Author: Michael Stevens

Although we live in an increasingly digital world, we remain analog beings. Nothing digital can replace visceral human touch, taste, smell, sound and breath, and sight. The highest megapixel image cannot convey the sensual...

I have a love affair with trees. I carve them into useful items (after asking permission). I play guitars crafted of various species sustainably sourced by a local company. My wandering in the forest...

In quantum theory, a particle does not really exist as a tiny bit of matter located somewhere but rather as a cloud of probabilities. If observed, it collapses into the state through which it...

A person passes me in the atrium outside a cafe where I am enjoying a cup of tea. He appears “unhoused” and definitely unkempt with rumpled clothing and a definite aroma. But that is...

The recent winter blast that brought temperatures down to zero or below made it difficult for birds to find a place to drink or bathe. People often do not understand why birds need to...

I recently attended a lecture on the geology of Central Oregon. Most of the talk focused on the way our landforms are created and re-created through the action of tectonic plates. The entire globe...

The Buddha Dharma is a very exasperating spiritual tradition. There is no one approach, no single textual source, and nobody to tell us which method is best. It is all on us to figure...

“A good motivation, a good heart—this is what we must have at all times. This is the Dharma and nothing else. It is not something grandiose or elaborate.” Dudjom Rinpoche gave this guidance as...

I had an interesting exchange with a woman while I was shopping at a local grocery store. She asked me whether or not I was ready to celebrate Christmas. I said Christmas is a...

What does it mean to really incarnate, to truly inhabit the person we are called to be? I know I have spent much of my life afraid to be the person I was called...