Yesterday my partner and I continued our search for a church to join. We moved to Maine in April and have been busy getting established in our new home and community; now it is time to find a church.

My family has been associated with the Unitarian Universalist Church (UU) for generations and it is within that tradition I am most comfortable. My partner was raised in a Buddhist-Shinto culture; attendance at services is not part of that tradition and is not a priority for him. Fortunately...

I have enjoyed my attempts to "blog" especially considering that less than a year ago I would have been hard put to even define "blog". I still am not sure how it differs from a "journal" or a writers "work book", other than it is public.

I have noted that there are different styles of blogs represented here on C-D forum. Some are spontaneous expressions that vary from "rants" to "cries for help"; some are pieces of creative...

A Legend:

Elston was in a time of trial,
He used-up the last of summer's hope,
And entered the season of denial.
He wandered in two worlds--no really three,
The world of Home, the world Outside,
And the secret world of "ME".

He had left "indulgent summer" far behind
And entered introspection's cave.
Like his brother Bear, he knew when
To seek a rock-bound haven,
And trade the big-sky, for the shelter...

The Call To Maine

People call me to Maine; urge me to come home, to come back. Ghostly voices call me home to Maine.

In those moments between sleep and awake, I hear the voice of my grandmother; she has to walk up to Morrill's Corner, she says she has a list of sundries to pick up; I hear her talking to the downstairs tenant, "I'm going out; Is there anything you need?"

Or I hear Great Aunt Cordelia; after all these years, I hear her still lamenting...

Simple Pleasures:

There is a dairy farm in the town to which we moved. "Smiling Hills Farm". It is located on a country road, from which you can see the pastures and the Holstein cows grazing, or depending on the time of day, lying in the shade of a woodlot up the hill above the road. Its sign board shows a happy smiling cow!

This time of year you are also pretty reliably going to see wild turkeys and their young ones taking possession of a portion of the field,...