Last night was our CUUPS Lughnasadh Circle. We kept the same basic format as we’ve done the past couple of years – a fairly simple ritual, followed by a Harvest Feast and bardic performances. This picture is Sammi, Ashley, Bonnie, Cynthia, and Michi singing “Battle Raven”, a rousing hymn to the goddess Morrigan. I came back from vacation to a zoo at work – too few people trying to do too much with too many people yelling that it’s not... Read more

I don’t rate a BlackBerry at work – for which I am thankful. When I leave work I like to forget about work. But I had been wanting a smart phone for quite some time. I’m very dependent on e-mail for CUUPS and church work, and I like being able to look up something on the internet whenever I think about it. Plus any more it seems like everyone and their cat has a smart phone of one description or... Read more

Back in January, I wrote about a prophetic dream I had, and how I was going to have to tell my evangelical Christian friends that their new daughter is going to be (as I put it at the time) “psychically gifted, destined to be a seer and a mystic, and a great source of consternation for her parents.” While they live in Pueblo (which is nowhere close to Durango), it so happened that they were in Albuquerque the day we... Read more

Soda CanyonI went to Mesa Verde hoping – expecting – to have a spiritual experience of one variety or another. As those of you who’ve been reading this blog know, the last few months have been rather unsettled for me. Not necessarily bad, just unsettled – like I need to be doing something, but I don’t know exactly what, or why, or how. I was hoping to find some sort of guidance, clarity, enlightenment – pick your term. A Native... Read more

This trip was conceived when I asked Cynthia for a recommendation for an ancient site to visit in the United States. She made several recommendations, but Mesa Verde was her first, and it fit in well with other things to see and do on a trip that was part R&R; and part pilgrimage. This is Mesa Verde as seen from US highway 160.Far View House, one of the earlier structures, built before the famous cliff dwellings. This is a distant... Read more

There could be nothing remotely spiritual about a mining town, right? Or about a coal-fired smoke-spewing steam train? Maybe if you’re into country music? Let’s start with the train. As a feat of engineering, the Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad is just as impressive as the brick structures built by the ancestral Puebloans. No earthmoving equipment, no helicopters, just men and mules and dynamite. Here’s Silverton. Yeah, it’s turned from a mining town into a cheesy tourist town, but... Read more

We’re back from vacation, a trip to Durango, Colorado and the Four Corners region. It was a mostly good trip with a few small negatives, like getting lost on the way back and a broken windshield on the rental car. Over the next couple of days I’ll post some pictures and some thoughts I had on the trip. I’ll start with our first destination, Hovenweep National Monument in southeastern Utah. It was built by the ancestral Puebloans, who lived there... Read more

A DMN blogger posted a link to an event titled “WHAT YOU ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO KNOW ABOUT 9/11” and followed it with the question: “Does this strike you as a legitimate event or a way to exploit a tragedy to make money?”My answer is “neither.” It’s an event by and for people who mistrust and/or hate government so much they prefer to believe an elaborate, implausible conspiracy rather than some pretty straightforward evidence. Others simply can’t deal with the... Read more

My favorite UU blogger is Rev. Victoria Weinstein, aka PeaceBang. Yesterday she posted a long essay that started on the recent UUA Presidential election and quickly moved into the state of Unitarian Universalism. While it’s not all gloom and doom, she raises enough issues – and enough issues that hit home with me as a local lay leader – to make me wonder about the future of our religion / denomination / movement. In particular, I have to wonder if... Read more

I have rabbits, or at least, a rabbit, living in my back yard… most likely in the overgrown section of the herb garden. I managed to get close enough for a cell phone picture. Read more