NOTE: Watch This Space For More About The First Single “Go Ahead & Sing”. Release Date November 11th, 2026. It really really REALLY helps albums when listeners Pre-save on streaming platforms. I hope you’ll check out the link and presave and help get “Murmurations” off to a great start. PRESAVE HERE

Now on to the post…

All Saint’s Day is traditionally believed to be the day when the veil between the worlds is at its thinnest. When the line between the seen and unseen blurs or becomes more permeable. I’m not sure if there is one particular day when this happens, in my experience the holy and the ordinary are always overlapping, and yet, I very much appreciate a day when we remind ourselves of the fierceness and softness of reality, the overlapping circles of time, the presence of the cloud of ancestors and our place among them.

All around us and within us
And yet it's only at times we notice
As real as rain and soft as stardust
We know deep down what nobody told us   
Can’t you feel it ever closer
We breath it in and then we exhale
We touch both sides and now eternal
Standing closer to the veil. 
                             From “All Saints Day” by Carrie Newcomer

I think that is one of the reasons why I love spending time in the natural world. For some reason that is where I feel that “thinness” most acutely. All is in motion, all is growing and passing and growing again. Real water cuts its way through the land, the creek is filled with the fossilized remains of creatures that lived here long ago when all around me was a warm shallow sea. The birds echo in the deep places, coyotes start up their strange yipping chorus, the leaves flutter down catching the light like golden coins, the sky grows bright and clear, welcoming and warming, then cold and grey, a storm whips up all the trees tossing their branches about like a woman’s hair in a strong wind. All is gentle and imposing and mostly true.

Now is just a moving image
Not a ribbon a start and end
There is a bird a hidden singer
That calls and listens and calls again
Can't you feel it ever closer
We breathe it in and then we exhale
We touch both sides and now eternal
Standing closer to the veil - From “All Saints Day”

And so on All Saints Day, let us remember all we’ve lost, all we’ve found. Let us honor the elders, give thanks to those who made a path even if they could not clear the way. Let us sing songs for those yet to come, the ones who will stand out in the woods and almost, but not quite, hear voices. Let us love what is here, all that shines in these brief shining moments. Let us bow our heads for all we’ve endured and the wisdom that comes with such knowing. Let us go out and lift our faces to the sun and smile, touch both sides and now eternal…right here, closer to the veil.

Centered down and moving outward
Sometimes almost too sweet to bare
There are endless ways to reach home
Just keep walking and I'll meet you there
Can't you feel it ever closer
We breathe it in and then we exhale
We touch both sides and now eternal
Standing closer to the veil
 - from All Saints Day

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Question

Have you ever experienced a time when the mysteries of this life feel close at hand - maybe a birth, a passing, a song, a moment in nature, a conversation, a welcome, a leave taking, a clear sky, a brilliant sunset?

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Music Always Music

Ok, I was going to put a link to the nice YouTube version of All Saints Day here, but I was in my hotel room before a show in Denver and thought I’d just go ahead and sing All Saints Day into my phone….from me to you. Happy All Saints Day my friends.

November Supporting Subscriber Sale!!

Ok…soooo much happening in November. This is an announcement for my annual supporting subscriber sale! Thank you to everyone who support my work and this wonderful community here at A Gathering Of Spirits. This year i’m so touched by how this community has grown and the conversations we have here continue to deepen. You may not know, but Substack works on a subscription model sort of like NPR. Which means this newsletter would not exist without your help and support. I am so incredibly grateful for your kindness and support, it is a true delight to share new music, thoughts, essays poetry, interviews and more right here with all of you.

So thank you again for supporting my work and this community. Thank you for being a part of this family of thoughtful spirits who are interested in art, music, poetry and reflections that explore resilience, hope, healing, progressive spiritual thought and living in these beautiful, bewildering, broken times.

A deep bow of appreciation - you truly make this possible.

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November Supporting Subscriber Sale!!

This is an announcement for my annual supporting subscriber sale! For the month of November I’m offering a 35% off annual subscription. Thank you to everyone who support my work and this wonderful community here at A Gathering Of Spirits. This year i’m so touched by how this community has grown and the conversations we have here continue to deepen. You may not know, but Substack works on a subscription model sort of like NPR. Which means this newsletter would not exist without your help and support. I am so incredibly grateful for your kindness and support, it is a true delight to share new music, thoughts, essays poetry, interviews and more right here with all of you.

As you may have noticed Substack has become a home for many artists, journalist, writers and musicians. Unlike other social media platforms there are no shadowy algorithms amplifying the harshest voices. Substack allows me to moderate this community for safety and good will - although I’m amazed a how little moderating is needed with this community of incredibly thoughtful and decent people. You may not know but when an artist sends out a post on Facebook or Instagram, it will not necessarily get to you because the platform throttles artist’s posts until we pay ever increasing amounts to stay in community with you. On Substack if I send a post or reflection to the community, it actually goes from my pen to you. These are some of the reasons I chose to Substack as a home for A Gathering of Spirits - an more.

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So thank you again for supporting my work and this community. Thank you for being a part of this family of thoughtful spirit who are interested in art, music, poetry and reflections that explore resilience, hope, healing, progressive spiritual thought and living in these beautiful, bewildering, broken times.

A deep bow of appreciation - you truly make this possible.

Also, If you would like to give a subscription to A Gathering of Spirits to a friend or family here’s a 35% off link for gifts!

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Yes, I voted this week!!!! I encourage everyone to make a plan, and make your voice heard this midterm election season. There are forces currently trying to subvert our constitutional right to free and fair elections Be ready, be aware and vote!

Now to the post…

Autumn Leaves are falling, falling as if from afar, 
as if, far off in the heavens, gard…

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Hi Folks,

Today my post features The Growing Edge Podcast that I have had the great gift and honor of co-hosting with my friend Parker J. Palmer. We have a The Growing Edge Newsletter here on Substack, but I wanted to repost our comments from that newsletter here at A Gathering of Spirits.

A Note from Parker

Talking with James Crews is like taking a walk in the woods—one of those walks where whatever is vexing you comes into perspective, and you go home with more clarity and confidence about the path ahead. James’s presence has the same power as his poetry: observant, grounded, quiet, full of light that illumines some of the darkest issues of our time. Please join Carrie and James and me as we explore the shifting ground we are now living on, and find ways to keep putting one foot in front of the other in service of love, truth and justice.

A Note from Carrie

For me, the poetry of James Crews has become a touchstone of calm in a noisy world, a testament to the power of attention and small acts of kindness. I appreciate his willingness to hold the both/and of living, the importance of acknowledging our grief and losses, but always through the lens of what is still beautiful and still here. I loved hearing James read aloud poems from his new collection. OK, James could read the phone book and I’d probably feel better about things. But then he presents in his warm and welcoming voice, hauntingly beautiful images, the strength and perspective that comes with daily encounters with wonder, and an assurance that kindness is transformational, I hope you’ll pause to join us for this conversation.

