The “Escape the thought police” game When I was a child of perhaps nine years old, my best friend, also named Debbie, and I used to play an odd game called “Escape the Thought Police.” Bear in mind that this was the mid-60s and though we were both reading at adult level by that age ..read more

Kim Heacox’s latest novel On Heaven’s Hill is a vividly written tale of healing and redemption through connection with nature in the wild rainforest of Southeast Alaska. It is a multi-layered story with complex and sympathetic characters—one of them a wolf, the courageous and clever young male Silver. Magic weaves itself throughout the narrative and several subplots about community and compassion ..read more

Once you’ve come near death from heat stroke, you will never be the same. Every year since 1982 the last days of July herald a creeping PTSD unsettledness that lurks at the boundary of my consciousness ..read more

I have a home I love in an environment I am deeply grieving ..read more

Meditation and prayer help, but even after 30+ years of practice I can’t currently seem to sustain the feeling of calm non-attachment the way I used to before times were so relentlessly hard ..read more

Full disclosure: I am a pluviophile. That means that I love rain, in all forms. I love monsoon downpours, steady rain pattering on the roof, misty seaside rains, even dull drizzles on endlessly gray days ..read more

Even as we enter the second year of a pandemic, the climate emergency continues unabated, with 2020 either setting a new record or tying for the warmest year on record, depending on who is measuring and their specific methods. Since the start of the pandemic we’ve seen record fires in Australia, California, and Siberia, record ..read more

In this pandemic year of repeated shrilling alarms of climate emergency, what are you grieving the most? As this strangest of years comes to a welcome close, I am finding that grief and gratitude are a paradox I must hold daily. Nine months into the particular nightmare of the pandemic, I still wake up each ..read more

In a way, climate change is really the ONLY issue. Because if we don’t get this one right and, at minimum, hold global heating to the 1.5 degrees C agreed on in in the non-binding Paris Accords, none of the other issues that progressives—or anyone else—care about are going to matter ..read more

As Hurricane Dorian slams into the Bahamas as a category 5 storm with sustained winds of 185 mph and gusts of 220 mph, I remember the opening scenes of an episode of Madam Secretary. When I tuned in, I was initially confused. We’re in the cockpit of a NASA plane flying into the violent eye ..read more