Love wholeheartedly, be surprised, give thanks and praise – then you will discover the fullness of your life.
~Br. David Steindl-Rast
Hello from the Bogs
Category: Beginnings
Finding grace in the ordinary
The truth is, however, that there is nothing very “normal” about nature. Once upon a time there were no flowers at all.
~ Loren Eiseley
A Monday meander: As the sun rises on another calendar year
In the winter I am writing about there was much darkness. Darkness of nature, darkness of event, darkness of spirit, the sprawling darkness of not knowing. We speak of the light of reason, I would speak here of the darkness of the world and the light of… but I don’t know what to call it, maybe hope, maybe faith, but not a shaped faith, only, say, a gesture or continuum of gestures… Because my work day begins early, it begins in winter in the huge, tense blackness of the world.
— Mary Oliver
Continue reading “A Monday meander: As the sun rises on another calendar year”
Rebellion or resistance?
We need a different strategy—one that doesn’t just burn, but smolders, spreads, takes root. One that knows endurance is its own kind of rebellion.
Soft Rebellion is the mycelial strategy of weaving beneath the surface, unsettling rigid structures with slow, persistent entanglement. It does not meet violence with a mirrored fist but with the supple intelligence of the willow, bending just enough to redirect the force and send it spiraling elsewhere. Soft Rebellion is the way water carves stone—not through brute force but through patient insistence, through intimate knowledge of the cracks, through the whisper of time.
Its strategies are those of the trickster, the lover, the root and the reed. It listens before it moves, feeling into the hidden weaknesses of oppressive systems, understanding that no empire, no ideology, no monolith is without its fractures. It knows that control is a brittle thing, and that softness—fluid, adaptable, decentralized—is far harder to extinguish than steel.
Soft rebellion moves through stories, through the slow embroidery of alternative worlds into the fabric of the present. It cultivates beauty in places of despair, weaving small sanctuaries of aliveness that offer refuge and reimagine what is possible. It disrupts through delight, through care, through humor that turns the blade of power back on itself. It does not fight on the battlefield chosen by the oppressor; it shifts the ground beneath their feet.
To rebel softly is to refuse to be reduced. It is to remain tender in a world that would harden you, to insist on connection where division is sown. It is to plant seeds in the ruins, knowing that even in the shadow of collapse, life finds a way to creep through the cracks and bloom.
…
Soft rebellion is the mycelial antidote to the brittle, crumbling monolith of power. In the face of a slow-moving coup—where democracy is gutted in broad daylight, where fear is the chosen currency of control—soft rebellion does not play by the rules of the oppressor. It moves beneath, between, beyond. It resists not with brute force, but with the cunning of ecosystems, the resilience of roots breaking concrete.
Soft rebellion understands that the systems tightening their grip on power want us exhausted, divided, reactive. It knows that despair is an instrument of control, that urgency is often a trap. So instead, it cultivates deep, embodied resistance—rebellion that does not just fight against but builds towards.
~ Shannon Willis, Soft Rebellion
How to love the world: Spring edition
Enumerating the gifts you’ve received creates a sense of abundance, the knowing that you already have what you need. Recognizing “enoughness” is a radical act in an economy that is always urging us to consume more…. Ecopsychologists have shown that the practice of gratitude puts brakes on hyper-consumption. The relationships nurtured by gift thinking diminish our sense of scarcity and want. In that climate of sufficiency, our hunger for more abates and we take only what we need, in respect for the generosity of the giver…
If our first response to the receipt of gifts is gratitude, then our second is reciprocity: to give a gift in return. What could I give these plants in return for their generosity? I could return the gift with a direct response, like weeding or bringing water or offering a song of thanks that sends appreciation out on the wind. I could make habitat for the solitary bees that fertilized those fruits. Or maybe I could take indirect action, like donating to my local land trust so that more habitat for the gift givers will be saved, speaking at a public hearing on land use, or making art that invites others into the web of reciprocity. I could reduce my carbon footprint, vote on the side of healthy land, advocate for farmland preservation, change my diet, hang my laundry in the sunshine. We live in a time when every choice matters.
~ Robin Wall Kimmerer, The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World (Scribner, 2024), 11–12, 13–14
A Monday meander: Capturing spring
Morii*: Strange how strong the instinct is: to see something incredible and reach for a camera. As if you’re trying to lend it some credibility. To prove that it’s real. That I was here.
We live our lives in moments: in those rare experiences we stop to notice and carry with us, in the hopes of stringing them together, trying to tell a story. But even in the moment, you can already feel it start to fade. So you try to capture it and convert it into something that will last longer than just a flash.
A photo can feel more real than its subject. It lets you build a version of the world that you can take with you. A world flattened and simple. A world that doesn’t change—that fits in the frame. A little brighter and more colorful, with everything under control…”
(*From memento mori, a small reminder of your mortality + torii, traditional Japanese gates that mark the threshold between the profane and the sacred. Pronounced “moh-ree.”)
~ from The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows by John Koenig
Emerging
We shall awaken from our dullness and rise vigorously toward justice. If we fall in love with creation deeper and deeper, we will respond to its endangerment with passion.
– Hildegard of Bingen
Everything that is in the heavens, on earth, and under the earth is penetrated with connectedness, penetrated with relatedness.
— More from Hildegard
breezes at dawn 