was 6 months old, had apparently wandered away from home the day before. Snow had fallen that evening, blanketing the dirt roads, the yards, and the thick forest in white. I set out

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Yesterday, at the National Western Stock Show in Denver, I watched artist Susan Bell paint two bison bulls.  The sun was shining and the bulls seemed content to settle into the sawdust bedding and pose for her.  She'd been painting animals for 3 days, sitting on a small stool, dipping her brush into the rich colors of her oil palate.  The scene was in stark contrast to gallery owners in

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What is an elder? That's the question a close friend asked me when I told her about the Elders Christmas Dinner hosted last week by the American Indian College Fund. "It's a blessing to help serve the meal," I said. "There were over 200 Indian elders there, from dozens of different tribes." My friend lowered her head shyly and asked, "What's an elder?" Her question made me ponder how we treat

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SYNCHRONISTIC MOMENTS - seemingly unrelated events that connect in unplanned ways.  How often do they occur?  How often do we fail to "connect the dots" that tie these moments together?  What do they tell us about the Grand Design of our lives?  When the old man in John Steinbeck's collection The Pastures of Heaven stared down into the valley where he had lived his life, tears came to his eyes

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According to The Wall Street Journal, 46 million domestic, farm-raised turkeys were devoured this week (including the 13 pound turkey whose bones have been stewing in my soup kettle until an hour ago).  It’s probably fair to say that none of us ever saw “our bird” fully feathered, or heard it gobble, or knew whether a “hen” or a “jake” was gracing our dinner platter.  I haven’t had this kind of

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I met Colum 4 years ago (please see previous post below) and am thrilled Let the Great World Spin has won.  Go to NPR to learn more and read about it from the Associated Press News Release.  Here’s an excerpt: “McCann won the fiction prize for "Let the Great World Spin," a novel about daring, luck and mortality in the pre-digital world of 1970s New York. “He has called his book an act of hope

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“A summer flood came and our draft horse got caught in the river.  The river smashed against stones and the sound of it to me was like the turning of locks.  It was silage time and the water smelled of grass.  The draft horse, Father’s favorite, had stepped in the river for a sniff maybe and she was caught, couldn’t move, her foreleg trapped between rocks.  Father found her and called Katie!

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Each fall, I search the woods for antler velvet, like other women might browse catalogs for good sales on winter coats.  It’s an odd habit, I admit. During the last few weeks of August and into September here in the rustic mountain community where I live, bachelor herds of bull elk congregate in the meadows and woods surrounding our home.  Even from a distance, you can see their engorged antlers

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I grew up believing that STRIVING towards goals and feeling DRIVEN in one’s passions were necessary components of success. They can also be exhausting components of success.  Deepak Chopra, in his book The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success, talks about the Law of Least Effort. “Nature’s intelligence functions with effortless ease…this is the principle of least action, of no resistance.” But

Connecting People with Nature, and Writers with Wordshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01843366084313026823noreply@blogger.com43tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6608134443246627504.post-71060276492048036842009-07-25T08:38:00.005-06:002009-12-12T13:22:00.273-07:00

Kathleen Cain begins her review of Standing in the Light by Sharman Apt Russell (Bloomsbury Review, May/June/July 2009; http://www.bloomsburyreview.com/) this way: “I’ve been waiting for this book all my life…I am urged to awe that equals spiritual fervor in the presence of Nature.” What is it about Nature—Nature with a capitol N as depicted in Sharman’s new book—that moves us so? How can the

Connecting People with Nature, and Writers with Wordshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01843366084313026823noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6608134443246627504.post-12653882187424566482009-07-10T14:04:00.010-06:002009-12-12T13:48:35.599-07:00

Wine kept cool in dark cellars. Whiskey aging in oak barrels. Bread dough set out to rise on the counter. A chicken breast marinating in soy and ginger. The lacy white filaments of a mushroom root buried in damp compost. A poem fleshed out, then tucked away in a drawer. The germinating seed of a short story. The landscape of a novel unfurling after a dormant winter. All these things do better

Connecting People with Nature, and Writers with Wordshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01843366084313026823noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6608134443246627504.post-49471071872080156592009-05-25T11:16:00.009-06:002009-12-10T11:49:35.418-07:00

Plant the Seeds of Intention The dog days of summer, when Sirius, the “dog star,” rises and sets with the sun, will soon be upon us. Hot sultry weather. Balmy nights. Screen doors and porch swings. Iced lemonade and fresh peach ice cream. The long sagas of our lives lived at a lazy pace. Sound like the summer of a by-gone era? For many of us, there is nothing slow or lazy about summer. Fall

