At this time of the summer in the United States if you have a garden or you frequent farmers markets there is a very high chance that you are going to have a run in with a tomato. While tomatoes are one of the world’s most consumed, highest valued and most widely grown vegetable crop…

The unofficial motto of the US Postal Service is:   “Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.”   This grand proclamation is engraved on the lintels of the Farley Postal Building in New York City which opened in 1914. The Classical…

Somewhere along the road of your learnings you may have picked up the piece of trivia that glass is a liquid and not a solid. And maybe you read about crazed glass and how churches with windows that are hundreds and hundreds of years older are thicker at the bottom due to the slowly flowing…

There are a lot of things to track in these strange days. The state of coronavirus, whatever your thoughts about it are deeply laced in with politics. No matter your interest or persuasion in or around US politics there was, in my estimation, a remarkable interaction in Congress in the last few days where Representative…

The last few newsletters have been heavy and substantial. And perhaps that is proper because the times are such. So I thought I’d still try to be faithful to the times but be a bit lighter this week. So I’ll start where all levity starts… Luke 5:36-39. Ha! And he spake also a parable unto…

Delegates from 34 Native tribes at the Creek Council House in Indian Territory, now called Oklahoma, 1880 The fact that you read this newsletter means that you get and read at least one email newsletter. I’m so glad that you have decided that a newsletter from your tallow based skincare provider is worth your time.…

There was a time a few weeks ago here in New York City that the two most prevalent sounds were ambulance sirens and bird song. And here we are in a city that is light 30,000 souls. Over the weeknd The Houston Chronicle had an obituary section that was forty three pages long. COVID-19 deaths…

For many Native American people tobacco is a highly sacred plant that is stitched into many creation myths and so in some ways ritual use of tobacco is mandatory for simply just being in the world. The plant is used as medicine in varying ways, in ceremony, (neither of which I know anything about) and…

Again this week I struggled to find a clear wind to write about and reflect on and share with you. The news of the day feels like a holding pattern despite all the movement. I can’t even tell you how many quarter-baked ideas I had for this week. But if anything is properly happening it…

Reflecting on the goings on in the world this week trying to find something to send off to you in this weekly newsletter I found myself with only half-baked wonderings. I noted the rising COVID cases across the United States and was looking around at the Akkadian king of Mari, Zimri-Lin, and how he wrote…