by Celia Coates Once upon a time (which means that I can’t remember the year this true story happened) I had a dream so real and vivid that it woke me up. It was clear, direct, and unusual. I could hear the voice of the speaker and my own voice and see the scene as…
Category: Kindness
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…
The Opposite of Fear
By Celia Coates How are you feeling these days? What kind of mood have you been in? When I asked myself these questions, I couldn’t answer right away, but then discovered I was feeling an edge-y restlessness that was really a form of fear. There are so many things to be alarmed about – the…
Experiencing Reality
By Jack Stucki (From Celia: This post began with a conversation about Jack’s walks in the national forest near his home in Colorado, walks that often include visiting the Grandmother Tree seen in the photograph at the top of the page. Jack Stucki is a healing energies pioneer who continues to explore the nature of…
What Do You Want?
by Celia Coates In this country we are in trouble with wanting. There are still too many people who are in want – they don’t have enough food, or safety, or health care, or the other basics of life in a rich country. Actually, they are in need. It’s more than want. Then there’s a…
What Is a Good King?
By Celia Coates Good King Wenceslas look’d out On the Feast of Stephen, When the snow lay round about, Deep and crisp and even: Brightly shone the moon that night, Tho’ the frost was cruel, When a poor man came in sight, Gath’ring winter fuel. Hither page, and stand by me, If thou know’st it,…
What To Get Done in ’21
By Paul Jackson After the pandemic shutdown, I took a walk most days near Sligo Creek Park in Silver Spring, Maryland. In front of a bridge crossing the creek, I could see a quote on the pavement from the @chalkladies, “Keep some room in your heart for the unimaginable.” The line is from Mary Oliver’s…
Reflections on Forgiveness
By Brian Luke Seaward When the phone rings after midnight, the call is rarely about good news. That was when Rose, a good friend of mine, learned that her teenage son, Benjamin, had been killed after his car was hit head-on by a drunk driver. Rose was overwhelmed by shock, pain, and grief, and then…
About Empathy
By Celia Coates Recently, “empathy” has often been in the news. In the January 19th Washington Post, Katherine Ellison wrote, “… scientists churn out volumes of work on the subject, with more than 2,000 scientific papers published in 2019 alone. For all its popularity, empathy isn’t nearly as simple as so many blogs and books…
Giving and Getting
By Celia Coates Many years ago, when I was young and had not been going to school in America for very long, I was surprised that after the Christmas vacation the question that kids asked each other was, “What did you get?” I didn’t really know what to answer. There had been nuts and candies…
Choosing Kindness
by Celia Coates The Dalai Lama has said that his religion is kindness. When today’s post was first published in June, 2018, its title was How to Choose Your Prince or Princess. It’s about deep kindness, one that includes sacrifice, and it’s a story for our times. Here it is, again, Some of the best…
Loving America
This morning two people will publish their stories in WINN. We are all in these troubled times together and we need to be able to see ourselves clearly and to walk in another’s shoes (Gilah’s post) and we need to confront fear and to move forward in our country with love and hope (Pablo’s post)….