Connecting People with Nature, and Writers with Wordshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01843366084313026823noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6608134443246627504.post-58035024700050815642009-05-01T11:22:00.024-06:002009-12-10T11:13:23.599-07:00

In some ways, choosing to write only about the few times in Walking Nature Home where Susan Tweit writes about her mother is like describing a single sea shell when the entire ocean stretches before you. So I urge you to journey on your own into the tide-deep waters of this memoir. You will find an intimate world inhabited by much more than a single shell. Explore her author's notes. You'll

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Ten years ago today our 16-year-old son Matt wandered the ponderosa forests of Wyoming’s Bear Lodge Mountains near our ranch with a twelve-gauge shotgun, a couple of apples, deer jerky, a few sandwiches, and two hunting buddies. It was opening day of wild turkey season. 400 miles south, on this same day, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold terrorized and killed 12 students and one teacher at

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Note: This essay first appeared in Kathleen Jo Ryan's photographic essay collection WRITING DOWN THE RIVER: INTO THE HEART OF THE GRAND CANYON (winner of the Willa Award, Northland Publishing, Flagstaff, AZ, 1997; foreward by Gretel Ehrlich). “In the Canyon, you will hear the voices of our ancestors,” whispered my only sister from her home on the Big Island of Hawaii. “The River will be a good

Connecting People with Nature, and Writers with Wordshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01843366084313026823noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6608134443246627504.post-66198071486737128072009-03-11T21:28:00.008-06:002009-03-12T10:04:54.103-06:00

Last year’s Westwater Canyon River Writing & Sculpting Journey for Women with guest Pueblo artist Roxanne Swentzell and her daughter, esteemed artist Rose B. Simpson, inspired poetry and sculpture. This year, some of the same women are returning. Others, new to the adventure, will experience it for the first time. This time, we'll spend six days in ancient Cataract Canyon in Canyonlands National

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Rock 'n Ride claims to be the website for "all things horses." They might be right. I stumbled onto the site about a month ago and was immediately drawn in. According to the home page, "Rock 'n Ride is a place for profiles, forums, articles, videos, blogs, etc....a community of horse people sharing and exchanging ideas." I sent the publisher an email and the next thing I knew, she wanted to

Connecting People with Nature, and Writers with Wordshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01843366084313026823noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6608134443246627504.post-87527858385332827532009-02-11T21:10:00.006-07:002009-12-10T17:03:45.172-07:00

Last Thursday, February 5th, Rocky Mountain National Park began their new culling program to thin the Park's elk herd. Sharpshooters will be used to thin about 100 animals from the herds this year, which if allowed to overgraze might destroy many of the Park’s aspens and willows. That same day, in response to safety concerns when a 14-year-old had to fight off a coyote in the Denver metro area,

Connecting People with Nature, and Writers with Wordshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01843366084313026823noreply@blogger.com18tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6608134443246627504.post-66929005174119982902009-02-03T15:03:00.016-07:002009-12-10T17:23:34.947-07:00

Mike and Kathy Gear, authors of a gazillion novels and owners of the Red Canyon Bison Ranch in Wyoming, just received the Bison Producer of the Year Award at the National Western Stock Show in Denver. Their latest book, People of the Thunder, made the New York Times bestseller list within four days of release. Kathleen is a former state historian and archaeologist for Wyoming, Nebraska and

Connecting People with Nature, and Writers with Wordshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01843366084313026823noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6608134443246627504.post-50111818761828760552009-01-29T12:29:00.010-07:002009-12-10T10:34:37.410-07:00

Word is out that the Obama girls will continue making their own beds and doing chores at the White House, just like they did back home in Chicago. Maybe they’ll take turns feeding the family dog and taking their new pet for bathroom breaks on the White House lawn. I hope so. I hope they even have to scoop a little poop. Kids need outdoor chores. We all do. The only time I didn’t have outdoor

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Yesterday's Entertainment section of Time.com features the article "Books Unbound" (by Chris Jackson/Getty). The story starts with a true Cinderella-like parable about unknown author Lisa Genova's novel Still Alice. Unable to interest an agent or publishing house in the novel, Lisa finally forked over $450 and had iUniverse publish it. Like Cinderella, Lisa's story has a happy ending. "Genova

