Fairytale Greed

Posted November 13, 2025

Filed under Life

If you are privileged enough not to know anyone whose SNAP benefits were cut or has been working for weeks unpaid or suffering any indignities caused by the Republican lead government shutdown, then I guess you should call yourself lucky. You clearly live in a different America than I do. Oddly enough, the Brothers Grimm fairytale, The Fisherman and his Wife was echoing around in my mind this week. According to Wikipedia, this tale of greed was collected by the brothers in 1812, and is considered an anti-fairytale due to its tragic ending. Like most Waldorf school moms, I read this story to my young children, but due to decades teaching Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse the haunting images of the angry sea in the fairytale have stayed with me as Woolf wove the two stories together. It is the Greed with a capital G of the White House that is stirring this cautionary fairytale back into my consciousness.

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Lift your Perspective

Posted October 9, 2025

Filed under Life

This week it took some extra effort to rise above the unraveling of so much happening in our world. But I am grateful for the reminders from nature to do just that. Walking out under a broad blue sky, hearing the screech of hawks circling overhead, watching our grandson scramble past the bird of paradise and lizards and palm trees along the hill toward the playground all shift my perspective toward a better place, one that allows for the firm belief that goodness will prevail, as day always follows night.

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This Earth

Posted April 24, 2025

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Readers of Nine Cent Girl have rambled with me for years. Across snowy terrain, deep blue lakes, fields run wild with blooms, and on and off sandy paths for a moment of solitude. Nowadays I skirt along narrow dirt paths that zig and zag bordered by yellow shoots that invite plenty of bird play. Most days the ocean fog lifts and breaks to blue before noon, reminding me of the ease with which I can feel the glory of this Earth. Common weeds bust through sidewalk cracks, saplings take root along stone walls, life teeming despite the abuse humans inflict across this tiny planet. Vulnerable and fragile as our biosphere truly is, we stomp across protected lands, dump our waste haphazardly, drive our monster trucks relentlessly, and nod in agreement as our President calls coal clean and paper straws dangerous. I hold on to a sliver of hope that Gaea has more strength and wisdom than anyone might believe and She will ride out this bumbling world-wide-corporation posing as a governing body.