Spiritual Reflection: The Elder Gentlemen by John Holliger
by John Holliger The seeds fell out of the sky into crevices in the land. And thus the seeds made a commitment for life to this place. Long lives began from such tiny seeds, invisible in their crevices. Decades passed. An opening appeared in the woods and the gentlemen felt the Star’s light directly. The […]
Spiritual Reflection: The Elder Gentlemen by John Holliger
The Gifts of Winter
by John Holliger When we look upon the natural world in Winter we can easily conclude that a plant or tree is dead, when it is really dormant, and not dead in the least. Much of nature has drawn her life giving fluids into her place of origin, beyond our sight, into the soil, beneath […]
The Gifts of Winter
Pilgrimage Through Darkness
by John Holliger I enter the midnight darkness and drive… down into dips of mist, hints that when I arrive, the mist will cover the wetlands, the lowest place. I arrive and all is ebony black. By the dim light of an open car door, I set up everything on the tripod, and tap my […]
Pilgrimage Through Darkness
His Blue Period
His blue period. Later, I learned that’s what they called it. But when I came upon the painting, I stopped. I couldn’t move. The loss, the despair, the isolation were arresting. A single woman holding an infant looks away. Another figure is curled against some threat. When I am that bleak I hardly breathe. In […]
His Blue Period
Just One Huge Boulder
by John Holliger Just one huge boulder, that’s all I needed; a ton or so of white granite with black sparkles and smooth, rounded edges between me and my mother. She was compulsively setting the picnic table out of her L. L. Bean wicker basket. It was filled with hundreds of perfect red this’s and […]
Just One Huge Boulder
When My Love of Trees Began
The persimmon and witch hazel trees were planted before I was born. The persimmon tree was rarely known or joyfully eaten in our parts. The Witch hazel twisted back and around itself so much that I gave up following one branch as it bent back upon itself and through the loops of her siblings. By […]
When My Love of Trees Began