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Episode 66: The Everyday Sacred - A Conversation With Poet James Crews

I hope you’ll join Parker and I for this heart expanding conversation with poet, James Crews. In this conversation we talk about slowing down and becoming more awake to daily wonder, drawing strength from the divine in the smallest details, We discuss the importance of joy and beauty, the inspiration found in the natural world, change and impermanence, and the process of grief and healing. We also talk about the welcoming and interactive nature of his books and anthologies.

For more about James and his luminous poetry, books, anthologies, retreats, courses and his “Poetry is Life” Substack offering visit www.jamescrews.netrews.net or Substack: James Crews - Poetry Is Life

To Purchase “The Sacred Everyday: Poems of Peace & Stillness” visit Bookshop.org

Here is a bit more about James and his works —James Crews is the editor of several bestselling anthologies, including The Path to Kindness: Poems of Connection and Joy and How to Love the World: Poems of Gratitude and Hope, which has over 100,000 copies in print. He has been featured in The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, The New York Times Magazine, and on NPR’s Morning Edition. James is the author of four prize-winning books of poetry and essays—The Book of What Stays, Telling My Father, Bluebird, and Every Waking Moment—Kindness Will Save the World: Stories of Compassion and Connection.

His last collection “Turning Toward Grief”is a beautiful book about the process of loss, grief and healing. His newest book, “Everyday Sacred: Poems of Peace and Stillness” will be released October 27th. He has a beautiful Substack offering called “Poetry is Life” James also speaks and leads workshops on kindness, mindfulness, and writing for self-compassion. He lives with his husband on forty rocky acres in the woods of Southern Vermont.

For more about James and his beautiful poetry, books, anthologies, retreats, courses and his “Poetry is Life” Substack offering visit

Website www.jamescrews.netrews.net/

To Purchase “The Sacred Everyday: Poems of Peace & Stillness” visit Bookshop.org

Substack: James Crews - Poetry Is Life

Music Always Music

Here is a song that feels like it fits with this conversation we had with James. Its called “As The Day Is Spent”. It is a song that also tried to describe the everyday sacred, the small things that have deep and powerful meaning.

One Inch Photos

I found this nest on the path as I walked through the woods. The wind must have blown it to the ground - I was so taken by the leaf that fell perfectly, beautiful to rest in that nest.

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On to the post….

On the topic of community, something Barbara spoke about at the book reading was the importance of taking care of one another and staying connected to our treasured community. My new album is titled Murmurations. A murmuration is a flock of starlings or other birds that making beautiful moving three dimensional shapes in the air. Often we stand looking at these mysteriously coordinated movements front the ground and we simply cannot imagine how they do it. Last year I learned that in a Murmuration each bird bases its movements on the six birds around them. When you think about it, that means the community is expanded bird by bird by bird, extending out in all directions. Like a single bird in a murmuration, I need to ask myself regularly “what is mine to do” and “who are my six birds”. It is also good to know that community extends in ways that I cannot always see, expanding and creating something beautiful, moving, practical and transcendent.

I’ll be talking more about the album Murmurations and the ideas that thread through the recording —resilience, community, healing, loss and engaging in daily human sized hopeful action as we get closer to the release date February 2027. The first single “Go Ahead & Sing” will drop on all stream platforms on November 11th.

When I sat at the IU auditorium on Friday evening listening to Pianist Susan Tsai perform to of the pieces mentioned in ˆPartita” and Barbara read sections for the book I kept looking around and seeing the many overlapping “six birds” in my own life and community. I found myself teary with joy and gratitude. There is so much hard in this world and so much that needs healing—and yet, there is so much that is still fine and true and decent and beautiful. That is what I celebrate today. Good stories, good music, good friends and family and community….the mysteries of the natural world and the ever expanding quality of love.

-Carrie

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Question

What do you think about this idea of an ever and even mysteriously expanding community of goodness and resilience? Do you have a sense that what we do close in reverberates in our own hearts and the hearts of those dear to us…but also reverberates further into the world?

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Music Always Music

I’ve been listening a lot lately to Emily Scott Robinson, her beautiful voice and songwriting. I thought I’d share one of her songs. You can check her out on YouTube, Spotify, Apple-Tunes or wherever you stream your music.

One Inch Photos

I went for a walk in the woods with my daughter this weekend and found the largest find of chicken-of-the-woods mushrooms ever!! We harvested a few, and had them for dinner! basically we found “shroomer gold”.

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“Fear is so fundamental to the human condition that all the great spiritual traditions originate in an effort to overcome its effects on our lives. With different words, they all proclaim the same core message: "Be not afraid." Though the traditions vary widely in the ways they propose to take us beyond fear, all hold out the same hope: we can escape fear's paralysis and enter a state of grace where encounters with otherness will not threaten us but will enrich our work and our lives. It is important to note with care what that core teaching does and does not say. "Be not afraid" does not say that we should not have fears--and if it did, we could dismiss it as an impossible counsel of perfection. Instead, it says that we do not need to be our fears, quite a different proposition.” - Parker J. Palmer

This morning I opened up The Guardian news app. It was a bad idea.

It used to be easy to wait several days before checking the news. I know that modern news cycles will pretty much repeat the same thing for days. Bad news was a bit more spaced out. You could go a week without having your heartbroken.

But lately I have found myself drawn to checking each morning —because I’m truly unsure whether or not the current leaders of this country might do something ethically, morally or politically unhinged in the middle of the night.

Sometimes it’s just delusional bad taste, tweeting photos of himself as Jesus or the Pope. Other days it is truly grievous, the other morning I woke up to discover he’s started a tragic war on a whim. Another day he’s invaded a sovereign country or insulted another world leader or threatened to bomb an entire ancient civilization out of existence. Today I opened the news and read that the Secretary of War, announced his intention to live stream a firing squad execution— and I understand I have just encountered the face of true evil. It is not the first morning I felt that way.

Then I look around my kitchen, sip on my coffee that is starting to get cold, ruffle my old dog’s ears who is sitting as she always does, close by just in case.

There is a surrealness to it all.

The golden autumn light coming in the side window, a text from my daughter with three heart emojis. I feel lost and vulnerable even though in this moment I am personally as safe as I guess I’ll ever be.

And yet I know the entire world is holding its breath. So many of us are not safe. The president of the most powerful country on earth is in mental free-fall, his malignant, spiritually bereft and incoherent ramblings have become business as usual. I fear no one seems to be standing in the way of his worst impulses. So many of us feel like Cassandra. I am thinking about all the humans, and more than human, suffering at this very moment. I put my phone down. I wipe my eyes again.

