Author Archives: theoracleofz

Rainy Monday dog-walking daylight-savings blues OR Good News for People Who Love Bad News

{horn intro} This small town and the darkness of an artificial evening can hold space for a middle-aged woman walking her dog and scream-crying [and dancing] to the soundtrack of her adultification. For 48 minutes and 50 seconds, I am transported to the beginnings of figuring out how to be alive in this world. AndContinue reading “Rainy Monday dog-walking daylight-savings blues OR Good News for People Who Love Bad News”

On Being Religious OR Things that Thinking People Should Know Not to Talk About in Mixed Company

I started this blog five years ago yesterday [What?!? Where does the time go? We’ve had like four apocalypses since then. Where have I found the time?] and in those five years I have only written two posts on it that I have felt met criteria for me to tag them #religion. I think itContinue reading “On Being Religious OR Things that Thinking People Should Know Not to Talk About in Mixed Company”

Hummingbird Musings OR Why can’t we see that the whole world is a bountiful garden?

For the last month or so the Monardas, or bee balms, have been blooming at our urban homestead. We have five different cultivars sprinkled throughout our food forest, pollinator and herb gardens ranging in color from lilac through magenta to cherry red and in height from about 12 inches to 24. The leaves and flowersContinue reading “Hummingbird Musings OR Why can’t we see that the whole world is a bountiful garden?”

Coping with Happiness OR Yeah, sometimes I write poems

There are some days where you can feel the turn of the earth and know exactly where you are in time. The still fullness of life suddenly all around you. Now. Just a moment ago the leaves were small, the stalks short, the flowers buds, everything only promise and then – out of nowhere –Continue reading “Coping with Happiness OR Yeah, sometimes I write poems”

A Positive Sense of a New Political Order OR Gifts from the Future

Ya’ll, things have not at all been themselves since last I wrote which is a consequence of [so many things and] the current administration doing exactly what they said they would do and my having to live through the world coming to terms with the turbulent soup of predictions of our worst nightmares coming true.Continue reading “A Positive Sense of a New Political Order OR Gifts from the Future”

This Machine Kills Fascists

I lost my uterus in the war against the oppressors. Thanks uterus, our fallen comrade, your memory will live on in the actions of these humans that you grew. The righteous labor of gestating them to term, plus the endometriosis ablating and the de-cancer cervix hole-punching, it was too much for you. By the end,Continue reading “This Machine Kills Fascists”

Egg Eigenzeit OR Breakfast is Served

If you want to fall outside of the construct of linear time, poach eggs. Not every morning for breakfast – no the magic is too delicate for something so circadian – but at least once a month. Never put it on your calendar, it must be a surprise, something that unfolds from a lazy morningContinue reading “Egg Eigenzeit OR Breakfast is Served”

Decoupling Pleasure from Consumerism OR happily buying less stuff

On Saturdays [especially when it is not gardening season] I sleep in and read long-form journalism. This Saturday it was the Atlantic. Among the political stuff [which I am giving myself permission to skim or skip right now] I encountered this article from the Atlantic on the new Amazon Haul which I found perversely fascinating. Continue reading “Decoupling Pleasure from Consumerism OR happily buying less stuff”

I have permission to not fix everything broken about the world with this essay

When processing that first Trump victory in 2016, I sought counsel from my grandfather, who at the time I considered to be the wisest person I knew. This was before Trump had even taken office, when the damage he might do was still considered hypothetical or hyperbole by lots of people. But my grandfather, anContinue reading “I have permission to not fix everything broken about the world with this essay”