It's been a rough time, especially for many who had their SNAP benefits and other supports cut off as well as federal workers who faced 43 days of the shutdown upending their lives. Add to this the shock for people I know when they see how much their health insurance is rising, doubling for many people, and there's good reason to despair, freak out, collapse on the couch in exhaustion, or activate fierce hypervigilance. At the same time, I've been seeing unprecedented generosity at work and...

At the 20th Power of Words conference Oct. 3-5 in Kansas City, I had the honor of giving the welcome talk, which I realized speaks to more than just people engaged in Transformative Language Arts (writing, storytelling, theater and other word arts for social and personal transformation and community building). So I share this here, hoping we all find meaning, stubborn hope, and belonging. At our first meeting, you could see how different we were by our shoes: Birkenstocks, work boots,...

Double rainbow in Ennistymon I must have been five or six when I first saw a picture of Ireland and knew I would go there one day. I'm...