The Unifying Power of Place
There’s great comfort to being in a place where – even in solitude – you’re not alone. When no other humans are at my extended family’s rustic camp, I’m still surrounded. The picnic table,...
Category: Sense of Place
The Dangers of Hierarchical Thinking
“The old Lakota was wise. He knew that man’s heart away from nature becomes hard; he knew that lack of respect for growing living things soon led to lack of respect for humans too.”...
Pointless Pollution, Maddening Noise
It’s a gorgeous summer morning, fragrant with the scents of lilac and abelia, but my office windows are shut. A swarm of leaf blowers has descended just down the road, generating plumes of dust...
Field-grown Perennials?
Shopping didn’t used to require a glossary. But now there’s a profusion of labels like “pasture butter” and “field-grown perennial” that require translation. Consider the latter term: what portion of the plant’s life is...
Sharing a Sense of Wonder
With all its fits and starts – unexpected April snows and fierce Nor’easters, spring has finally sprung. For southerly locales, the March equinox may herald the season’s arrival. But here, at least this year,...
A Climate to Thrive
Mount Desert Island is a long way from the corridors of power, and what’s happening in Augusta and Washington holds scant promise of fostering a healthier environment or economy. So a growing number of...
Watching the Climate Change
“We have only just begun to feel the repercussions of climate change: we are today in a position likely to be envied by future generations.” – Cornelia F. Mutel, A Sugar Creek Chronicle The...
Seeing Trees Whole
“If you could spend, as I did, the sweeter part of four good years in that forest, scanning a sea of treetops for a twist of smoke, walking beneath that canopy of leaves in...
