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Indigenous peoples, with long experience, are leading the way now through tyrannies resurfacing around the globe. Keeping their focus on the future, organizations in Canada, Australia and Alaska prioritize regenerative ways of being rather than trying to face down every new challenge that arises. For the planet, and for people, this visionary approach to today's necessary work is a welcome way forward. Elder Copper Joe Jack, a Ta'an Kwäch'än Council land management planner f

As the year spins ‘round, lists of recent happenings and discoveries—personal and global—proliferate, while each new year rises in front of us with its own uncertainties, its many unknowns. Humans probably have experienced, over time, an evolutionary advantage through our attraction to what seems new, even as those among us who hang tight with what we know also provide useful grounding. Looking over positive news from the past 12 months, a Mongabay article about newly descri

When my attention returned to the Acoustic Burro, curiosity and serendipity sent me stories of courageous role models creating the healthy home we all need. The Global Landscapes Forum introduced me to Célia Xakriabá, now the first indigenous Federal Deputy in Brazilian Congress from the state of Minas Gerais. Since 2023, she’s chaired a parliamentary commission defending Indigenous people’s rights and the planet from which she sees no possible disconnection. “We are the envi

Maybe many governments appear still convinced of the strange and harmful fallacy of human superiority, but that isn't the only story to be found in these tumultuous times. A 2023 treaty adopted by U.N. member states, called Marine Biodiversity of Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction, shows a path toward the beyond . We can recognize our planet as the inextricably interconnected, nested, grand experiment we know as Life, something far beyond human conceptions of jurisdiction. Th

Books for Winter Reading Storytelling has been a part of human social evolution as long as we've had words, and with the magic of written languages we then spread our ability to share stories well beyond what we might hear around the campfire in our own communities. Opportunities for bringing my favorite writing and authors to people who might not have encountered them yet are always exciting to me, and Writing Heights Writers Association is offering an online class, Beyond H

so many hounds, so little time This one's a little longer than my usual Acoustic Burro; a friend and fellow novelist who works with The Masters Review asked for a piece to include in their "Writers on Not Writing" series. Bonus: same link also gets you words from Emily Mathis. Writers on Not Writing

A fall breeze lifts colored leaves from tall maples, birch, beech and oak trees as an autumn drizzle softens the piles already on the ground, where a friend’s two-year-old dog pounces and rolls with joy. Turtle Island spans all of North America, including my original home ground here along the Kennebec River and the little farm in a high Rocky Mountain valley that has been home now for decades. So much joy in landscapes all across this continent, a place so many people from a

Category Five book cover What a weekend at Jackson Hole Book Festival’s Conversation for the Community .  For one, check out featured...

Choosing where we put our attention is an often overlooked superpower. On yesterday's equinox, earth balanced daylight and starlight....

The Acoustic Burro will be on an extended break to focus on the current novel-length project, but we couldn't just leave without...

Having camped among the coyotes, pronghorns & nighthawks, i wandered through the remote restoration work site before anyone else arrived....

The ocarina “vessel flute”, variously made from clay or animal horn, is found around the globe and from earliest human cultures. Second...

While traveling—in unfamiliar surroundings, assistance less readily available—attentiveness climbs the scale. So much to note! A cactus...

Hey, You! Koalas evolved alongside eucalyptus forests, able to digest the usually-toxic leaves with assistance from symbiotic bacterial...

One person’s attempted solution to the plummeting numbers of rhino across Africa, recognizing that rhino horn can be regularly harvested,...

Book publishing is changing--as it always has, since people first began putting stories into pictographs and hieroglyphic renderings. As...

How remarkable when we can share labor in our communities in ways that lift up common values and create safety and joy with colleagues....

When we bought an unused pasture in the hay-producing south end of this valley, my first thought for homebuilding was to try a strawbale...

We saw a few bees here before even the first dandelion, but only now does that seem like it should have signaled some annual celebration...

Whatever hardships we have, reaching out to lighten someone else’s burden allows alchemy to happen. My partner’s father, at almost 90...