Author: Michael Stevens

Mom is now on hospice care. The unmistakable signs of stilted breathing and dulling awareness indicate she is slipping away. Of course, no one knows how long the process will take, but her energy...

I find it strange I died last night My withered body quite a sight But here I am alive today Is this just another kind of play? I died last night. Everyone was properly...

It is an uncharacteristically warm day on the Oregon coast. The wind is light and about 68 degrees. We are walking a beach called Devil’s Kitchen. I am not sure how it got that...

I feel a touch of anxiety around Labor Day because the first day of school begins shortly thereafter.  As the weather begins to cool, a cold shiver creeps up my spine and I feel...

I am not used to hiking in dense forest. My usual haunts are desert trails and high mountain paths near timberline. So the dark lushness, humidity, and mossy smells in the area near Salt...

Today, I see mom waving to me from her Subaru as she stops for a crosswalk to allow me safe passage. She is about seventy years old and carries herself as a much younger...

Interface: the place at which independent and often unrelated systems meet and act on or communicate with each other. It used to be our senses and mental processes were the only interface between ourselves...

It is a cool summer morning in the high Cascades and our Tacoma bounces through deep ruts and over exposed rock on the road to Broken Top trailhead. Arriving at the parking area, we...

The skies are hazy from all the wildfires burning to the southwest of us but Sparks Lake is nonetheless beautiful. Although the water is low this time of year, it does not prevent numerous...

Lama Rinchen is sitting on a low stump overlooking a trail along the Metolius River. He chants an Amithaba practice and the Tibetan syllables spill down the bank, merging with the river. Seed sounds...