Granary Incense Cedar; JD Burress On a rainy New Year’s Eve our son Nico drove us to the top of San Diego’s Palomar Mountain (6000’ elevation) for a hike in the clouds. His 1998 Toyota Tacoma, fitted with a new set of tires, easily maneuvered dirt and gravel switchbacks hedged by coastal sage scrub. As we climbed out of the valley, the tree line took over and soon we were in the forest. Near the peak, we parked at Scott’s Cabin trailhead and made our way through sections of incense cedar,...

Greetings to you on this, the Winter Solstice! The cats were restless this morning and in their own way, insisted that I wake up long before it seemed advisable, certainly well before the sun made her appearance. I obeyed them because cats do not easily give up. Once I fed them, I stepped outside into the darkness, and as fortune would have it, right into a conversation between two owls. While they exchanged information, I sensed that I was in a sacred circle with two magnificent beings,...

After college, before babies and smart phones, JD and I moved to Portland, Oregon, where I found a job as a representative for a small college textbook publisher. My Thomas Guide directed me to campuses all over Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Wyoming, and Montana, where I’d try to persuade professors to adopt our word processing, programming, and computer science books. Before the key was in the ignition of the company issue Ford Taurus, I’d memorize highway numbers, landmarks, and exit names. My...