It began just like any other day when I woke up early, but not quite as early as I intended. I like to get some work done while the house is still quiet and the air is still fresh and cooler than the sweltering heat of midday. As is my routine, I went around our home opening windows to allow the morning air inside. Even though our windows have screens in them, we usually keep them closed at night as double protection against mosquitoes who seem able to sneak through the smallest cracks and crevices. As I…

Once Upon A Time, on a bitter cold day in December,  I purchased a tiny house on a tiny plot of land in a tiny town in Pennsylvania. The very first thing I did when Spring arrived was to plant a medicinal herb garden. I grew many herbs and used them in natural remedies, in homemade beauty products and in kitchen recipes. The next year I planted a vegetable garden. I started a compost pile, and then planted fruit trees and raspberries. Each year the tiny plot of land grew more and more into a tiny homestead…

I stepped out onto our little balcony three floors above the mostly dirt road below. Although we live outside of the city’s center, there are still only buildings to be seen from here to the horizon in any direction you look.  The structures are mostly residential in this seemingly endless urban sprawl with occasional trees growing along the roadsides where cows, dogs, and chickens are as much a part of the local traffic as motorbikes and rickshaws. I had gone out to the balcony to take a closer look at the…

A breeze came through the forest. It felt magical... like an ancient song, whispered by the Earth herself. 
Time spent in the woods brings me back in touch with the natural cycles of life. I see the dead fallen trees amongst the living. The leaves too, will drop from living trees and after undergoing decomposition they become nutrients for other plants and trees around them. Here, life and death dance side by side in harmony, as one transforms into the other and then back again. 
Everything in its season…