I try to hold with grace, the news of the world and the news of the heart — what is hard and what is holy, remembering all the good and decent people I meet every single day doing brave and courageous, kind and loving things

Just then a female cardinal lands on the birdfeeder next to my kitchen window. A downy woodpecker follows digging into a suet block on a chain. I hear the sound of a crow somewhere deep in the woods. I pick up my cup and pour the cold coffee in the sink. I wash it and place it in the rack to dry. I wipe my hands on the little crocheted hand towel my sister gave me for Christmas.

I breathe deep and let it go. Then I lay my hand on my heart. I say a prayer. I speak aloud, “We are many and we are great with love.” I resolve to create something beautiful today.

Recently, I read in The Glorians by Terry Tempest Williams about five great floods that raked through the area of Utah where she lives. These floods came one after another with no time to rest or recover before the next wall of water crashed down the valley. Williams goes on to describe the land after the floods, how it would be forever changed. And yet, there in the aftermath she sensed the possibility of transformation, in that moment was a chance for starting anew.

I often think about those five floods in Utah and how the daily news feels akin to that unrelenting deluge. The walls of water that are barreling through are reshaping the landscape, laying bare things that had been hidden or just below the surface. Nothing lasts forever…not even winter…not even the one hundred year flood. So we get out our boats, help those without boats, try to be good neighbors in the storm.

We make a plan to help heal the land when the waters recede, envision an opportunity, build something better in a time of transformation.

In these times it is a normal human response to feel afraid, concerned or uncertain. How could I not have this sense of surrealness?

I know that it is human to be afraid

But do not have to “be” the fear.

We do not have to “be” the fear.

Make a plan to lean into what keeps you grounded resilient and hopeful.

Make a plan to vote.

Please feel free to “like” “restack” or “share”

Practice

Make sure you are registered. Make a plan to vote early.

Question

Today let us remind one another we are not alone. Write in the comments “We are many, and we are great with love” or “Love is still the greatest power” or some other phrase of encouragement to the community here.

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Music Always Music

This a song by the Wailin’ Jenny’s that I find very empowering called “One Voice”

A Supporting Subscriber “Ask Me Anything”Live Chat Monday October 19, 6pm-7pm ET!

I’ve gotten several requests for an informal chat session here on Substack. So….I’ll be online October 19th 6pm-7pm for an informal chat conversation If you have a question about particular song, the topics that show up here at A Gathering of Spirits, music, life in the arts or favorite knitting patterns. Ok, remember I have never written a song because I have an answer. I write songs because I have good questions, and good questions often return and deepen….so I will not be able to answer things like the meaning of life or how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. But we’ll have a great time and I welcome you all the the chat. At the time above click this link. I’ll send a reminder to everyone an hour before the chat starts.

Concerts and Workshops

For more information visit my website at CarrieNewcomer.com/tour

If you are interested in bringing me to your community for a concert or workshop contact my agent Jim Chaffee at Jim Chaffee Management.

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A Supporting Subscriber “Ask Me Anything”Live Chat Monday October 19, 6pm-7pm ET!

I’ve gotten several requests for an informal chat session here on Substack. So….I’ll be online October 19th 6pm-7pm for an informal chat conversation If you have a question about particular song, the topics that show up here at A Gathering of Spirits, music, life in the arts or favorite knitting patterns. Ok, remember I have never written a song because I have an answer. I write songs because I have good questions, and good questions often return and deepen….so I will not be able to answer things like the meaning of life or how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. But we’ll have a great time and I welcome you all the the chat. At the time above click this link. I’ll send a reminder to everyone an hour before the chat starts.

Now onto the post….

My daughter and I have our own dictionary of made up words. I think this happens in lots of close relationships—the small endearments, family vernacular, phrases that have become shorthand. When Amelia was three years old I asked her what she would like for breakfast, she responded “squabbling eggs”. I stopped and thought about it, it made sense, you crack a couple of eggs in a bowl, take a fork and squabble them around. It even sounds like “squabble, squabble squabble.” We still call them swabbling eggs.

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At some point we began adding the word “pie” at the ends of names as a term of endearment, addressing birthday cards to “Amelia-pie” or “Robert-pie” or refer to our dogs as “Lily-pie” and “Ella-pie.”

Side note: Ya’ll are officially “The gathering of spirits community-pie”. It’s offical.

A couple of weeks ago a came down with a nasty virus. No worries I’m all better, all is well. But I thought several times, as I was eating my soda crackers and sipping ginger ale, of the word “meepy”. Meepy is the word you use when you’re feeling a little cold-ish or flu-ish, maybe a little fevery, when everything becomes a bit tender and poignant, if you’re indulging in a bit of TV the save-the-puppy commercials will bring you to tears. Meepy.

When we ask one another “how are you doing honey?” The response might be “I’m ok, just a little meepy.” This is often followed by “Do you have soda crackers and ginger ale?”or “Do you have a soft blanket?” or “oh honey, poor baby.” or “How about rewatching The Princess Bride this afternoon?” Which totally gets the response “as you wish.”

As a songwriter and poet I spend a lot time thinking about language. Finding just the right way to tell a story, to complete a phrase, describe a moment is my daily bread. And yet there is a limit to language. There are actually things you can say in one language that have no equivalent in another language. There are times when the heart is so full there are no words to describe what is overflowing and spilling out. There are moments when the light shifts or or a leaf falls or the last notes of a beautiful song echo and fade —and try as I might, even my finest poem would only touch the surface of the thing.

So today I’m appreciating the beauty of language, of the way it is possible to point toward something transcendent in very few words. I am holding in my heart the things that reside there in wordless wonder. I loving what we create to fill in the gaps between what is said and what is meant.

Like “meepy”

Like pie”

Question:

Do you have a “family-ism”, some fun word or phrase that has become short-hand or family lore, or just fun? I bet we all have some great ones to share!

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ANNOUNCING THE FIRST SINGLE

“Go Ahead & Sing” - November 11, 2026!

On November 11th the first single from my new album Murmurations will be available on all streaming services. Also the official lyric video will be available on YouTube! I’m looking sooooo forward to sharing it with you all!

Music Always Music

Here is a song from Until Now called “I Give Myself To This.” I suppose it was written to describe the transcendent world, the sacred thread, to describe a state or experience in music and language—that has no words.

Things I Loved This Week

Your Haikus in Response to “Egg Gourds”

The mailbox held one red leaf
With no name or stamp
Fall had written back to me.
- Betsy Johnson

The round, white grin-ready things
embellish my days
with whimsical joys.
-Phil Fitzpatrick

Electric blanket
Black cat asleep on my lap
Need to move but can’t
-Linda Picceri

Gourds in their crooked glory
make me laugh out loud -
who dreamed up these funny shapes?
-Jayne Gumpel
-

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Its that time of year — the egg gourds have ripened into their full and audacious glory. They are spilling out of the raised beds and vining up and over the garage roof. They make me laugh just to look at them. They are utterly impractical, just a pleasing oval shape that fits nicely in the palm of the hand.

