OPreach
Dominican Preaching through Word and Image
Tag: writing retreat
Where Do the Waves Begin?
“She heard the staggered heartbeat of the waves outside, the syncopated drip of the faucet. She wondered where a wave started. Maybe it started way out there in a storm. But it came here, to this coast, in this moment. . . . It… Continue Reading “Where Do the Waves Begin?”
The Urchin’s Hideaway
“Look at this incredible photo of the purple urchin. The book says, ‘These urchins often live in rounded depressions in the rock, which they slowly erode with their teeth and spines. I want to see that. Think the tide tomorrow will go low enough?’… Continue Reading “The Urchin’s Hideaway”
Wind on the Waves
“We wanted to be wind on the waves – not the schooner, or even the sail that bellied and caught it. We wanted to be the wind itself. We wanted to dance and scamper, to be the spiral that hugs the planet, the wisp… Continue Reading “Wind on the Waves”
Beauty at Our Feet
“The air was hot and still. The waves were an old rhythm beside me. I knelt over flat sand, where the tallest wave had sorted a ribbon of shell. Some four-footed creature had been along, leaving a trail that turned aside, as mine did,… Continue Reading “Beauty at Our Feet”
Living in Harmony with the Doe
“She rose up, watched a moment for any response to her rising, then stretched and stepped out onto the open slope. Beside her, another doe rose up from the shade. The two stood, slightly oblique to one another, divided as the one’s ears had… Continue Reading “Living in Harmony with the Doe”
Life Overcoming Adversity
“Pine is born to a cleft in stone, and makes the most of it. Whitebark is most primitive: the cones must rot before the seeds can split and live. As in the parable, one fell here on stony ground. Unlike the parable, this tough… Continue Reading “Life Overcoming Adversity”
Beauty in the Branches
“The branches turn abruptly back on themselves like the rune named yew, the rune for death. I want to ask their twisted forms “Does it hurt so much, coming out of the ground?” I lean on a trunk. The pitchy berries are dull red,… Continue Reading “Beauty in the Branches”
Watersound
“Watersound woke me. Dark. I was ready to lie there season by season, to die from my life, or to live as the river lives, to climb with salmon and fall away from that final loving work like rain, to tumble headlong, to flicker… Continue Reading “Watersound”
What Are Our Stories as the Sun Sets?
Bring me a story you hear in dark silenceafter the last light, the gone that gathers dewin the fingers not to hold, carry away, butonly to feel.– Kim Stafford, from “Do You Need Anything from the Mountain?” Starting on February 11, 2021, Santa Sabina… Continue Reading “What Are Our Stories as the Sun Sets?”
Grace on the Wing
Wings in the mist riding, gliding—no trace.Heart-surge song rising from inside—beauty’s custodian.A short, intense, breathless life—grace. – Kim Stafford, from “How Birds Live” Starting on February 11, 2021, Santa Sabina Center will offer an Online Writing Retreat with Kim Stafford: “Speak Beauty to Power.”… Continue Reading “Grace on the Wing”
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