I hadn’t been on any extensive retreat in four years, when I went it into a solitary one here at my house ten days ago.  In fact, I can’t really remember the last solitary retreat I did of more than two or three days or how many years ago that was.  I’d been in a […]

I have an obsessive interest in shooting photos of leaves and flowers. I never tire of it, for some reason, now many seasons down the line. I always think there’s an innate artfulness to the colors, shapes, lines, and textures that doesn’t exhaust itself. The more you look, the more you see. That’s connected in […]

In The Lord of the Rings, Grima Wormtongue, one of its memorable villains, subjugates the king of Rohan, Théoden, through toxic use of his deceptive, manipulative speech, thus wresting away Théoden’s proper interest in the good of his kingdom, handing the reins over to his master, the malevolent wizard Saruman.  However subservient to Saruman Wormtongue […]