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I’m thrilled to be leading a free online workshop with the Ohio Arts Council, in partnership with Riffe Gallery’s newest exhibition. We’ll be writing about beauty, anger, despair, and the vital role of art in changing our world. It’s coming up this Thursday (Feb 3rd). If you’re interested, sign up here.

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I adore Cremaine Booker’s exquisite recording of Faure’s “Pavane.” It’s heavenly in every way – from production values to his expressive interpretation. Pretty sure I’ve listened to this a dozen times. It’s currently my main earworm.   

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This morning I learned that 65 species of animals laugh. A few years ago I wrote Are You An Anthropocentrist? with examples of our fellow creatures making tools, doing math, demonstrating altruism, and so much more. Pretty sure laughter is just the iceburg edge of what we don’t yet recognize…

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I’m still thinking about a recent conversation with my friend Margaret. We discovered we’re both feeling the same exhaustion, confusion, and awe as if we’ve been communing on some nearby yet intangible realm. “It seems to me,” she said, “as if we’re all experiencing what the other experiences on some level.”

I told her that gave me a leap of hope. We as a global community are going through every bit of this together – disease, personal upheaval, uncertainty, and the ever-increasing perils of climate change – even if some are suffering far much more acutely than others. Maybe the anger and selfishness that’s so often in the news these days are coping mechanisms some people resort to when they’re trying to put boundaries between themselves and the sheer weight of compassion that’s trying to force its way in.     

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I’ve been in a writer’s slump lately, so it’s a delight to have a poem published in Stirrings as well as a poem in As It Ought To Be.

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I’m gratefully distracted by a stack of wonderful library books including Ari Honarvar’s A Girl Called Rumi, Joanna Macy’s memoir Widening Circles, and Barbara Brown Taylor’s An Altar In The World.

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Another song in my head lately is the beautifully honest “Hope Comes” by Abigail and Shaun Bengson. As Abigail sings, “Hope comes from the center of the hurt.” Yes, yes indeed.