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Dot #1. Last night, I went to hear Temple Grandin (university professor and autistic animal behavior guru) speak to a packed crowd at the Tattered Cover Book Store in Denver. She's on tour for her new book, Animals Make Us Human, just released by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Dot #2. In response to a question from the audience about the meaning of "organic" meat, Dr. Grandin posed an interesting

Connecting People with Nature, and Writers with Wordshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01843366084313026823noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6608134443246627504.post-10203701103324278352009-01-04T09:14:00.009-07:002010-05-19T08:36:53.484-06:00

National and local media may be focused on dire predictions for 2009, but last night at the Boettcher Concert Hall (Denver Center for the Performing Arts), Three Dog Night, accompanied by the Colorado Symphony Orchestra, sang to an enthusiastic if not slightly grey crowd. Their final song, "Joy to the World," had us all standing, clapping, and "dancing to the music." Well, at least as much as

Connecting People with Nature, and Writers with Wordshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01843366084313026823noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6608134443246627504.post-79926194832337156852008-12-23T09:23:00.006-07:002010-08-02T11:59:23.809-06:00

IN THE MEADOW where our dog loves to run, you'll find slash piles of deadfall - broken limbs, twigs, branches - piled in neat mounds awaiting snow deep enough to make burning the debris safe. Gathering the wood may seem like work, and for the volunteers who do it, it is. But it's also child's play, reminding us of when we built forts from discarded lumber, or pretended to be beavers, piling

Connecting People with Nature, and Writers with Wordshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01843366084313026823noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6608134443246627504.post-13107792753749187372008-12-04T14:37:00.006-07:002009-12-10T19:25:59.929-07:00

"How does a gardener go about learning the raw truth of a place?" Wendy Johnson asks in Chapter One of Gardening at the Dragon’s Gate. "Every spot has a voice, a particular taste, a breath of wind unique to itself, a shadow, a presence. The best gardeners I know slow way down in order to receive the tidings of the land they are bound to work." I met Wendy Johnson this summer through Natalie

Connecting People with Nature, and Writers with Wordshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01843366084313026823noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6608134443246627504.post-10709298898310703692008-11-09T19:13:00.009-07:002009-12-10T19:30:44.902-07:00

October was a busy month. A good month. Beautiful fall colors and warm fall temperatures. Highlights included a symposium in Denver, and hosting Julia, a writer from northern Colorado, for a 3-day writing retreat here in Mt. Vernon. If you'd like more information on these private, one-on-one retreats, please send me a note. The following week, I presented at the 3-day "Women Writing West"

Connecting People with Nature, and Writers with Wordshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01843366084313026823noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6608134443246627504.post-43480135535122998002008-10-13T08:59:00.007-06:002009-12-16T20:09:22.852-07:00

When people ask me where I now live, I usually tell them I live in a rustic mountain community west of Denver. Which I do. Sometimes I tell them I live in Mount Vernon Country Club, which is also true. But the term "country club" can be misleading. I love this place. I love the people who live here. The old stone club house, though it's been remodeled many times, still sits perched atop

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Sometimes we meet kindred spirits face to face. Sometimes we meet them between the pages of a book. And we almost always recognize it when we do, because usually they share a similar vision of the world, maybe even how we wish the world could be. I recently had the opportunity to read an advance copy of Susan J. Tweit's new book, Walking Nature Home: A Love Story (forthcoming March, 2009,

Connecting People with Nature, and Writers with Wordshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01843366084313026823noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6608134443246627504.post-4735479481640074142008-09-22T10:37:00.002-06:002008-11-16T16:20:25.317-07:00

Michael Stelzner, author of the book and blog by the same name, Writing White Papers, has named his selection of the top blog sites for writers.White paper, according to Stelzner's book, is a kind of hybrid for the business market - not truly a persuasive essay, but far more than a dry "justs the facts, Ma'am" kind of document. Essentially, it's a literary sales pitch, somewhere between a

Connecting People with Nature, and Writers with Wordshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01843366084313026823noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6608134443246627504.post-22504782289486180042008-09-16T13:23:00.007-06:002009-12-12T19:48:20.925-07:00

Twenty-one women just spent five days floating down the Colorado River through Westwater Canyon together. Artists, writers, sisters, river guides, friends, cohorts. We were the lucky ones. I say that every year, when one of my River Writing Journeys for Women launches and I enter the world of water and rock - red canyon walls, brilliant blue skies, smooth green water, ancient black rocks, dark

