Plant-Based Lifestyle Epiphanies

Close Calls

November 15, 2016

Is a wave still a wave after it throws itself onto the shore, and then recedes, flattened, back into the surf? The water is but a few inches deep, and on this particular day, filled with foam. It’s early November, almost noon. We are walking on a state beach at low tide. The sun has […]

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Two Sunsets and a Moonrise

September 21, 2016

A few years back when I still lived on the Palouse, Romeo and I were taking a walk on the trail at the edge of the University of Idaho. It was the time when my chapbook If A Sparrow had been selected as a finalist in the 2012 Open Poetry Chapbook Competition at Finishing Line […]

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I Wonder. . .

September 5, 2016

  During an astrological reading, I used to be fond of telling my clients that to access a particularly destiny-oriented point in their charts, they had to be willing to take a leap. The way I illustrated what that leap might feel like was to use Cinderella as an example. She had to be willing […]

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A Watched Pot (And A Shout Out To Straight Up Food)

August 4, 2016

  It was a hot and muggy day in northeast Portland. There was no way I could prepare our sweet potatoes the way I thought I like them best–roasted or baked in the oven. But Romeo and I needed some sweet potatoes, so I fell back on my blogger friend Cathy Fisher’s simple tried and […]

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On The Street

January 16, 2016

In the short time I’ve lived in my neighborhood, it’s given me a lot of vivid lessons, both in its history, and in the now of its very sharp contrasts. Earlier in the year I expressed some preliminary insights into the experiences I was having in a couple of previous posts. Here are a few […]

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Gateway to the Sixties

January 12, 2016

The last time I can remember seeing the ocean, my son was just 8 years old. We had only been in Moscow a couple of years. My friend Joe knew I missed the ocean, so he suggested a weekend camping trip out to the coast. Brave man that he was, he was also willing to let […]

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A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

December 8, 2015

  When I first met the neighbor who is building this nifty zero impact house, she told me about an online community called Nextdoor. I signed up for it in my neighborhood, but haven’t posted anything, preferring instead to read posts that caught my eye and learn from them. On our morning walks, Romeo and […]

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A Different Kind of “Before” and “After”

November 3, 2015

  Recently a group I’m connected to on Facebook posted a mad flurry of “before” and “after” photos of folks successfully eating the low fat plant-based way. All of these involved weight loss, lots of them very dramatic. What’s going on?  I wondered to myself Where is all the food?–since that’s often my favorite part […]

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Kissing the Earth (And No Bake Stuffed Summer Squash)

July 21, 2015

It was late March, the very beginning of Spring, and I had just planted some red russian kale seeds in the one patch of dirt getting direct sunlight at this early angle in front of the studio in the backyard of the house on Van Buren Street. It was unseasonably warm. I had just finished […]

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Turning the Tables, Part Two (And an African Stew Turned Salad)

June 12, 2015

Sometimes when it seems like everything in life is completely up in the air, the best thing to do is gather round a table with those who help us stay grounded. I’ve always loved the phrase “gather round” because it so succinctly captures of being surrounded by a loving essence and holding it in the […]

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