After the longest night, I arose to a flock of white pelicans soaring in the pink light of the latest sunrise of the year. My heart soared with them. I gathered the Christmas cards written during the pause of the winter solstice while listening to heavenly voices singing Gregorian Chant, put on a down vest and walked through the woods to the mailbox. I was reminded of New England by the chirping chickadees, their black caps against the red maple leaves. I breathed in the cool

Kristi Noem, Homeland "Her dog killing-was-bad-but-to-really-understand-her-consider-the-goat  . . . "As Noem wrapped up her bloody tale in the book, [No Going Back] she wrote that being a leader is often “messy” and “ugly.”.. “Walking back up to the yard, I spotted our billy goat,” Noem wrote. The nameless goat’s only sin in that moment was being in Noem’s field of view. In the book, Noem tried to justify her snap decision to kill the goat by writing that it “loved to ch

St Augustine photo by Charlene Something happens We pause. For the next three weeks, approaching the winter solstice, the in-between will be elongated as days grow darker, earlier and earlier. We may grumble and bemoan darkness descending while turning on lights around the house by 4 or 5 pm. Or, we may relish the chance to draw the blinds against the world. Twenty days and nights can feel long wh

When I begin my longish list of what I am most grateful for in my longish life, music rises up to the top. It is the antidote; the lament; the grace note needed when the world spins out of control. Next are words, not lyrical, necessarily, but any written word that comes from some mysterious realm where actual words are never spoken. You know the place where the unsayable speaks to your heart in words only you hear? Once, I heard, This pain is not physical , as I stepped int

This week the Canadian Government will take a vote on the Citizenship Act. I have been following closely. Bill C-3 is the latest iteration seeking to allow so-called "Lost Canadians" to claim their citizenship. The tap root, if you will, is heritage: The root that connects families through lineage from one generation to the next. The current law limits that lineage to first generation Canadians. How do you limit lineage? Pas possible! The final vote by the Senate is in debate

Supermoon from St Augustine Florida and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated” ― Thomas Paine,

From the Greenwich Observatory, England In the 1950's, the reason given for "changing the clocks" twice a year, was the farmers needed more daylight. "The cows don't know what time it is!", said a long-time farmer after all these years. In the 1970's during a man-made "energy crisis", I rose early to get in long lines with my neighbors to buy my share of gasoline for the week. Daylight Savings, fell in line with saving energy by providing more daylight. Okay . . . if you say

For the Splendor of the Sky . . .* President Biden received his well-earned Lifetime Achievement Award with this caveat: "We are in dark times" in America. Dark times, especially, call for beauty. All we have to do is look up to the skies, and around us, to see that hope springs eternal. Cummer Museum of Art Garden Bald Eagle in the Sacred Tree *For the Beauty of the Earth https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4dNs6HtubA

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A graduation ceremony at Columbia University in New York City on Tuesday was filled with boos and chants of “Free Mahmoud” as students...

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This "New Hypocritical Version"* written on plain brown cardboard, mimicking the everyday street person's sign, speaks for that silent ...

A thousand people in the streets . . . Everyybody look what's goin' down . . . https://youtu.be/80_39eAx3z8?si=D14BBXVXYvFrNOoC&t=6 from...

An expert in authoritarian regimes, Sarah Kendzior captures the danger like this:   Authoritarianism is not merely a matter of state...

I am Franco-American. What does it mean to be a Franco-American? Let's just say, it's personal. My French Canadian grandparents, Memere,...