For the past two years, I’ve made an early-December trek across the US, from my home in the Maine Woods to the Monastery of Saint Gertrude, on Idaho’s Camas Prairie. Over the winter, I’ve worked at the monastery to revitalize and expand eco-spirituality programs. Last May, I drove back to Maine in time for my...Read More
A belated Happy New Year to all my blog friends! I’ve settled into the Center for Benedictine Life at the Monastery of Saint Gertrude for another winter. The monastery rises above Idaho’s Camas Prairie, which stretches toward distant snowcapped mountains. A few days ago, on a frosty morning, we were blessed with a glorious, flamboyant...Read More
In recent months, news from the human world has spoken of chaos and confusion: war in Ukraine and the Middle East, political strife at home and abroad, factions working against each other rather than uniting for the common good. It’s easy to get caught in an endless internal loop of negative thoughts: frustrations with the...Read More
Summer Solstice greetings! Over the past six weeks, I’ve traveled from Saint Gertrude’s Monastery in Idaho back to my home in the Maine Woods. I’ve settled into my off-grid cabin on First Roach Pond and my work managing the Appalachian Trail Conservancy Visitor Center in Monson. In my next post, I’ll share highlights of my...Read More
As my long-term blog friends know, I’m spending the winter at the Center for Benedictine Life at the Monastery of Saint Gertrude near Cottonwood, Idaho. (For the full story of my initial stay at the monastery last spring, see https://www.wendyweiger.com/idaho-adventure-saint-gertrudes-monastery-spring-2023/.) The Sisters of Saint Gertrude’s steward 1,400 mostly-forested acres. Their land rises above the Camas...Read More
My mother and I moved to the Maine Woods in December 2003. It’s hard to believe that twenty years have flown by since then. Twenty years of exploring: traveling hundreds of miles up mountains and down rivers, in hiking boots, by canoe, on snowshoes and skis. Twenty years of getting to know my neighbors: trees,...Read More
In the Penobscot language, Katahdin means “greatest mountain.” It rises from the ancestral homeland of the Penobscots. According to tribal historian James Francis, the name does not refer to size, but to its spiritual significance to his people. In 1846, Thoreau journeyed to Katahdin’s Tableland. He experienced the mountain as “primeval, untamed, and forever untamable...Read More
Since 2014, I’ve been watching an eagles’ nest. It’s cradled in the boughs of a tall pine, above the North Inlet of First Roach Pond, about four tenths of a mile from my cabin. Over those years, the resident adults have raised six eaglets. In 2021, I followed the progress of the eagle family closely,...Read More
