By Leslie Oh A weaving workshop on the Navajo Reservation bonds a mother and daughter and offers a lesson about how to live a balanced life. Mom and I breathed deeply four times in the cool shadow of Table Mesa. In the distance, a worn road led southward through the Navajo Reservation and northward to […]
By James Michael Dorsey A pilgrimage gone wrong. At first sight, the temple on the mountain seemed a folk tale come to life. On my journey through Burma, the gleaming temple on the rock that guards Mount Popa had become my challenge, my grail, my pilgrimage, and there it towered above me like a finger […]
By Erin Byrne The air is the region of the invisible. —John O’Donohue, Anam Ċara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom It is morning on the west coast of Ireland on a swath of pebbly beach with an emerald hillside and plateau off to the right. Cloudish sky, pewter water. Beyond the lapping of the waves […]
By Anne Sigmon We all call barbarous anything that is contrary to our own habits. ―Michel de Montaigne, The Compete Essays We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools. ― Martin Luther King Jr., speech in St. Louis, March 22, 1964 The front page pictured a lifeless Syrian child, dusty […]
By Steven Law Faced with a difficult life decision, he seeks solace in the wilderness. The air was cold and still, a skin-tightening astringent kiss from mother nature welcoming me back. And nothing moved. The precedent stillness before the storm. Like God pausing to wrap a pull cord around a tornado. It gave me a […]
By Darrin DuFord For one well-traveled Colombian chef, the culinary intersection of country and city is served with a side of 80s arena rock and a phantom mouthful of water hyacinth. The structure I’d just entered loosely counted as a building—part indoor, part outdoor, depending on how much light pierced the gaps in the zinc […]
By Brice Particelli Two friends, a leaky raft, and the Bronx River. We splurged on the raft. While the picture on the box clearly showed two young kids paddling a placid lake, it also boasted a “motor-mount fitting” for an engine. It was comforting to know that this raft at least pretended to be built for […]
By Kathy Harding They discover what they’re willing to risk for love. Buoyed by the brazen optimism of our new love affair, my Kiwi, Rob, and I cast ourselves adrift in a revelatory landscape, the South Island of New Zealand. I was 41 years old and desperate for a baby, he was a stranger from […]
By David Myles Robinson One of my favorite movie lines of all time was spoken by Walter Brennan’s character Eddie in To Have and Have Not: “Say, was you ever bit by a dead bee?” I can’t say exactly why that line resonated with me, especially since I’m not one of those guys who make […]
By Kevin Dimetres He was seeking a new level of travel. The reflection in the mirror was virtually unrecognizable; the spelling of my name remained obscure; what might happen next had become a perpetual mystery. Before I could make sense of it all, Burgundy-robed monks whisked me away, up a dusty spiral staircase, to their […]
