Loving America Enough To Grieve Her
A Fourth of July reflection on patriotism, hope, freedom, and America’s 250th birthday through the lens of “matriotism.”
HOMO RITUALIS – Why Ritual Matters for Peacemaking (Make Ritual, Not War)
What happens when humans lose ritual? This piece explores how war distorts our innate need for intensity—and why ritual for peacemaking matters now.
The Juvenarchy: A Prayer for the Rise of Sacred Patriarchs
We don’t live under a patriarchy — we live under a juvenarchy: rule by the uninitiated.
Patriarchy, properly understood, is not domination but responsibility, restraint, and protection. When we collapse fatherhood and kingship into tyranny, we misdiagnose our cultural illness — and blind ourselves to the medicine our moment desperately needs.
ANCESTRAL MEMES – Top Ten Most Common Themes I Hear From Ancestors
From my vantage point helping people connect with their ancestors, I’ve noticed certain themes arise. Here are the top ten most common.
Beyond Talk Therapy, Into the Wilds of Ritual
For years, I'd been dutifully visiting my psychotherapist to sit upon soft cushions and "do my work." And, though I had made some progress initially, I could sense there were lava floes brewing in the depths. As the daily sorrows and furies of this chaotic world kept...
Nettles and Black Leather: An Ode To the Animacy of Clothes
I have the sneaking suspicion that clothes have a mind and a destiny of their own.
Bringing Spirituality Back into Our Movements
With so much talk in the news about events happening abroad, especially in the Middle East, folks are wondering:what can I do to help, right here and right now?To be sure, actions like protests, organizing, participating in fundraisers, contacting elected...
No Heroes: Tired of the News Cycle? Read DUNE Instead
Thoroughly confused about Gaza? Stories and Myths offer more insight than the endless spin cycle of the news
Caveat Emptor – On The Spiritual Industrial Complex
Why witch-hunting isn’t a cure for the spiritual industrial complex
My Ancestry DNA Results Came In
Poem by Fred LaMotte My Ancestry DNA results came in.Just as I suspected, my great great grandfatherwas a monarch butterfly.Much of who I am is still wriggling under a stone.I am part larva, but part hummingbird too.There is dinosaur tar in my bone marrow.My golden...
Ode To Fridge – A Quarter Century Off-Grid
After 25 years of doing without, we finally plugged in a FRIDGE!!! Wow!
The Tone Police – Free Speech and the Weaponization of Nonviolent Communication
Are tone police the modern version of the thought police? Can people just speak their minds without self-censoring?
ANCESTRAL COMMUNICATION – Our Loved Ones Are Not Lost
Listen to our common speech: “I lost my mother this year.” Why do we so easily “lose” our friends and relatives? It is time to restore our practices of ancestral communication.
Seduced By Stone: The Moist Work of Grief
As someone who has been tasked in this world as an incurable wailer, I journey into the moist realms grief nearly everyday of my life. There is no way that I could avoid noticing how erotic a good grief-session can be. Take this poem for example---- Seduced By...
Mantis Medicine
Praying Mantis appears with a message to use prayer to find truth within.
Fly Down Deep, My Kin
I was just getting on the highway, when I noticed a small furry patch, a critter dead in the road.
A Real Rosary: Step by Step
Did you know that rosaries get their name because they are traditionally made of, well....ROSES! Imagine that! And to think--most of us assumed that all rosaries are made of plastic beads. Today there are certain orders of nuns in the Catholic tradition who still...
The Hiss and Hush of Maybe
"Time is constantly running out, it seems. Seeking solutions leads to the discovery of new problems I cannot unknow. I miss the days of elementary school when it felt that just giving enough fucks was enough to move mountains, to feel that success was predetermined so...
My Grandmothers’ Name Is Rose
"These taste even better now than they did in the summer!" remarks my son Montana, as he licks a frozen popsicle on this clear January day. Indeed. In the dead of winter, our bodies are longing for scarce fresh vitamins and antioxidants, so these fruity...
Bones
BONES the architectures of our inheritance are dancing us. Though we may walk deafened through the noisy fray, searching the blather of strangers for a clue. Though wrapped in gortex, we get wet Though stuffed with fois gras, still we hunger Our eyeballs drowned in...
Fourth of July
My cats dislike fireworks. And so do I. And it's not even the fourth of July. Unimpressed by bombs bursting we avert our eyes and continue speaking with firelight, one thousand genial eyes jumping out to join us in their subtlety. The nations crane their necks skyward...
Eating Beauty
I walk quietly on barefeet through my garden, erupting with summer solstice blooms, butterflies filled to bursting with nectar. I have to expand my ribs..... lower, around the sides...to be able breathe in all this in. To really eat this beauty. I slow down, low to...
Lovely Lady Dandelion
Sweet Spring swings back round the wheel of the year Chirping frogs and bursting blossoms Lovely lady dandelion with her impossibly yellow mane. Her perky face popping among the grasses Always reminds me of my mother going to her grave adorned in golden garlands Each...
Greenwashing Du Jour: FARM TO BAG
GREENWASH DU JOUR: "Farm to Bag" By Nala Walla Today I beheld a bag of pretzels, boldly waving its banner: Farm to Bag???!!!! Call me crazy, but doesn't this sentiment drastically miss the point? The whole idea behind the farm-to-table movement is that...
Suckers
SUCKERS by Nala Walla When I hear the word “sucker,” I think of the plum tree in my garden, which sends out little shoots and leaves in a circle around itself, pushing up dozens of baby sprouts everywhere in an effort to reproduce. Many-a-plant species uses...
Good Grief
GOOD GRIEF By Nala Walla Ask modern people about the word grief and we will usually mention sorrow, depression, death, and anguish—something we have developed all sorts of medications to “treat,” something we pray won’t happen to us. And when we are unavoidably...
Body Is Earth
BODY IS EARTH Carbon, water, nitrogen, oxygen—the same materials that comprise the Earth, also make up our own blood and bones, our breath and our brains. Our shedding hair, skin, tears, and eventually our entire bodies are all returned to the Earth where they break...
Holy Sh**tsicles
I know this isn’t a very marketable name for a food, but I don’t care: these Popsicles are the shiznit! No added sweetener. Just sunripe goodness coupled with nutrient-dense all-stars like coconut oil and grassfed butter. A treat you can be confident will actually...
Decolonizing the Body
DECOLONIZING THE BODY: An Inquisition By Nala Walla The colonialism of the last few hundred years has left a strong imprint upon our bodies. The impact is clearly visible on our greater Earthly Body--our landscapes: Fertile soils laid black and bare by plows, left...
Art Is Not A Luxury
ART IS NOT A LUXURY By Nala Walla From the communes of the sixties to the experimental communities of today, many skilled and talented people have been involved: builders, bodyworkers, system-designers, gardeners, healers, organizers, grafters, musicians, midwives,...