Category Archives: More
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In memory of Heather Catto Kohout
As many of you know, Heather Catto Kohout, whose idea Madroño Ranch: A Center for Writing, Art, and the Environment was, died on October 17, 2014, nearly three years after her initial diagnosis with metastatic cancer. Her obituary gives only … Continue reading
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Tagged Anne Lamott, David Sedaris, Eckhard Tolle, Emmylou Harris, Joni Mitchell, Madroño Ranch, Michael Jackson, Prince, Walt Whitman
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The first annual Madroño Ranch residents’ reunion
Two Saturdays ago some twenty former residents and members of our Advisory Board gathered at our house in Austin for what we hope will be the first of many annual “Resident Reunions.” We envisioned this gathering as a chance for … Continue reading
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Tagged Austin, community, Madroño Ranch, Oliver Sacks, poetry, residents, Sasha West, visual arts, writing
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Repairing the world: the Beatles, Alaskan mountain goats, and Asiatic cheetahs
At the annual conference of the Alliance of Artists Communities, which we attended in San Jose, California, two weeks ago, I had the good fortune to attend a session with Joshua Wolf Shenk, author of Lincoln’s Meloncholy: How Depression Challenged … Continue reading
Mind the gap: ghosts, trees, and Goodbye to a River
There’s a 5,000-pound ghost hovering over Austin’s Lady Bird Lake, the remains of a 35-foot cedar elm painted white and hoisted onto a shaft sunk into the water. Entitled Thirst, this collaborative project memorializes the estimated 301 million trees in … Continue reading
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Tagged bison, Charles Goodnight, Comanches, drought, ghosts, John Graves, Point Reyes National Seashore, San Antonio
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This and not that
Last Sunday we attended a dharma teaching at Green Gulch Farm, on the western flanks of Mount Tamalpais, above Muir Beach. It was the kind of morning for which this part of California is famous: foggy and cool with sudden … Continue reading
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Tagged Buddhism, Christianity, Judaism, Marin County, Nicene Creed, Point Reyes National Seashore, Seton Cove, W. B. Yeats
11 Comments
The Wild Ram of the Mountains
Okay, show of hands. How many of you knew that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (better known as the Mormons) played a prominent role in the settlement of the Texas Hill Country? Don’t feel bad; I had … Continue reading
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Tagged Bandera TX, Civil War, Fredericksburg TX, German Texans, Gillespie County, Handbook of Texas, Lyman Wight, Mormons, Sam Houston, Texas Hill Country
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Poetry and the pelvic bowl
Some say you’re lucky If nothing shatters it. But then you wouldn’t Understand poems or songs, You’d never know Beauty comes from loss. It’s deep inside every person: A tear tinier Than a pearl or thorn. It’s one of the … Continue reading
The cliff of the unknown: desire, tolerance, and identity
“The secret history of sex is not a story of fulfilled desires; it’s a story of expectations dropped off the cliff of the unknown.” (Nathan Heller) This is not a blog about sex, but this sentence stayed with me long … Continue reading
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Tagged Andrew Solomon, identity, Krista Tippett, Lent, Lewis Hyde, Parker Palmer, Stephen Sondheim, tolerance
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Jellyfish and revelation
Once again, it’s the time of year when we ponder endings and beginnings, when we hunker down for the long nights, wonder where this year has disappeared to, and devise all sorts of convoluted theories about what is to come. … Continue reading
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Tagged Elaine Pagels, jellyfish, John of Patmos, revelation, science, Shin Kubota
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Microbiomes and individual identity: Alexander Pope and the archbishop of Canterbury
I learned a startling fact the other day while listening to Fresh Air’s Terry Gross interviewing Dr. Nathan Wolfe, author of The Viral Storm, a disconcerting account of his research into pandemics like avian flu and AIDS that leap from … Continue reading
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Tagged Alexander Pope, Enlightenment, Human Microbiome Project, individualism, Nathan Wolfe, Rowan Williams, Terry Gross, Wendell Berry
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