Connecting People with Nature, and Writers with Wordshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01843366084313026823noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6608134443246627504.post-51919398245135146802008-08-26T15:57:00.008-06:002009-12-12T19:55:15.113-07:00

Last weekend in Steamboat Springs I appeared on a local television station, Steamboat TV18, and then at the local bookstore for a reading. One of the best things about Steamboat Springs is Erica, owner of Epilogue Book Company, an independent bookstore with a great collection of western literature. Erica, thank you for welcoming me to Steamboat! I also met a few of the local personalities and

Connecting People with Nature, and Writers with Wordshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01843366084313026823noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6608134443246627504.post-65647170095441595772008-08-20T13:27:00.005-06:002009-12-12T20:01:58.328-07:00

Yesterday morning, as the sun crested the high, snow-frosted mountains to the west, I hiked to my favorite meadow. No one else was on the trail that meanders uphill through the ponderosas and spruce. As I came into the clearing I heard the rattling of antlers. Seventy yards away stood nine bull elk, making their way from the meadow up into the higher country. One stood on an uplift of rocks,

Connecting People with Nature, and Writers with Wordshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01843366084313026823noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6608134443246627504.post-41388250611349993692008-08-20T09:29:00.009-06:002009-12-16T20:15:00.335-07:00

Two weeks ago I met a stranger for lunch. I had come across a link to his site on the American Cowgirl magazine site and was intrigued. A few years ago, Jim Owen wrote the book Cowboy Ethics: What Wall Street Can Learn from the Code of the West. I sent Jim a note and the next day he picked up the phone and called. As synchronicity would have it, he was flying into Denver the next day and offered

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I was in Santa Fe a couple of A few weeks ago speaking at the “Writing Women’s Lives” conference and had the chance to hear Leigh Haber give an hour-long update on what’s happening in the world of New York publishing. I was impressed enough with Leigh to want to share what I learned. My notes were hastily scribbled, so I apologize in advance for any inaccuracies. They are mine, not Leigh’s.

Connecting People with Nature, and Writers with Wordshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01843366084313026823noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6608134443246627504.post-68288218685460166742008-08-12T10:37:00.013-06:002009-12-16T20:13:27.132-07:00

Last Friday night, Dolma Kyab came to our home in Mt. Vernon to watch the Opening Ceremonies of the Olympics. Dolma is from Tibet. Seven years ago, he sought political asylum in the United States, leaving his wife, children, and family in Tibet. In his homeland, he had been a high school teacher and was enrolled in law school. Now, living in a small town in Utah, he works for a landscaping

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Last Monday, in a small community about 15 miles southwest of Denver, a man and wife left the French doors to their master bedroom slightly ajar with their two dogs sleeping on the floor beside them.At about 4:30 in the morning, a mountain lion walked into the bedroom. The woman woke at the sound, got out of bed, and in the darkness made out a shape. "There's an animal in here," she said to her

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When the ancient Greek hero Hercules engaged in mortal combat with Antaeus, the son of Neptune and Terra - Ocean and Earth – he almost lost the battle. Every time the body of Antaeus came in contact with the Mother Earth, his strength was mysteriously renewed. Mighty Hercules slew Antaeus only because he managed to wrestle the giant’s body from the land, lifting him away from his source of

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Impromptu Sharing. Here's a few fun links to check out if you want to view some photos and read a bit more on June's "Saddle Up! Horseback Writing Retreat" in Wyoming, and some of the past "River Writing Journeys for Women." American Cowgirl Magazine (a great magazine and a short blog from me - scroll UP to see photo the handsome little BLM mustang I rode) Giving You a Voice (scroll DOWN 'til

Connecting People with Nature, and Writers with Wordshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01843366084313026823noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6608134443246627504.post-64479369334884649912008-08-04T08:54:00.001-06:002008-11-16T16:29:35.276-07:00

Today, with the Olypmics in Beijing only four days away, I think of China, and my mother's love of this mysterious and exotic land. Her childhood memories cloaked her during years of debilitating cancer as an adult. Often times, they were the only protection she had.I have just painted the dining room in the mountain cabin that used to be my mother's, but which is now mine, a Chinese cherry red.

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Since living in Santa Fe, my partner John and I have been attending a very friendly, small church, the Center for Spiritual Living. Last Sunday was Mother’s Day. Our handsome, boisterous and intelligent Reverend Bernardo was taking a much-needed weekend off and so a guest speaker had been appointed. As always, the opening session included an invitation for visitors and guests to stand and

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