Hot and Sour Soup

During a week in Yosemite, schlepping along a toddler, a baby, half the contents of our house, enough food to feed all the bears in the park, and a few ground squirrels too, I had the epiphany to begin a blog. The epiphany came somewhere around Tuolumne Meadows--one of the many heavens here on Earth, here in the actual Garden. So many large hearted, giant spirited others have had their own epiphanies in Tuolumne Meadows--John Muir, Ansel Adams and Elizabeth Stone O'Neill (author of "Tuolumne: How the Runny River Ran") among them. I consider myself to be, then, in excellent company.

This blog is my entirely free creative outlet. For many years, I was a journalist and essayist, staff writer and freelancer ... and then, after writing an investigative article on depression and the use of medications (see "Club Meds" at www.MetroActive.com) I abruptly answered a calling to work in the helping field. I now run a non-profit organization, write self-help-ish books, funded by foundations.

But my poetic spirit has also called, again, to be let loose in the world of language and ideas--to be free to speak of God if I so choose (and not a co-opted, defined God, just that word--the creative life force ... that which cannot be named, but always is.) To be free to speak of apple butter (where did it go?), Israel, babies and belly dancing. To use words like: tumescence and crepuscular, bedraggled and abscond.

So here I am. I wish I had an editor, of course. I do not have the time--with two children and a full time job running a "start up" organization, as well as various other funded writing projects--to do a great deal of research and fact checking here. This will be just rough and ready prosetry from me. Hot and sour soup. Spicy. Colorful. All mixed up. Ideally, fresh and nourishing.

Always a good way to begin.