As autumn deepens, humans move into what yoga therapist Anne Pitman calls “the endarkenment”—a time of year when it’s okay to acknowledge mortality. This poem is my take on that subject. I wrote it on a sunny afternoon in October, proving that what’s going on in “the world” need not reflect the inner truth of human experience.

I wrote this poem in June 2019 on a day when holding my breath helped to connect me to a living being that came from the sky and happened to share, as Leonard Cohen says, a flake of my life. And like many flakes, this one was precious. Photo from Shutterstock.

He is the one and only Daniel, the person I married in 1989. The poem I offer here captures a moment when I saw, with great clarity, how he has truly left the working world behind. Photo by me. Birch trees by the Creator.

I’ve been studying Buddhism since I was 15 years old, and meditating for about 30 years. I do not belong to a particular sangha, just to the general hoi polloi of unwashed humanity. Photo credit: Shutterstock

I was reading a book of essays by the esteemed poet Mary Oliver. My poem tells what I discovered, and how I reacted. Photo credit: Jean Hilscher, frametoframe.ca

This poem offers my take on the grief I feel over ecocide. Our mother is bleeding silence because we will not listen to what her rivers and her oceans and her glaciers and forests are telling us. I created this acrylic painting as part of an online experience with other women in Feb. 2020.

Wild weather at Lake Temagami means I’m not out in the canoe, while strong winds from the south are wont to blow the vessel off the dock. Watercolour painting by Daniel Buckles.

The pines at Lake Temagami are majestic beings. They create a carpet to walk on, all over the island I love so much. They rustle in the wind. They are home to red squirrels and birds. Photo credit: mine!