APLACECALLEDMERRYMOUNT

The calendar has flipped to December, and once again, we turn our attention to Winter and celebrate the holiday season. As is the...

At Day-Opening in November Color is fading from the reds and yellows That cling to the branches Like timid children To their mothers....

“If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.” -Dr. Wayne Dyer The happenings of the past week...

The story of immigration to the United States told by the American right often begins with lies.  In a speech last month in Wisconsin,...

10/06/2024 Today, on the occasion of my 72nd birthday, I offer one theory on Immortality. My life closed twice before its close— It yet remains to see If Immortality unveil A third event to me So huge, so hopeless to conceive As these that twice befell. Parting is all we know of heaven, And all we need of hell. -Emily Dickinson In his autobiographical book, In My Time Of Dying, (2024), Sebastian Junger ponders our question of immortality and offers his' (and other’s) near d

The leaves of brown came tumbling down Remember in September in the rain The Sun went out just like a dying ember That September in the...

9/22/24 Fall Equinox Wood engraving by Wesley Bates For me, Fall Equinox is a time for reflection and as my farming neighbors begin their...

Shadow of a "small stripling"- CPW Pastoral   The day’s grown old; the fainting sun Has but a little way to run And yet his steeds, with all his skill Scarce lug the chariot down the hill The shadows now so long do grow That brambles like tall cedars show; Mole hills seem mountains, and the ant Appears a monstrous elephant A very little, little flock Shades thrice the ground that it would stock; Whilst the small stripling following them Appears a mighty Polypheme And now on b

8/18/24   This past weekend, Rett and I had the great pleasure of joining our children and their spouses and our three granddaughters at...

painting by Andrew Wyeth 1947 It's a lazy afternoon And the beetle bugs are zooming And the tulip trees are blooming And there's not...

Admiral William McRaven Some of us remember the phrase “Real Men Don’t Eat Quiche” that was the title of a book that  had started out as...

7/21/24 The blame partially goes to Gene Logsdon (11/5/1931-5/31/2016) RIP, and to his friend and mentor, Wendell Berry.  Sometime in the...

Lura Mae Swift Robinson July 14, 2024 For many years, Rett has sung the Irish lullaby, “Tura-lura-lura” to our children and now to our...

THE GOOD U.S. Constitution Article III Section 1. The judicial power of the United States, shall be vested in one Supreme Court, and in such inferior courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish. The judges, both of the supreme and inferior courts, shall hold their offices during good behavior , and shall, at stated times, receive for their services, a compensation, which shall not be diminished during their continuance in office. From SCOTUS website: "EQ

This land is your land, this land is my land From California to the New York island, From the redwood forest to the Gulf Stream waters; This land was made for you and me.   In the shadow of the steeple I saw my people, By the relief office I seen my people; As they stood there hungry, I stood there asking Is this land made for you and me?             -Woody Guthrie As we approach Independence Day 2024, we perhaps have paused to consider our history as an American nation: its

Cherry-Ripe Cherry-ripe, ripe, ripe, I cry Full and fair ones; come and buy If so be you ask me where They do grow, I answer: There Where...

Consider this:  what if the sun began to slow down its decent toward the horizon, and you were able to experience perpetual daylight? ...

It is with great love and pride that I quote my daughter, Caroline, from an article she wrote for YWCA Columbus -“Y Now: The time is...

The Vitruvian Man by Leonardo da Vinci Who is this person (self) who wakes from sleep each morning, becomes aware of wakefulness, stretches, begins to assess the needs of the day, and devises a strategy for living life to its fullest potential? This person named Charles Patrick Woliver is as old as life itself and is simultaneously a continuum of change.  This “I” is a human body-mind, an autonomous and dynamic system that arises in dependence upon human culture (what we are

Take me out to the ball game, Take me out with the crowd; Buy me some peanuts and Cracker Jacks, I don't care if I never get back. For...