Mary Grace Bertulfo

For me, the natural world is a place of healing & freedom. It is messy, ever changing, and holds so many spiritual lessons. I run to the woods when I’m sad…I hike through the woods when I’m excited to be alive. Recently, our Lola Mading (Grandmother Mading) crossed-over to the Other Side. She was 94 [...]

We were in Japan for 3 weeks this summer which was a wondrous journey of extremes: from the neon, buzz and bullhorns, and manga-mania of Electric Town in Tokyo to the mist-covered hills, sacred herd of deer, 1,000-year-old cedar tree, and the shrines and temples of Nara. It’s taking a while to get back into [...]

I remember the Exxon Valdez spill. I remember volunteers going out to Prince William Sound in Alaska armed with toothbrushes and buckets, scrubbing gunky oil off of sea birds and rocks and the shoreline. According to the National Wildlife Federation news, the oil spill in our Gulf of Mexico is like having an Exxon Valdez [...]

Even though it is winter, even though January has a rep for being bleak and stark in Chicago, there’s still beauty to be experienced. Go out and grab you some organic PEACE! I wrote this Sunday morning at Thatcher. Communing in nature has become one of my spiritual practices : Koan #7 Frozen River Silence [...]

Just over the border of Indiana, a toe into Michigan is the town of Michiana where oak trees dot the rolling hills, Lake Michigan laps at the cool shoreline, and a deep and peaceful silence hems-in the town. Chicago peeks, like silhouetted upright legos, over the horizon…so distant I couldn’t hear the familiar rattle of [...]

Today I’m ill, low chills and tired. And its one of those days when things are breaking down and work is hard to get done. No printer toner, computer glitches galore, and my own low biorhythms. A great sense of resistance has seemed to thwart my plans for the day to be productive. Sometimes, when [...]