The story I was told is that farmers would put one of these gourds, (which look and feel exactly like a egg) in a hen’s nest, which signals this is a safe place and encourages them to lay eggs in that nest. I’m not sure if that is true, but it’s a nice bit of folk wisdom. Mostly egg gourds have no useful purpose other than to be delightful—which all told is a pretty great reason to be. My friend Krista gave me my first egg gourd seeds. I had seen then vining all over the fence that surrounds her chicken yard. To see all those charming egg gourds embellishing a chicken yard fence was just too good. I would call it wonderfully meta, but I don’t believe chickens have the interest or inclination to be self referencing. Anyway. I planted the first crop and discovered that whatever is in the very clay soil around my home, egg gourds love it with gusto. They don’t just thrive, the explode into many vines that start snaking out in all directions, taking over the raised beds and eventually grow up and over the garage roof. They are like a Dr. Suess plant that jumped off the page and into my garden. I suppose I could cut them back, but somehow seeing them spilling in every direction with all those bright yellow blossoms ripening into a hundred hanging chicken eggs does my heart good. The world is full of many serious things, and so these lush green egg producing vines are a reminder that the world is also full of funny, foolish, grin-ready things.

Some years I’ve invited little kids to come over and help me harvest all the “eggs” when the vines have turn brown and dry and winter is inching closer. I love watching them run around pointing and shouting “there’s one” and “there’s another”, pluck it from its vine and put it in a basket.

How good it is to love what is good and true and transcendent and lovely. I am grateful for what is useful and sustaining and nourishing. But I am also in love with what is delightful, unexpected and funny. I’m in love with random things that make a me happy just to know such simple joy is vining up up and over the garage.

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Please feel free to restack to Notes, share with someone who might enjoy this post and the wonderful community that gathers here. Liking, sharing and restacking and reposting help get the word out bring more voices into this conversation!

Practice

Write a haiku about something extraordinary ordinary that delighted you recently. Note: a haiku is a poem that is three lines. The first line is 7 syllables * 2nd line 5 syllables * 3rd line 7 syllables

Question

post your haiku…or just a description of something that made you grin this week.

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Egg Gourds
 
In my exuberance and anticipation
I always plant too many,
And then,
Do not have the heart,
To thin out the small ones.
I mean, doesn’t every shoot
Have a right to a little sun?
Deserve a chance
To elbow into the world?
Which I admit is my gardener’s Achilles heel,
And why my radishes will always be abundant but small.
 
So the gourds, they all grew
Flourishing with wild green abandon
Covering the raised beds and climbing up
And then over
The garage roof.
They unfurled yellow blossoms
Which became small green nobs,
Which grew into hanging gourds,
That looked exactly,
Precisely,
Like white chicken eggs.
 
At that point I should have pulled out a few,
Pinched them back,
Reined them in.
I mean they were crowding out the rhubarb
And replacing the dill.
 
But all I could do
Was watch in wonder.
Admire and applaud
How these earnest plants,
With apparently no practical purpose
Beyond being ample
And amusing
And audacious,
Could be so gloriously themselves.
Completely content to be nothing more
Or less
Than simply
And utterly
Delightful.

Carrie Newcomer - From Until Now: New Poems

Music Always Music

This song was written for an collaborative album project with masters of the Indian classical sarod, Amjad Ali Khan, Amaan Ali Khan and Ayaan Ali Khan. When recording this song it expanded in all kinds of joyous and unexpected ways. I think you can hear that we were all having a “delightful” and transcendent time together creating this piece.

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For more information visit my website at CarrieNewcomer.com/tour

If you are interested in bringing me to your community for a concert or workshop contact my agent Jim Chaffee at Jim Chaffee Management.

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I’ve made a rule for myself—I cannot buy sunglasses that cost more than $12.99. This is because for the life of me I cannot hold on to sunglasses. I’ve left a little trail of sunglasses, one sock, one earring, one mitten across this country and abroad. Really I try ya’all. I have a backpack that has very specific pockets for everything I’m carrying. Mostly I use the pockets, but sometimes I’m gathering up things in a rush and leave something behind, usually sunglasses. So I buy cheap sunglasses and you’ll never see me in a pair of really expensive earrings.

Because of this habit I have an extensive collection of lovely single earrings. I can’t bare to throw them away because I like them. And so I hang them on my earring tree and swear to myself one of these days I’ll make something out of them —turn one into a necklace piece, incorporate it into a christmas ornament or small sculpture or collage, use it as a charm attached to a coat zipper pull. So far I’ve done none of these things—but who knows it’s still a great idea—and they are very pretty just hanging there.

All that is to say, I heave a sigh when I lose simple but not super important things—like a pair of sunglasses that cost less than ten dollars. I roll my eyes at myself and say, “alms to the cosmos” and go on.

But it is much harder to lose something that actually matters. These can be grievous experiences—the loss of a job, the loss of a home, the loss of a beloved person, the loss of a dream, the loss of an illusion, the loss of health or physical well-being. These losses are deep and personal and ask us to be exceedingly kind to one another, because to live is to lose important things, and we all carry our sorrows close to the bone.

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Hey folks, Just a reminder that October 4-10th is Banned Books Week. October 10th is the Freedom to Read Action Day!

Banned Books Week was launched in 1982 by the American Library Association in response to a sudden surge in the number of challenges to books in libraries, bookstores, and schools. Today I’m posting lots of great links to the United Against Book Bans website and a couple of great PDFs they offer.

This annual week of celebration and solidarity lifts up the value of our free and open access to diverse information and brings together the entire book community — librarians, educators, authors, publishers, booksellers, and readers of all types — in shared support of the freedom to seek and to express ideas.

As a writer, a passionate reader and absolute supporter our freedom to read I believe that censoring access to diverse information and literature in public libraries is in direct violation of the First Amendment—basically, parents cannot dictate what another parent’s children read. I believe that individuals can be trusted to make their own decisions about what to read and that young people deserve to see themselves reflected in a library’s books.

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Helpful Links to Great Information and Ways To Get Involved. Supporting the freedom to read can be as simple as just checking out a banned book from your local library (this helps to establish that a banned book is valued by the community). But there are many other actions that can be helpful to our local libraries and librarians.

I love that United Against Book Bans has created a really helpful “Conversations That Matter” PDF, with wise insights in how to talk about this issue with effective facts and welcoming language. They also have a wonderful grassroots organizing tips, in the Unite Against Book Bans Action Toolkit.

I’ve attached two of their really helpful PDFs below.

So this year, let’s celebrate our local libraries and librarians and perhaps take some human size and doable action to help our local libraries remain a safe place for diverse information and stories. Remember to keep it human size and doable - we don’t have to do everything, but we can do something—including reading a great book this week!

Conversations That Connect Final 2026

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Conversations That Connect Final 2026

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Question

Is there a book that you read when you were a kid that helped you feel that your own story was seen and valuable?

