Carrie Newcomer

2 weeks ago | carrienewcomer.substack.com | Carrie Newcomer

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedThis is notthe age of information. This is notthe age of information. Forget the news,and the radio,and the blurred screen. This is the time of loavesand fishes. People are hungry,and one good word is breadfor a thousand. From The House of Belonging: poems by David WhyteThis has been a week of unexpected miracles for me.

2 weeks ago | carrienewcomer.substack.com | Carrie Newcomer

I spent a good part of Tuesday working in my gardens. I weeded and trimmed, mulched and planted a lilac bush and two butterfly bushes. Then I prepared the soil in the raised beds and terraced areas for the planting that would happen this weekend. After a couple of hours I leaned on my shovel and surveyed my work. The air was cool and the trees were swaying at the top in the spring breeze. I removed my muddy garden gloves and decided to take a break and walk down to the pond for some quiet time.

3 weeks ago | carrienewcomer.substack.com | Carrie Newcomer

Writing from the road this week from the American Northwest. It’s been lovely spending time with the Olympia Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Olympia Washington! So this is a postcard from the western edge. “A story grows from the inside out. . . . if I begin traveling with an awareness of my own ignorance, trusting my instincts, I can look for my own stories embedded in the landscapes I travel through. A story allows us to envision the possibility of things.

3 weeks ago | solari.com | Carrie Newcomer

“I have always written songs because I had a question. And good questions can be asked more than once.”Carrie Newcomer, one of our favorite song makers, has spent many years with and around Quaker communities. She first encountered one such community while working in Costa Rica and went on to become a Quaker herself. Catherine was raised as a Quaker; though not a practicing Quaker now, she loves many aspects of the tradition. Quaker meetings and worship take place in silence.

3 weeks ago | carrienewcomer.substack.com | Carrie Newcomer

This is an essay that appeared in my bookA Permeable Life: Poems & Essays. Throughout my life I have learned such important things from my many close relationships with the animal spirits. May we all become wise as an old tree is wise, brave as a fledgling bird is brave standing at the edge of the nest and free falling into the sky. May we all be as faithfully protective as a mamma bear and happy to simply be blooming like a wildflower at the edge of the woods.