sharing a love of what nature can teach us
The notice on the feed bag boasts of variety:
white prosco millet, black oil sunflower, milo
and safflower. A brilliant mix of pale yellows and mud
browns in sizes and markings so varied I could spend
a lifetime trying to understand how everything in nature is
so particular and purposeful: a key meant for one specific door.
by Laura Parker Roerden I first met Peter Yarrow in 1998, when I attended a launch meeting at McGraw Hill in New York City for Operation Respect, an international anti-bullying program that Peter had just founded. I would be representing Educators for Social Responsibility (now Engaging Schools), where I was at the time the publicationsContinue reading “For Peter Yarrow”
(Previously published in The Disruptive Quarterly Journal) by Laura Parker Roerden Something about the way we’ve done youth development for the past few decades no longer feels right to me. The times have changed; and with it, so have we all. Ocean Matters, a service-learning program for teens, conducted an expedition in Grand Cayman, BritishContinue reading “Youth Development in a Hurricane”
Laura Parker Roerden’s work explores and promotes the development of social, emotional, and ethical development in young people towards creating socially-responsible adults, i.e. those who participate in democracy, positively contribute to their communities, and are stewards for the natural world. Research shows that nurturing healthy relationships with peers, adults in their life and with the natural world can provide young people with theContinue reading “Ocean Matters”
by Laura Parker Roerden Last night the stars made our hayfield into a bed. Twinkling and turning from light to dark, and back again to light in the dark tangle of knotted weeds and swords of grass, sometimes in synchrony, but often as chaos. The perfect flat disk of a full moon spilled shadow everywhere,Continue reading “The Fireflies”
by Laura Parker Roerden I wrote a poem: it’s hard to say what it is. It’s small like a bird, but it has wings that open, wide enough to receive the shadow from starlight where monsters writhe and inform us of who we are through ancient story and song or simply the daily news. IContinue reading “A Good Friday”
by Laura Parker Roerden On a fine companioned afternoon, one never has to notice the stars shining side by side or a single blade of grass hunched over others, now safe as if the wind had thrown its weight, a thumb on a scale tipped for mercy. But in a stretch when lonely walks awayContinue reading “A Lonely Walk”
by Laura Parker Roerden There’s something available to us that sits beside hope, like an open door. Children know about it. You sometimes see them walk towards it. Often they carry it and place it on our laps, looking up at us with eyes flung wide open. “Here,” they seem to offer. “Take this.” I’veContinue reading “The Open Door”
by Laura Parker Roerden Some thoughts on health and wholeness from Wendell Berry (posted below) resonate right now, in a world where our division has become both a goal and a means. What if as we isolate in response to COVID-19, we also find our way to wholeness: as individuals, as families, as communities, asContinue reading “Health, Wholeness and Belonging”
by Laura Parker Roerden (May 27, 2016) The phrase “and mayhem ensued” turns out to have real application when you have animals. Recently, in a fit of cleanliness, I asked our handyman Keith to help spring clean the barn. He tidied up in general, but because he’s no slouch, he decided to surprise me by washing theContinue reading “A Peacock’s Day Out”