I remember my local librarian suggesting I check out a couple of books that were essentially early women’s history for kids. I remember being so inspired by reading about real women and girls who did brave things, wise things, women who were bright and capable and courageous. These were not stories we were generally taught in school. Reading about amazing women inspired me then and still inspire me today.

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Things I loved This Week

Books

Partita by Barbara Kingsolver

I just finished an early copy of Barbara Kingsolver’s new book Partita. It is a brilliant read. Kingsolver’s writing is elegant and beautiful as always. Without giving too much away, this book explores how we hold our own stories, the joy the sorrows, the mistakes and consquenses. It is a story of memory and tragedy, but also of healing, forgiveness (even of oneself) and redemption. I can’t recommend it more highly.

The book will be released on October 6, 2026. Here’s link to how to pre-order or purchase. Link

Music and Videos

Lost Weekend - Phoebe Bridgers

I’m really enjoying Phoebe Bridgers new album, Lost Weekend. Its haunting interesting lyrics with solid pop song writing. I really loved that she debuted the song “Lost Boys” on the Tonight Show with a surprise group of really talented teenagers as her full band. If you want to catch a song performance that is bound to make you smile check out the video. Ok, the little guy playing keys is so happy and sweet!

Concerts, Workshops and Booking

For more information visit my website at Carrie Newcomer.com/tour

If you are interested in bringing me to your community for a concert or workshop contact my agent Jim Chaffee at Jim Chaffee Management.

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“The trees drip yellow-red and the grasses display tawny golden beauty. Unlike blatant summer with its outspokenness, autumn hides in the wood smoke at the edge of a field that borders a forest. Slowly, slowly she disappears into the trees, giving us time to precieve another beauty. At no other season are we as aware that everything is more than it seems, the movement of the earth, our lives, and the stories we tell.” - Marvin Hiles

In Southern Indiana the leaves are just beginning to turn. Yesterday we harvested butternut squash out at the farm. The wheel of autumn turned a notch with click and here we are, on the cusp of fall colors. There is a large maple tree that arches over the road I travel from home to town. In a couple of weeks it will be so vibrantly yellow, the world will feel brighter beneath the leaves that out in full sunlight. Everything feels brilliant and brief and beautiful.

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Several years ago, on an East Coast tour, I had a day off in Washington DC. I decided to travel into the city and spend the afternoon at the National Gallery. I was delighted to discover the museum was featuring a retrospective of the works of the sculptor Henry Moore. I love Moore’s work and spent most of the day wandering through rooms of his paintings, drawings and of course his beautiful sculptures. One of the exhibits that stayed with me was a room set up with items from Moore’s studio. After the artist had passed, the family decided to preserve his studio and the things he kept around himself for inspiration. These were the things he’d placed randomly (or not randomly) on shelves, tables, his desk and all around his work space. There were many small natural items— stones and feathers, bones, leaves, photos, notebooks, scraps of paper, postcards, sketches, sticks and driftwood— things he’d found and decided to keep near him. Moore’s monumental sculptures were semi-abstract, sometimes fashioned in bronze or directly-carved from stone or wood. He was fascinated with certain kinds of lines, shapes and forms, particularly those found in the natural world. This fascination of natural shapes found its way into his life, his studio and his expressions of beauty. I spent a good deal of time, just pondering this display of what some would call the clutter of his studio, all the carefully placed bits and bobs that ended up feeling like little altars natural world.

Like Henry Moore, I also have a house full of odd bits that I’ve brought home in backpacks, jean and coats pockets. Some of my collections look like altars (a table with a prayer wheel from dusty shop in Old Delhi, a stone from a 14,000 ft peak in Peru, a St Francis prayer card, incense from an Italian monastery, a carved Zuni image of Corn Woman, a small Buddha, a ceramic Ganesha given to me by a child in Mumbai, a small stone from the hill where it is believed “blessed are the peacemakers’ was first spoken, a fabric heart made at a Buddhist monastery in California, a pottery shard, a piece of amethyst, a pine cone from a 300 year old tree where J.R.R. Tolkien was known to have sat beneath and write. But there are also other kinds of altars in my home—a bowl of stones from Lake Michigan, a piece of broken wood in the shape of a bird, fossils and geodes and always stacks of poetry books within easy reach wherever you sit. In the past years, I’ve made it a point to pare down, simplify and reduce the “stuff” in my life and home, but I’ve kept the most meaningful collections of these small mementos and many natural things that still inspire, fascinate or haunt me.

Webster‘s Dictionary entry— Altar (n) raised place or structure, as a table where religious rites are performed.

There are altars found within or connected to religious places, but perhaps the cairns of stones I carefully stacked in the creek-bed near my home (knowing that the next big rain will wash them away) is also a form of altar. Maybe the centuries old tree beside that creek is another kind of altar, reaching to heaven as it reaches down into the muddy ground. Perhaps we discover or create sacred places by how we interact with them—a pile of stones, an end table of remembrances, a wooden chair on the dock with golden autumn leaves falling down all around it. Perhaps the love we give, the kindnesses we share and the songs we sing are also a kind of dedication to something fine and true that goes beyond language. Perhaps the world is made up of mostly altars as Wendell Berry wrote “There are no unsacred places; there are only sacred places and desecrated places”. Maybe Webster’s is correct, but could just use some sprucing up or at least a bit of poetic expansion.

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Practice

Today create an altar for yourself. Walk outside, collect a few natural items that are symbolic of something that matters to you —or that simply delight or fascinate or call to you. Place them on a plate or in a bowl. Leave it out on a table or somewhere that you’ll see it occasionally for a few days, maybe stop and touch the items, breathe in the spirit of what you love. After a day or two, return them outside.

Question

In my expanded definition of altars, have you created any altars in your life? Name something small you’ve kept on your desk, studio, home or office that continues to inspire you.

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Feathers

So much of the immaterial world
Is perched on our material shoulders
A bird that sings
And sings again
With a song so intimate
It might go unnoticed
But for the feathers
That keep showing up
On the dresser
Next to the coffee cup
In a coat pocket
Unworn since last winter.
I mean, who knew
That while I searched and scanned
The unknowable horizon
With ardently polished binoculars
All that I needed
Was already
Patiently waiting
Close as my earlobes.
Which face it,
Are easy to miss
As unassuming
And practically placed as they are.
How easy it is to look anywhere
And everywhere
But here
For what lights easy on our shoulders
And what the heart already knew.

