by Laura Parker Roerden Find something beautiful and let it inform your soul. Let it wash over you like a baptism. Let it ask more of you than you currently give. What is it that moves you to rise? Make an altar of it; catch it in the clasped palms of your heart like aContinue reading “Find Something Beautiful”
Author Archives: Laura Parker Roerden
The Ways of Water
by Laura Parker Roerden As a child, we had a hand pump over an artesian well by a white, double-decker chicken barn. It was the only water for hundreds of birds growing on that land. The pump required several hard thrusts of the handle to raise the water like spirit, to the surface. Then eachContinue reading “The Ways of Water”
Scholarship Opportunity: Do You Know a Florida Teen Who Wants to Make a Splash for the Ocean?
Calling all creative Florida teens who want to make a splash on behalf of the world’s oceans! Ocean Matters is proud to announce a partnership with the prestigious Bow Seat Ocean Awareness Programs, which is generously providing one full scholarship ($3,500 value) to an Ocean Awareness Contest applicant from Florida to participate in our OceanContinue reading “Scholarship Opportunity: Do You Know a Florida Teen Who Wants to Make a Splash for the Ocean?”
In a Mean World
by Laura Parker Roerden When life crowds you with the call of too many mean words, words that line the very highway you are walking, words that tumble along ghost town prairies as dangerous tumbleweeds gathering seeds, spreading like wildfire and threatening to crowd out truth, try to find the center of the pendulum, though it swingsContinue reading “In a Mean World”
A Coming Hurricane
by Laura Parker Roerden I read today that a flock of seagulls was once trapped in the eye of a hurricane. The birds had sought refuge in the false calm of fair skies, but didn’t realize they now flew through a tunnel of destruction, all ways out blocked by certain devastation. Birds that sense plummetingContinue reading “A Coming Hurricane”
A Small Poem
by Laura Parker Roerden Small things sometimes call us home, like the two birds I saw circling the hay field this morning on my way back from farm chores. Their shrill vibrating whistle, a half warning, half invitation stunned me awake from a deep dream—even though I should have been sufficiently awake from an hourContinue reading “A Small Poem”
The Garden Spider
by Laura Parker Roerden Every single evening in her short life the garden spider spins a web of concentric circles. Each anchored to five or so holdfasts, simple spokes on a wheel, against which everything hinges. Around and around she goes, adding to her work, bridging the distance from one holdfast to another, length byContinue reading “The Garden Spider”
Into the Clearing
by Laura Parker Roerden All day long I had lain in the grass and waited for the sun to reach the clearing, though it never did come. The dew from the morning had left my hair damp to the touch; my heart aching for something I had never expected to miss. I knew these woodsContinue reading “Into the Clearing”
Cooking With(out) Gas
Best Investments in Sustainability by Laura Parker Roerden What if I told you that there was a cheaper, faster, healthier, safer, less energy intensive, cleaner, and lower carbon footprint way to cook than using an electric or gas stovetop and range? You’d wonder why you never heard of it before,Continue reading “Cooking With(out) Gas”
Stitch by Loving Stitch
by Laura Parker Roerden My grandmother darned socks. A good farm wife, she knew any tear could be mended, the original wound transformed into a caesura, a brief pause held by the conductor to grab our attention, to show us meaning that hovers uncomfortably in a void. Or into a sharp, an intentional accident inContinue reading “Stitch by Loving Stitch”