by Celia Coates Dorothy Walters, Mystic and Poet Word came this week of the death of Dorothy Walters. She was born on March 17, 1928 and became a professor of English literature who also helped to found one of the earliest women’s studies programs while at Wichita State University in Kansas. In 1981 her life,…
Category: Creativity
A Life of Creativity, Curiosity, and Love
by Celia Coates Marilyn Hughey Phillis (1927 – 2022) had a long and wonderful life filled with creativity, curiosity, and love. She studied bacteriology and chemistry at Ohio State University and after graduating in 1949, worked as an analytic chemist on national defense projects. But her great work was as an artist. She won national…
About Wonder
By Celia Coates What a very busy season this has been – I haven’t had enough time to write a full-length post. Instead, I am going to present an idea that set me thinking, one that might interest you too. It’s from a fine commentary by Michael Chabon on a story by Jorge Luis Borges,…
What Do You Treasure?
By Celia Coates Katherine Rundell has written a short article about real treasure. I can only include a few quotes here, but her essay is so lyrical and to-the-point that it would be good to read all of it – if you can – in the magazine NEW SCIENTIST. (“Another Sort of Gold”, 22 October…
The Art of Seeing
by Celia Coates LOOKING BACK LIFE WAS BEAUTIFUL is a book by a pair of Korean grandparents who painted charming pictures (Grandpa Chan) and wrote accompanying descriptions (Grandma Marina) to stay in touch with their grandchildren when they lived far away. What they created together began as a simple posting on Instagram and then was…
Wisdom From Fractals
by Celia Coates Last week Brenda Molloy sent an email that I wanted to open immediately. Brenda is an artist who works with fractals to create stunningly beautiful images. (You can find her two earlier posts by clicking on “By Author” at the top of the Home Page.) In the email she wrote, “This week…
Dreams and Messages
By Ellen Carroll I have learned that everything is connected and I am at peace with not knowing how everything will tie together because life has taught me that at the right time, it will be revealed. Many years ago, my good friend Elaine died from cancer. The night of her passing, she came to…
Suiseki, Or Japanese Viewing Stones
By BJ Ledyard I fell in love with Suiseki at the Huntington Library, Gardens, and Museum. After Christmas every year the local Viewing Stone Group, Aiseki Kai, had a show in the Entrance Pavilion. The Huntington is our local venue for family visiting Los Angeles, but I visited even in the years we had no…
Reflections on Beauty and Creativity
By Brian Luke Seaward The best time of year to see the northern lights above the arctic circle is during the weeks around the Spring and Fall equinoxes. I was once told that the phenomenon has something to do with the position of the Earth’s axis and the geomagnetic storms of electrons coming from the…
“Love All Around”
By Brenda Molloy Fractals are repeating, self-similar patterns that can be found throughout nature – in the branching of trees or the veins in our bodies, in the tributaries that create a river, in the spiral curve of a fern head or a nautilus shell, and in the seed head of a sunflower. The list…
When Everything Is Spiritual
By Celia Coates Rob Bell’s book, EVERYTHING IS SPIRITUAL, has the subtitle: “Who We Are and What We’re Doing Here.” That subtitle made it the kind of book I’m really interested in reading. It turned out to be a wise and iconoclastic page-turner, an unusual book for a Christian pastor to have written. His ideas…
Gifts for a New Year
By Celia Coates I had been wondering how to begin this new year in WINN, a year that everyone is hoping will be better than the dark and troubled year just past. Then, within days of each other, two gifts arrived – first, a photograph that my sister, Judith Sellers, had taken in her garden…