By Carrie Newcomer

Things I Loved This Week

Last week I was in Annandale MN and encountered the Annandale Art & Textile Center. Six years ago, Joe & Elizabeth Bayer created the Annandale Art and Textile Center (AATC). The AATC employes adults with a variety of learning styles and abilities as weavers. offering a fair wage and a pathway to artistry. To support their mission, the AATC sells beautiful woven items created on-site plus the work of over 50 local artists and crafts people. The also offer weaving and creative classes to the general public. I was so touched by the beautiful stories of how the AATC celebrates the abilities of individuals who have too often been excluded. The community of wavers, staff and volunteers have woven a welcoming, joyful and inclusive community of creativity and artistry! What a beautiful thing to see an idea start, grow and change a community with love and beauty.

If you want to know more about this project you can visit their website artandweaving.com

Music Always Music

This is a song recorded on my album A Permeable Life. The song began as a poem I wrote on hotel stationary while traveling during a month long tour in India. During that trip I was taken by all the small altars I encountered, ribbons in the trees, little acknowledgements of the sacred found in the daily. I was pondering how it is when I travel, how each place every encounter holds a bit of transcendence if I chose to see it that way.

Tour Schedule Concerts and Retreats

For more info visit www.carrienewcomer.com/tour

One Inch Photo

Booking

If you would like to bring me to your community for a retreat or concert, here’s a link to the Jim Chaffee Management Group

Sweet Potatoes!

There are so many things I love about being on the Meadowlark Farm crew. Once or twice a week, when I’m off the road, I join a group of dear friends who help out with gardening tasks. We’ve been doing this for many years and it has enriched my life in more ways than I can count. The amazing collection of women who gather together to plant, nurture and harvest throughout the seasons are an extraordinary and deeply abiding gift in my life—working in the garden while talking about new babies and aging parents, books and political change, music and art, wonders and bewilderments, sometimes stopping to catch a bird call, the light shining on butterfly wings and shoo the three black dogs running happily among (and sometimes through) the planted rows.

In terms of the seasons, I love how gardening keeps me in touch with the cycles of nature and constancy of the natural world. You can’t plant a radish outdoors before the snows have passed. You must patiently wait to harvest the butternut squash until autumn is in full swing. The farm garden reminds me regularly that there is “a time for everything under heaven”, and a time for everything above and below this good green earth.

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The ‘all too short lease of summer’ ends. The planet comes into balance, equinox….We have lived another round of days following the rhythm of the skies, lands, seas, and listening to the ever-accompanying voice within. We let it happen and say with Emily Dickinson, “Our summer made her light escape into the beautiful.” - Marv Hiles The Almanac of the Soul

This summer seemed to pass particularly quickly this year, this feeling hasn’t been dulled by temperatures remaining stubbornly in the mid to high 90’s. I love the turn of the seasons and autumn is an extraordinarily beautiful time in the hills of South Central Indiana. But this year I find myself full of mixed feelings —bittersweet, grateful and expectant. It is as if I am watching from the doorway as summer strides over the western horizon, whistling a tune that sounds like Wood thrush and hummingbirds, wearing a wide brimmed hat covered with the summer stars, Vega, Deneb, and Altair. At the same moment I welcome Fall as it arrives walking carefully down the eastern slope, wearing a backpack full of newly harvested apples and pears, notebooks and school supplies, and the bright autumn constellations of Pegasus, Andromeda and Capella.

Every autumn I mourn when the wood thrush leave, they arrive in late May and leave by the first of September. They nest in great numbers in the woods and hills around my home. They sing most ardently in the mornings and evenings, calling to one another in their haunting, beautiful voices. I notice their absence immediately, and even though I knew it was coming, it always knocks the wind out of me. They are gone and will not return until the leaves have changed and fallen, until after the deep winter snows have piled up and finally melted into muddy March and unpredictable April.

Although I know, this is the cycle of things and there is a purpose and beauty to it all, I cannot help but feel bereft for days. Lingering at the edge of that bereftness is always the questions, “Did I sit and listen enough? “Did I drink deep of that beautiful sound, or did I get busy and only sip a little at the edge of the glass of that good water? “Did I grow so accustomed to the miracle, I stopped appreciating it for even a moment?”

In the Thornton Wilder play, Our Town, the character of Emily, a young woman who has died in childbirth, tries returning to earth to relive her twelfth birthday. In the course of the play she finds this return to earth too painful, as she watches the people around her unaware of the wonder and beauty of ordinary moments. Eventually she asks the Stage Manager “Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it—every, every minute?” The Stage Manager simply answers, “No. The saints and poets, maybe—they do some.”

And so I find myself grateful for the fact I’ve lived another glorious summer. I’ve listened to the wood thrush and loved their song enough that I noticed when they left again for their winter home. I am grateful to have watched the summer stars rise in the east and set in the west. I am grateful for the things in my life (art, music, relationships, the daily activities of an active life) that are so engaging and compelling that I have to remind myself to balance them with rest and reflection. I watch autumn arrive and sense that although I did my best, I was not aware “every every moment” of the gift of each wondrous day.

All that is to say, I’m not so much saddened by this sense of one season wandering off and another wandering in, but rather reminded to stay present to what I love about what just strode over the horizon, to hold with awareness and gratitude the way autumn light glows and the last blooms shine at the edge of the path. It reminds me to stay joyous for the gift of one more turning of the leaves, breathe it in, drink it down and love what is here for but a season —until the season changes again.

-Carrie

A reminder…please feel free to like, comment, share or repost to notes. This helps me know if pieces are landing well and its the best way to bring more people into the conversation :-)

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Practice

Set your watch or phone to alert you once in the morning, once in the afternoon and once in the evening. When the alert goes off, stop whatever you are doing. If you can go outside, but its fine to just stay wherever you are at that moment. Breathe in and out three deep breaths. Feel the beauty of the day, the wonder of the moment, the gift of the season. Then on the in breath say or think “I am here and” and on the out breathe say or think “I am grateful”.

If you feel like it…leave that alert active on your phone or watch for a few days.

Question

In this post I wrote about what Autumn brings in it’s metaphorical backpack (apples and pears, school supplies and constellations). What are you carrying in your literal or metaphorical backpack as you walk or stride into this next season of change?

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Music Always Music

I’m happy to announce that my new album Murmurations, will be released in February 2027. AND the first single will be made available in early November! Watch for more information about that first release! Here’s a sneak peak at the cover art!

Things I Loved This Week

A New Documentary on Gene Stratton Porter

Last week I joined Robert Todd Gould and the WTIU team to do a voice over for a new documentary based on the life and work of Gene Porter-Stratton. Gene Stratton Porter is known for her novels set in North Eastern Indiana as well as her books, articles, movies and work for the preservation of the natural world. Gene was an early eco-feminist and raised awareness of the need to protect our natural spaces and wetlands. I was asked to be the voice of Gene in the documentary! What an honor to be part of the project. It is scheduled to premiere on PBS stations all over the country in March of 2027!

