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Smart travel money helps care for places we love

January 6, 2026 by Watt Childress 1 Comment

OREGON’S NORTH COAST faces problems common to many destinations. Increasing demands on resources boosts momentum for heavy urban growth. Without careful management, this accelerates overcrowding and makes matters worse. [Read More]

Filed Under: Culture, Featured Writing, Politics

Uncle Zech’s Amphibious Gestalt

April 20, 2025 by Watt Childress 9 Comments

Cultures native to Turtle Island consider frogs to be among the “first people.” Could this be a way of acknowledging our elder kin in creation, animal relatives who might show us how to jump back from desolation?
[Read More]

Filed Under: Culture, Featured Writing, Song and Dance, Spirit Tagged With: Abomination of desolation, Drunk with the blood of the saints, In hoc signo vinces, Spring Peepers

Six Eras

February 27, 2025 by sam steidel 2 Comments

From up here, the little village packs in more and more till tempers rise. The brown old rock looms over hunters of tranquility, rare to find elsewhere. And peace…how they look for a moment of peace. We have enough to share.
[Read More]

Filed Under: Culture, Featured Writing Tagged With: Cannon Beach, Sam Steidel

Here Try Some of This Ointment

April 17, 2024 by Watt Childress 4 Comments

Imagine life where everyone pitches in with a mix of chores and creative leisure. One barely sees this balance from today’s towers of ranking prey.
[Read More]

Filed Under: Culture, Featured Writing, Poetry, Spirit, ULE Tagged With: Al-Eizariya, Appalachia, Bethany, Falafel, Isabel Wilkerson, Israel, Jesus, Knoxville, Mary, Nard, Origin, Palestine, Solomon, Spikenard

Exchanging gifts with Ursula

December 5, 2023 by Watt Childress 3 Comments

Le Guin’s writing has inspired me to question authority ever since my classmates and I read her work in school. [Read More]

Filed Under: Art, Books, Culture, Featured Writing Tagged With: Barb Knop, Brandon Ogilvie, Bruce St. Denis, Cannon Beach, Gary Hayes, Lisa Kerr, Nancy McCarthy, Ursula K. Le Guin

Watershed Folk

November 27, 2023 by Watt Childress Leave a Comment

Awareness of our common bond grows in these little events. Each gathering brings us a baby step closer to knowing how sacred this place is. [Read More]

Filed Under: Culture, Featured Writing, Spirit Tagged With: Cannon Beach, Ecola Creek, Salmon

The Last of Us to Look Back

October 28, 2023 by Cliff Taylor 2 Comments

You pull hard enough and you can break
a connection a lot of times.
How many hundreds of miles were we marched
down our Trail of Tears before some of
those connections to our corn snapped?
[Read More]

Filed Under: Culture, Featured Writing, Food, Plant Medicine, Poetry, Spirit Tagged With: Chief Standing Bear, Ponca, Trail of Tears

Open Letter for Creation’s Caregivers

June 19, 2023 by Watt Childress 5 Comments

Do echoes of knowledge persist in special landscapes even after wisdom-keepers die? Creation can inspire us to revive caring ways that mend broken bonds.

Filed Under: Culture, Nature, Spirit, ULE Tagged With: Cannon Beach, Clatsop-Nehalem Confederated Tribes, Creation Care, Grief, Talking-Stick

Swimming with the Words

April 24, 2023 by Watt Childress 4 Comments

How did it feel to Get Lit at the Beach after postponing the event for three years? Like refueling an empty tank, breaking a long fast, or coming up for air? The experience merits more than snappy similes.
[Read More]

Filed Under: Art, Books, Culture, Featured Writing Tagged With: Elise Hooper, Get Lit at the Beach, Lauren Kessler, Lyanda Haupt, Omar El Akkad, Terry Brooks

Old Goat Plunges into Another Year

January 6, 2023 by Watt Childress 7 Comments

Fifty winters after my emergence on earth I climbed up a dune and surveyed the beach below. Over a hundred primates were reveling near the frothy hoof of Neah-Kah-Nie Mountain.
[Read More]

Filed Under: Culture, Featured Writing, Spirit Tagged With: Capricorn, Jesus, Lamb Chop, New Year, Pan, Polar Plunge, winter rituals

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More Gleanings

Memoir

February 13, 2026 By Steven Mayer Leave a Comment

End of the Street

August 4, 2025 By Steven Mayer 2 Comments

Here Try Some of This Ointment

April 17, 2024 By Watt Childress 4 Comments

We are the Luminaries

August 8, 2023 By Watt Childress 2 Comments

Open Letter for Creation’s Caregivers

June 19, 2023 By Watt Childress 5 Comments

Additional Wisdom...

Readers’ Comments

  • R²
    January 7, 2026 at 7:19 am
    on Smart travel money helps care for places we love
    Couldn't agree with you more. We're dealing with that all right now trying to get the air museum in tillamook
  • Pam Wade
    December 6, 2025 at 8:29 am
    on Adventures with author Charles de Lint
    The first work I read by Charles de Lint was Greenmantle followed by Moonheart. Since then there has not been
  • Trudy
    October 8, 2025 at 2:42 pm
    on Hankering for Paradise: My Discovery of The Wave Crest Inn
    I stayed at the Wave Crest for a night in the late 70s. If I remember right, the cost was
  • K H
    September 24, 2025 at 8:09 am
    on The Genocide of the American Indian, and Their Refusal to Die
    This response is far from timely, I know. But in honor of the ancestors I thank you for helping us
  • Ronald Logan Buchansn
    September 22, 2025 at 12:35 am
    on Three Poems and a Mountain
    Logan, on my annual summer browsing at Jupitor's I read "Freewriting In A Parked Car" and instantly purchased your book.
More Comments...

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