Favorites have to stir the heart, and the following really stirred me up this year. Blessed to have enjoyed them, & happy to pass them on!
My favorite carol of the year, perhaps of the decade:
My favorite new TV drama series is old. And completely engrossing. Make sure to watch The Guardian through Episode Eight. Yes, Simon Baker brings a young Paul Newman to mind, but it is the content here that is so winning. Tough shark lawyer meets vulnerable kids as a reluctant public defender. Netflix has the series on Instant Download. My admiration grows with every episode.
| Cat Stephens was looking for a hard-headed woman. Truth features four. Ranchers all, with a past that has them snared like barbed wire and a 300-mile-long pipeline that's about to suck their arid Nevada ranch dry. Who gets the water—Las Vegas or the Jorgensens? Be ready to eat dust and ride the rangelands to find out. Richman can really write desert. And the pipeline is not fiction. See my favorite cause below. |  |
My favorite new pastime--napping.
My favorite trees, and this is one tough category for me:
 My apple tree, which produced five blossoms. I was so excited I couldn't hold still! |  Van Gogh's "Poplars at Saint Remy"—at the Denver Art Museum, until January 2. |
For a few years now, my favorite TV comedy series has been Modern Family.
With this year's Phils'osophy, the writers reached new heights. I would buy multiple copies of this book to give away, if only someone had published it! Phil for the holidays!
With this year's Phils'osophy, the writers reached new heights. I would buy multiple copies of this book to give away, if only someone had published it! Phil for the holidays!
My favorite non-fiction book, which I am reading slowly to relish every insight: Priscilla Stuckey's Kissed By a Fox.
| The writing in Kissed is easily as beautiful as the cover. Stuckey explores our basic connection with nature which we've largely forgotten but which has not forgotten us. Philosophers, biologists, mystics and economists all join voices with Stuckey to pinpoint and resurrect our profound state of being not just one with nature but being nature itself. Let the fox kiss you. Let an eagle catch your eye. Let Stuckey's restoration of a creek in Oakland sing along with her recovery from severe sorrow and isolation. Kissed celebrates the up close and personal power of connection. |  |
Favorite new chocolate: Whole Foods Dark Chocolate PEAR & ALMOND.
My favorite cause of 2012: Utah's Goshute Indians claiming their water rights against a proposed Las Vegas pipeline that will decimate their arid homeland. The Goshutes ARE Spring Valley. And Spring Valley needs to keep its water under its own very beautiful dry feet.
If you have any gift-giving ahead in your holiday, the Goshute Legal Fund deserves
to hear from you.
If you have any gift-giving ahead in your holiday, the Goshute Legal Fund deserves
to hear from you.
 |  |
Favorite quote: almost anything Rumi says, but here's the current zinger.
God's joy moves from unmarked box to unmarked box,
from cell to cell. As rainwater, down into flowerbed.
As roses, up from ground.
Now it looks like a plate of rice and fish,
now a cliff covered with vines,
now a horse being saddled.
It hides within these,
till one day it cracks them open.
Favorite recipe: take one moment, pay attention, repeat and stir, bake until you are tender.
