Conundrum: To be a big fish in a small pond lording your size to dominate the environment. Or to be a small fish in an ocean so expansive every day has the potential for new exploration while watching over your shoulder for bigger fish seeking to dominate you...

There are times I wish my mind acted like a prim, proper, pinecone, perfectly symmetrical housing a compact set of ideas perfectly encased waiting for the heat of knowledge to help the seeds burst forth then land in lush soil where they will germinate into a near perfect replica...

In 1972, I was a preteen and beholden to budding hormones, hero worship, and other vagaries that can be attributed to a mind and body in development. In that year and the two following, a radically different TV show crashed through network barriers to enthrall the TV watching public. The show eventually became #1 in the country. It was set in the beloved Old West, a mythologized era Americans tend to wistfully revere...

I am utterly fascinated with the myriad ways humanity attempts to connect with the perceived spirit in the sky, the spirit of the Earth, or the universal spirit that interconnects the universe and all its beings, especially the concept of deities, either humanoid or animal or nature herself...

One of my favorite quotes says we learn by listening, not speaking. I also like the adage that proclaims we have two ears and one mouth so that we listen twice as much as we speak. In my experience, prayer is not so much listening to the still small voice of God and learning as it is requesting intercession in a challenging situation so that learning from the challenge is not necessary...

Wilderness, a word derived from the Olde English term 'wildēorness' meaning association with wild places. Wild meaning untamed or uncultivated. I am intrigued by the 'un' prefix which seems to indicate the natural state is somehow deficient because man has not brought it under his dominion, a controlling mindset cultivated by those who profess allegiance to profit at all costs. Dēor refers to beasts

Willy Shakespeare associated Raven with death, doom, and evil omens. Edgar Allen Poe added to that greater association that Raven symbolized a descent into madness. These negative associations make me wonder, did Shaky and Poe ever encounter a wild raven laughing as it played on the wing - rising, falling, rollercoastering, and barrel rolling?

Little Bird, I heard your chirp in my mind's eye but was still startled when you landed on my head while I was reading of desert places and wide open spaces...

Fear is an insidious beast capable of driving the most peaceful loving individual into a barely recognizable, raving lunatic bent on inflicting pain...regardless of whether the fear is aroused by fact or fiction, truth or lies...

If I were to place a bird atop a pedestal scaled in height based on the beauty of their song, not to look up their skirts into their nether regions, the tallest of those lofty pedestals would be reserved for Cañon Wren...