Fall Shows and Retreats

Gary Walters and I will be out on the road this fall, performing songs that have become old friends as well as some songs from my upcoming album, Murmurations. For more information visit my website tour page www.carrienewcomer.com/tour

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Hi Everyone - I’ve moved my regular Wednesday post to Tuesday because……

TODAY is National Voter Registration Day! Here’s a link to check your status or to register! LINK

First If you’re looking to register to vote or check/update your voter registration, the link above is a quick easy resource! Not sure if you need to update your registration? Here’s a list of reasons to check your status:

• You’ve moved

• You’ve changed your name since you last voted

• You got married

• Mistakes are made

To quickly and easily get registered to vote. Simply select your state from the dropdown menu on the Linked Page. You will automatically be redirected to a menu of official voter registration tools for your state on Vote.gov.

I know that there are many people who say, “My vote doesn’t matter, one voice won’t make a difference” or “Its all the same, all politicians are the same, they’ve all let us down”.

So here is why I vote…….

1. Because every drop in the bucket fills the bucket. When the water finally spills over the lip of the bucket, it wasn’t just that last drop the caused it to spill. It took every single drop to raise the water to that critical level. Each voice does matter, and most major shifts for the common good happened because enough people decided to be a part that shift and added their voice.

2. I vote is because my grandmother was a grown woman with seven children when she was finally gained the right to vote. Until then she was unable to participate and had no voice in how government policy would effect the lives of those precious children. It hasn’t been that long go, civil rights and women’s rights have been hard won and are seriously under attack. My vote honors all the courageous, dedicated people that worked for generations to move us toward a better and more just society.

3. I vote because I want to hold our leaders accountable. When a legislator supports laws that I believe harm the earth, the common good and the most vulnerable, if a legislator is corrupt or abdicates their power to an authoritarian regime—it is my right and my obligation to do what I can to vote that legislator out of office.

4. But most of all, Even though I know that voting will not wave a magic wand over the whole world and make everything immediately fine, I vote because it is an expression my most deeply held values. I choose to live with what John Paul Lederach calls “audacious tender tenacity”. I choose to lean into a love that is grounded in hope that is gritty and daily and active, and in claiming my voice, agency I am also changed. I often ask myself “what is mine to do and who will go with me?” Voting is an extension of what I do each day for the better kinder world, and it connects me with others working each day in their own way to do the same.

So if you are not registered—take time today to register to vote. Claim your voice and claim that gritty daily kind of hope. Claim your own audacious tender tenacity.

If you are registered —be sure to make a quick check on your status. Mistakes can happen —particularly this year when attempts interfere with voter access are at critical levels.

Send this post — If there is someone you think would appreciate the link to either register or check their registration status please pass it along.

Seek out organizations that are actively helping people to register and to vote and volunteer!

Question

What do think of the idea that voting is an extension of most beautiful values and our daily work for the better world? Why do you vote?

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For awhile my morning practice was to read a poem by Hafiz and then write a poem in response. It was like having a conversation with Hafiz poems. So I’m reposting the poem today. Its about being a person who can get impatient with my own journey. Sometimes I have to remind myself that my life doesn’t happen after I meet some elusive goal. Life is happening now —pay attention. How the journey changes with a bit self compassion and kindness. How the trees and leaves glow when I’m standing exactly where I am.

I don’t know if you’ve ever inhaled a book wanting to take in all the wisdom it contained, only to get to the end and not remember much about what was on each page. It is a poem for those of us who occasionally lean so hard into becoming, who longed to “get there” so much, that we forgot what we needed most was to live, learn, live and be is right here. I think there is a shift that happens when the internal dialogue is grounded in compassion…and even a little humor.

When I was much younger I would pray to be wise, until I figured out the kinds of experience that wisdom would require. Now I don’t pray to be wise, I ask to be here, to be humble and mostly kind, even to myself. Because on the way to my growing edge are so many glowing autumn leaves to consider.

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When All The While

I can only travel as far
As I can go in one day
Such is the way of walking.
For pressing hard,  
Lengthening my stride
Quickening my pace
Only keeps me focused 
Upon the movement of my own feet
When all the while 
The autumn light
Is streaming down through the amber leaves
Making the dust sparkle 
And the whole world glow from within.

How foolish
Yet so good intentioned 
The impatient pilgrim in me
Who longs so sincerely
And comically to see you
At the journey’s end
That imagines us sharing mint tea
With the perfect number of ice cubes
Mumbling, "I'm sorry it took me so long." 
Forgetting  you are right here
In the water bottle
In my shoe laces
In the dappled light
In the right path
In the wrong turn
In the ache in my shoulders
In the time it takes
Especially in the time it takes
And always
Always
In the song that is ever 
so slowly 
forming. 

Carrie Newcomer

Practice

September sky alert - set your watch or calendar to alert you at some random point in the day. When your alert goes off, take a break and head outside and just consider the early autumn sky. Notice how the quality of the light is different in September than it is in July or January, at 10am or 6pm. Breath it in, Breath it out. Then head back into whatever you were doing.

Question

What did this poem bring up for you? How does self compassion change how we move through the world?

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Things I Loved This Week

Books & Poetry

The Wonderment: New Poems by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer (Just released Sept 8, 2026)

I have fallen in love with this beautiful book of poetry by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer. I was able to read an early copy and it has stayed beside my reading chair ever since. In The Wonderment we are reminded that beauty and meaning is not found apart from our daily lives, but within it. It is intimate and universal, humorous and heartfelt. In her signature vulnerability and courage Rosemerry honors the both/and of our human experience and invites to into the sacred ordinary and the experience of wonderment. Here’s a link to learn more about the book.

Your Comments

In response to the question in the post A Simple Change of Heart “Is beauty something vital and necessary, or is just something that’s nice to encounter occasionally? Is there a reason you feel the way you do about beautys beauty something vital and necessary, or is just something that’s nice to encounter occasionally? Is there a reason you feel the way you do about beauty?”

"While our human world was closing its doors, holding its breath, and hiding from one another, the natural world was simply showing off. The tree did not know there was a pandemic. It just bloomed. It dropped its flower exactly when it was meant to, whether anyone was watching or not. And on that particular day, I was. I needed to be. And somehow, it knew." - Dave

Many years ago my young daughter who had gone for a walk in the woods with her dad, brought a small gift to me that she had found in the woods. As she handed it to me she said, "I love you Mama". It was half of a nut shell (hickory I think) and the hollowed out part of the shell was in the shape of a heart. That little heart sits on the window sill where I see it every time I wash dishes. It brings a smile to my face every time I see it. - L Mctav

Music Always Music

This is a song I wrote while walking on a path through the woods near my home. Its called “A Path Through The Evening Woods” on A Great Wild Mercy. I actually created this video while walking that same path with my dogs.

Tour Schedule - Concerts & Retreats

I’m back on the road this fall. For more information about my concert and retreats visit my website tour page www.carrienewcomer.com/tour

One Inch Photos

I found this mushroom nibbled by some creature into the shape of a heart!

