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A Guardian Spirit (Short Fiction)

November 24, 2013 by A.M. Laissig 1 Comment

“Daisy, come quick. He’s back.” The small, shaggy-bearded man danced a few steps in excitement.

A woman moved her girth sideways, through the screen door, letting it slap shut. Frizzy dark-rooted blond hair framed her splotchy sagging face. She snatched the binoculars and trained them on a distant stand of trees growing across Cape Falcon. [Read More]

Filed Under: Fiction, Nature, Spirit, ULE Tagged With: Bald Eagle

Beyond Milk Duds and Fear of Death

October 31, 2013 by Watt Childress 9 Comments

Tradition says this is a time of year when matter and spirit mingle. The boundary between darkness and light becomes sheer now, at the end of harvest.

[Read More]

Filed Under: Culture, Spirit, ULE Tagged With: All Saints' Day, All Souls' Day, Day of the Dead, Halloween, Michael Burgess

Happy 5774!

September 5, 2013 by Rabbi Bob 4 Comments

tashlikh 2013

The seagulls swooped in immediately to consume our breadcrumb sins, and just like that, we were cleansed! We had just completed the Tashlikh ceremony to conclude the first Rosh Hashanah morning and afternoon service on the North Coast in 50 years, after a wonderful evening service the night before.

[Read more]

Filed Under: Culture, Spirit, ULE

For Farah’s mom (whom I haven’t met)

September 5, 2013 by Jennifer Childress 7 Comments

I met your daughter the other day,
New friend to my Willa,
At a gathering for new college students.
Our girl will be far away.
Your Farah is farther from you.

[Read More]

Filed Under: Culture, Poetry, Politics, Spirit, ULE Tagged With: Motherhood, Peace, Syria

Peninsulas and Islands: A Tale for Coastal Communities

August 26, 2013 by Margaret Hammitt-McDonald 5 Comments

Charles Le Guin’s novel, North Coast, is a peninsula of a story. Set in the fictional community of Bridger Bay, the protagonists—Kim, the narrator, and Steve, who becomes his closest friend and briefly his lover—reach out between individuals, cultures, and elements.

[Read More]

Filed Under: Books, Culture, Featured Writing, Spirit, ULE Tagged With: Cannon Beach, Charles Le Guin

Lifting hearts is as important as fundraising to our community

August 21, 2013 by Glenna Gray 20 Comments

I moved to the Oregon Coast ten years ago after visiting to participate in a week-long painting workshop. During that visit I fell in love with the natural beauty of this place, the kind and progressive people I met, and the air of inclusion I found in the organizations, activities and events in the area. This was quite a change from the atmosphere in the California town where I had been living. [Read More]

Filed Under: Art, Culture, Featured Writing, Spirit, ULE

How the World Can Be the Way It Is

August 13, 2013 by Rabbi Bob 1 Comment

hagen

I’m reading a book by this title, by Steve Hagen, published in 1995. The book has recently been revised and retitled Why the World Doesn’t Seem to Make Sense, published by Sentient Publications. Hagen is a Buddhist teacher with lots of credentials. Anyway, the book so far has been pretty repetitive, basically saying that Reality (with a capital R, the real thing) is different from what we think it is.
[Read more]

Filed Under: Books, Culture, Entertainment, Nature, Spirit, ULE

Into Hellfire Via Portland Frost

July 1, 2013 by Rick Bonn 1 Comment

From the first line, I love this book, and it’s not even the first line but the quote before the first line that jump starts the whole thing. See, it’s Flannery O’Connor.

I’m haunted by O’Connor. This southern woman with pheasants on her farm who died before forty and wrote short stories about serial killers shooting good Christian grandmas and four-year-old boys drowning themselves in baptismal rivers. [Read More]

Filed Under: Books, Entertainment, Spirit, ULE Tagged With: A Prayer for Owen Meany, A Very Minor Prophet, Ayn Rand, Flannery O'Connor, Frederick Buechner, James Bernard Frost, John Irving

The Burial Ground, After the Battle

April 21, 2013 by Margaret Hammitt-McDonald 2 Comments

The dead are lined up according to size and type,
as neatly arranged as clothing in a drawer,
records on a shelf,
bullets in a chamber.
A quiescent machine waits to lift them,
its steel mouth clamping one, nipping at mossy skin
and flaccid lichens.

[Read More]

Filed Under: Nature, Poetry, Spirit, ULE

Little and Big: a story about a town

April 5, 2013 by Ursula K. Le Guin 7 Comments

Once upon a time there was a little town by a big ocean. It was a wise little town. Long ago it had looked at its dunes and beaches, its big trees, its marsh where the red-wing blackbirds sang, its little streets and little grey shingle shops and houses, and said: This is all good.

[Read More]

Filed Under: Art, Culture, Featured Writing, Spirit, ULE Tagged With: Cannon Beach, Oregon Coast, Ursula K. Le Guin, Ursula Le Guin

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More Gleanings

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

My November 2022 Ballot Choices

November 6, 2022 By Rabbi Bob 1 Comment

One Cup of Tea

November 15, 2020 By Lila Danielle 1 Comment

Additional Wisdom...

Readers’ Comments

  • Watt Childress April 28, 2025 at 11:48 am on Uncle Zech’s Amphibious GestaltAlso, you inspired me to insert a sentence crediting Hoyt Axton with the song's genesis. Many thanks!
  • Watt Childress April 27, 2025 at 10:55 pm on Uncle Zech’s Amphibious GestaltThank you kindly Jim for reading this and commenting. I enjoyed your review of "Sun House" by David James Duncan,
  • Jim Stewart April 27, 2025 at 8:26 pm on Uncle Zech’s Amphibious GestaltNice! Hoyt Axton wrote the Jeremiah song and sang it with great gusto. Life wanders on and I'm still glad
  • Watt Childress April 26, 2025 at 3:51 pm on Uncle Zech’s Amphibious GestaltDuring spring I think of you, and all the May Pole celebrations you've organized over the years. So grateful for
  • Watt Childress April 26, 2025 at 3:18 pm on Uncle Zech’s Amphibious GestaltIn my dreams I sing to the multitudes, with a voice as clear and sweet and churchy as Lou Reed.
More Comments...

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