“I have never been so much my own self as when I have set out on foot and alone. There is something about walking that animates and activates my ideas. I can hardly think at all when I am still; my body must move if my mind is to do the same. The sight of…
Mukai Farm & Garden is proud to announce the winners of the Mukai Haiku Festival 2025. The festival received over a hundred haiku from twelve countries around the world. The prize winners and their haiku are below. Youth 5-13 1st: Aiden Hermmans Jungle Green, leafy, wet, coolIt is an ecosystemCanopy of life 2nd: Peter T….
By Jane Valencia In Catholic faith tradition, flowers have a treasured place in devotions to Our Blessed Mother Mary. Since the earliest centuries of the faith, flowers (and other plants and trees) have served as nature’s “icons” – expressing the virtues, character, and mysteries of Our Lady, as well as other spiritual truths and tales….
By Jo Ann Herbert These fragrant historic roses have not opened yet this season. My garden’s past beauty has suffered damage as the poem references, but as all of us age and life unfolds, I hope we remember what of beauty and joy we have expressed created and shared in this life. I just went…
By Jane Valencia Download a pdf of the poem set to music Years ago, in the dark of the year, a friend shared with me a dream she’d had. I quickly forgot the nature of her dream, but a phrase she spoke sparked my imagination: “Take, for what is given.” I set to work on…
By Suzanna Leigh “This t-shirt says ‘Nordland General Store’ on it,”R says as he folds the laundry (I wash, he folds). “I don’t recognize it.” “It’s mine,” I say – and I am flooded with memories. Bob and I went aground on our boat Sea Change, on the way to Nordland. Nordland is a community…
By Jane Valencia Michaelmas – the Christian Feast Day of St. Michael the Archangel – is celebrated on September 29th. But I recently learned that this feast day was once celebrated on October 10th or 11th, and that “Old Michaelmas,” at least in Britain, also commemorated the day that Satan was cast out of heaven….
By Marc J. Elzenbeck “All creatures great and small,All things bright and beautiful;All things wise and wonderful,The Lord God made them all.” Sipping a second cup of coffee at around 10:00 a.m., the phone rang. The caller said, “So, your cow. She wrecked my truck.” Stronger words may have been used. Bottom line, our girl…
By Seán Malone and John Sweetman When Seán and I talked about this story, the original intent was to reflect our adventures in sailing various boats. Things got out of hand in that Seán had his own darn good story to tell. His boat was a wooden rig ketch of indeterminate age powered by some…