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“Now I think it’s one of the most useless questions an adult can ask a child—What do you want to be when you grow up? As if growing up is finite. As if at some point you become something and that’s the end.”— Michelle Obama (Becoming)

It’s September and in a college town that means a new wave of students have returned to school. It means there are less places to park and the downtown is filled with Young men elbowing one another and loping down the street, while groups of young women express their true individuality by all dressing in the same trendy crop top and jean shorts. It means that you have to be careful because eventually you will encounter a student with very large eyes driving the wrong way on one of our town’s many one way streets.

It’s September and so drug and discount stores have displays of Bluey backpacks, lunchboxes and water bottles, whole sections of off brand crayons, pens and pencils. Even though we think of January as the start of the calendar year, September always feels another kind of beginning - the start of something new.

Again and again we become. Again and again we begin.

One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began — Mary Oliver

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I posted this poem “The Million Mile Tail” in one of my Supporting Subscriber posts, but it felt appropriate to repost it again to the full community.

In this poem I talk about the experience of seeing the Comet Neowise, which can be seen from earth only every six thousand years or so. I remember looking up at the sky with a sense of wonder, miracle and of being given a great wild unearned gift. Compared to the expansive age of such celestial events, the life of one human being is as brief as that of a mayfly or luna moth. We breathe in and then we breathe out. I remember how each evening I felt powerfully drawn to the night sky, grateful in some deep wordless way that I just happened to be sitting upright in the dust on this beautiful blue-green planet at the exact moment the Comet Neowise swung in and then out of view. I remember waving goodbye and then blowing a kiss to something that would not be seen again for another six thousand years.

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When I heard that the poet/author/environmentalist Wendell Berry had passed away this week, I felt very much as I did when watching the Comet Neowise head out over the horizon and back into the mystery of time and space. Wendell burned incredibly bright. He spoke the truth, created beauty, and honored what was sacred, even in the midst of so much environmental brokenness. He reminded us of our shared humanity, our shared community with the more-than-human world. He told us to pay attention and dig deeper because “what we need is here” and to not lose hope but “practice resurrection.” He lifted up the small town, the long friendship, the simple things that create a meaningful life. Yes, he was one man, brief and brilliant, and yet, like the Comet Neowise, he left a million mile tail trailing behind him, a smear of diamonds and dust, of beauty and glittering ash. I did not know Wendell personally, although I did meet him once when I was to sing before a ceremony to honor his life and work. We stood together backstage and I don’t believe I’ve ever met a person so uncomfortable with the idea of being “honored”. He was polite, kind, humble and left for home pretty much as soon as the ceremony was done.

*****

“It may be that when we no longer know what to do,
we have come to our real work
and when we no longer know which way to go,
we have begun our real journey. -Wendell Berry

“And the world cannot be discovered by a journey of miles, no matter how long, but only by a spiritual journey, a journey of one inch, very arduous and humbling and joyful, by which we arrive at the ground at our own feet, and learn to be at home.”
― Wendell Berry, The Unforeseen Wilderness: Kentucky's Red River Gorge

*********

In the past weeks we also saw two more bright comets of light, head over the known horizon, out of view and into the next mystery. Dolly Parton and Gloria Steinem would seem, if measuring by a completely surface assessment, to represent the polar ends of what it means to be culturally female in America. And yet, both in their own way, chose to be true to themselves and absolutely exactly who they were—no regrets and no apologies. They were both strong women who came up in the world during a time when women’s options and opportunities were very limited. They worked hard, they chose their battles, they braved the hard edge of how society can treat smart, forthright and ambitious women. They both cared deeply about the well being of others, especially those whose voices are most often discounted or diminished, they fought for the wellbeing and rights of women and children, the poor and dispossessed.

They were very different women for sure, but they were both great human beings and each in their own way, great comets of light. Remember that Gloria Steinem was born only fourteen years after women could legally cast a ballot in the United States of America. Dolly Parton was born only twenty-six years after half the population of this country had any voice at all in the political leadership of their own hometowns, home states and home country.

They sang loud, made waves and lived absolutely true.

*****

“When humans are ranked instead of linked, everyone loses.” ― Gloria Steinem,

One day an army of gray-haired women may quietly take over the Earth!”
― Gloria Steinem

“I’m not going to limit myself just because people won’t accept the fact that I can do something else.” ― Dolly Parton

“Its hard to be a diamond in a rhinestone world.”
― Dolly Parton

*******

And so today I stand on my toes. I am watching as these three great comets of light illuminate the sky. I am grateful for the million mile tail of glittering dust they each one leave in their wake. I am grateful for all their the songs and stories, poems and prayers, hope, faith and visions for a better world.

And I’m grateful for how a goodness can lasts long - so luminously long - after the comet has passed over the horizon and out of view.

—Carrie

(As always please feel free to Like, Share With Friends, Comment or Repost to Notes)

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A Million-Mile Tail
(For the Comet Neowise - discovered on March 27, 2020 - and for all the shining
comets as they sail out of view.)

There is a comet that passes this way
Every six thousand years or so,
For the briefest
Handful of days.
This week that comet returned,
Coming into view
After ages of absence.
The comet is actually quite small.
A mere acre or two of ice and rock
And yet blooming behind it
Is a million-mile tail.
A smear of diamonds and dust
Curling in its wake.
Some people are like that,
Passing briefly into our orbit
Having no idea of the wide wash of color,
The glittering ash,
They've left expanding behind them.
Tossed like roses
Or kisses into the wind.
And so tonight,

I lift up on my toes
To catch the last glimpse
Of something real,
But rare,
As it slips beyond the horizon,
Heading back home
To the place it began.
The night sparkling with stars
As it swings out of view.

Question

In honor of those who have passed through our lives and world like the luminous Comet Neowise, lets give a shout out to someone you remember with love…who left a shining million mile tail of light in the world…and the world is a better place because they were here.

I’ll start… Wendell, Dolly, Gloria, Sarah, Melissa, Donna and Ed……

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Music always Music

This song by the Avett Brothers always makes me cry….every time.

A Closing Thought

“You have been given questions to which you cannot be given answers. You will have to live them out - perhaps a little at a time.’
And how long is that going to take?’
I don’t know. As long as you live, perhaps.’
That could be a long time.’
I will tell you a further mystery,’ he said. ‘It may take longer.”
― Wendell Berry, Jayber Crow

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"A coincidence is a small miracle when it wishes to remain anonymous." - Richard Bach

Love creates a synchronicity with what love loves. Why would it not do that, knowing harmony’s vital role. - Hafiz

“Synchronicity is when The Cosmos winks.” —Something I overheard in a cafe.

When I am open to seeing something beautiful— beauty always arrives. There is always something surprising and beautiful to encounter when I am open to encountering beauty. Awareness is an openness. Openness is a kind of welcome. Welcome creates a space for wonder where sometimes synchronicities happen.

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