To whom does the Earth belong? If you have any doubt about it, spend time at a wildlife refuge. Even 15 minutes, let alone a couple of hours, at the Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge in New Jersey tell the answer: The Earth belongs to all creatures, not just man.
Hundreds of sandpipers gather in […]

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The land on which thousands died in the cause to end slavery and keep the United States together cannot speak for itself. For generations, people have walked the land of the Wilderness Battlefield, remembering on this hallowed ground the harsh and brutal battle the Union and Confederacy fought in May, 1864. Now, a new generation […]

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To an Idaho student, a waterfalls in her region looks like a skyscraper that’s thin at the top and has cascades rippling downward toward the bottom, much like the tower at 1 Wall Street in New York City. To someone else, the sight of an egg shell evokes a dome, a delicate and yet strong […]

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Imagine that you were walking in a city park, on a campus, or along a street, and suddenly you see that someone has set up a dozen original paintings of Claude Monet. The masterpieces are before your eyes. Along your path, you see “Impression, Sunrise,” “Winter At Giverny,” and “The Water-Lily Pond,” among many others. […]

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To Sara Sweeney, bricks, concrete, and glass are expressions of our soul. Each building, in the architect’s view, is a statement of us, our relationship to each other, and our connection, or disconnection, with the Earth.
A registered architect, Sweeney has had a 19-year career reflecting her passion and commitment to sustainable design, green building practices, […]

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The Battle of the Wilderness, one of the crucial turning points on the Union’s path to victory in the Civil War, encompassed three days of horrendous combat in May, 1864. Those fighting to keep part of the original battlefield safe from a Wal-Mart and big-box retail development hope their own campaign will live to see […]

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The images are almost beyond belief, the damage and the suffering beyond comprehension. An earthquake gauged at 7.0, the first rumble striking Tuesday evening and lasting at least 35 seconds, destroyed an entire swath of Haiti, particularly much of its capital and largest city – Port-au-Prince.
The scenes have been horrific. Bodies are lying strewn all […]

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The snow is falling slowly, in its own time, on the evergreen. All is quiet. The New Year presents new possibilities and new questions. The possibilities are uncharted, the questions unanswered.
Still, the present moment is enough. What if we just reside in it, stop the running thoughts, and simply behold the surroundings? Take a moment […]

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Beautiful landscape calls us to dream and to wander, to take paths unknown. In it, we fix our eyes both on the distant horizons and on the tiniest details at our side. It reaches into our souls, rewards and soothes us. It is the Earth’s embrace.
Standing in an open field in England’s Lake District recently, […]

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It’s the very essence of calm, a still surface of blue-silver water reflecting billowy cumulus clouds above. Large shafts of light pour down through the clouds at angles on the shoreline, creating swaths of light-green trees in the middle of darker pines and bejeweled light on the water.
On a 90-degree humid day, I can feel […]

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If land where the Union and Confederacy fought the Battle of the Wilderness in the Civil War is to remain hallowed ground, now is the time to speak up. Within the boundaries of this historic battlefield in Orange County, Virginia, Wal-Mart proposes to build a 138,000-square-foot supercenter. Its plans for the commercial development received the […]

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Sometimes, surprising beauty lies behind a nondescript gate. At the end of a long street in Kingston, N.Y., and behind a wrought iron gate, lies a sparkling little park. It’s situated on the Hudson River near where the Rondout Creek flows into the wide river, so that water seems to surround the park. It has […]

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The headline at least – “Blazing a Trail With a Smartphone, Visual Signposts Included” – promised a wondrous experience. The New York Times column on Wednesday, March 11 focused on some software that can turn your GPS-enabled cellphone into a dynamo that allows you to navigate a route and post photos, audio clips, and descriptive […]

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Gas prices are at an average of $1.96 per gallon, far below the $4-plus they hit last year. The price of oil amid a global recession that has sharply curtailed demand declines to $35 per barrel on Feb. 20. People are fearful as many lose jobs and others go through foreclosures. In such an environment, […]

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Seasons come to our bodies much like they do to trees and mountains, lakes and bays. Each individually has its own rhythm and signs of changing, adapting, and flowing from one season to the next, until the momentum of so many heralds the new season en masse.

Beckoned by the brilliant sunshine, predictions of temperatures in […]

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On the November night that the United States elected Barack Obama as its new President, NBC News anchorman Brian Williams called it “a seismic shift in American politics.” Yes, it is. Yet seismic shifts are, ultimately, created by many forces and actions that culminate in a particular moment. This seemed particularly poignant while walking along […]

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Recently, a bankruptcy expert told a Bloomberg Radio interviewer that the United States is “over-stored” – it has far too much retail space than is needed to serve American consumers. Amidst the holiday shopping blitz, I thought of this observation as I read this week of the plans by Wal-Mart to construct a new 141,000-square […]

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Frank Emberson was wounded on Dec. 21, 1944, while fighting in Luxembourg during World War II. But when the bullet passed through his arm, a packet of family photos in Emberson’s breast pocket deflected it from hitting the Army soldier’s chest, thus saving his life. The story itself is moving, but seeing the small envelope […]

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On the balmy night of Nov. 4, a jubilant crowd gathered at New York’s Times Square, arms uplifted, flags waving, many shouting “Obama! Obama!” They poured into the crossroads of the world to celebrate the election of Barack Obama as President of the United States.
How fitting that such an outpouring for Obama’s victory happened at […]

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Talk about a starkly different experience of walking. I love to take walks wherever I go – to explore, relax, exercise, and take in the surroundings. While visiting my family in Western Pennsylvania this year — or “Western PA” as we natives call it — I could hardly have had a more different experience of […]

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