Notes On A Zen Life 12–4–2022 — Our modern culture focuses primarily on the light, on living and the joy of being alive. It only really accepts, to a large degree, white Christian heteronormative capitalist culture as the primary path toward happiness. This of course is ridiculous. …

The Beauty of an Incomplete Metamorphosis — The Meander 2 — Dragonflies and Damselflies are some of Nature’s most beautiful and elegant creatures. Their gossamer wings and acrobatic flights overshadow the hard work they do for the environment, as well as the essential roles they play in the balance of the ecology of wetland and freshwater landscapes. Dragonflies and Damselflies belong…

How bugs will save the world — The Meander 1 — Before I got into fly-fishing I wasn’t so crazy about bugs. As a farmer I’ve raised plenty of crops and livestock, and bugs usually just meant “some type of big problem”. As an outdoorsman bugs almost always just mean “some kind of big discomfort”. Even as a homeowner, bugs usually…

There are no overweight animals in the wild, only animals that have extra fat layers to survive. Here in the Midwest we like to joke about hibernating through the winter, but we don’t actually hibernate and we shouldn’t pretend that we do. Instead, we gorge ourselves on late-night lasagna, cookies…

Science and Spirituality May Not Be As Opposite As You Think — Researcher Ravi Kopparapu from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center notes that “It’s not a question of ‘if,’ it’s a question of ‘when’ we find life on other planets.” At some point in human history we will find evidence of extraterrestrial life in the universe. At this moment we are looking…

Set aside that bowl of self-loathing for some love stew — Listen, we are all messed up weirdos. Pretending otherwise is just lying to ourselves. Regardless of our own personal beliefs, our country was founded on a bubbling pot of Protestant values. This means that beating ourselves up over every little thing we do wrong is a cultural pastime. …

a free verse poem —

I’ve noticed that Cormac McCarthy uses the phrase “like some” quite a lot in his darkly poetic novels. Sometimes in the same paragraph. Once you see it, it’s hard to ignore. Here are all the “like some”s I found in Cormac McCarthy’s “All The Pretty Horses”. “like some supplicant to…

This Ceremonial Drink Is The Boost I Needed — Listen, I don’t have time to give you the whole spiel about how cacao is intensely good for you. Google it. The overarching points are that it has the highest antioxidants of all the superfoods. It is an anti-inflammatory and can reduce risk of cancer. It lowers the risk of…