What do you want to be for Halloween? I want to be a butterfly, a symbol of transformation.

Our planet is home to some of the most outrageously beautiful creatures imaginable.

The most dangerous leaders are those who refuse to remember what has gone before.

I know it may sound silly but sometimes having your city's team win an important game or series of games can feel like the sun coming out from behind a dark cloud. Anything that brings people together in joy is good.

Do you ever stop and consider with which animal you resonate most deeply? For me it is the squirrel. Perhaps it is their high energy and ability to leap from branch to branch when I have trouble just putting one foot in front of the other. The squirrel does for me what I cannot do for myself--it allows me to fly through the air!

Do you ever wonder why maple leaves become outrageously beautiful just before they fall to the ground? Maybe its that they have nothing left to lose.

Traveling by train grounds you in the here and now.

Who do you most admire? For me it's the ones who put their bodies on the line for their principles. People like Diane Wilson who, on the day I took this picture, was on Day 20 of a water-only fast to bring the troops home from Iraq. She eventually broke her fast on Day 32 at a meal with the Iraqi parliamentarians in Amman, Jordan.

Beauty is enough.

There are as many ways to work for peace as there are persons on the planet. The key is to find the one that is uniquely your own...and then DO it.

When I get discouraged in my work for peace, this quotation comforts me. I hope it comforts you too.

It's getting harder and harder to keep from closing our ears, minds and hearts to the cries of the wounded of the world. But if we do, who will act on their behalf?

Whenever I think about how much I love the house Ed and I have lived in for 35 years, I think about the millions and millions of people across the globe who have had to leave their beloved homes due to war and natural disasters. Why them and not me? It seems so unfair.

And now U.S. Homeland Security wants to turn beautiful Lake Michigan and her companion Great Lakes into live fire test zones for their armed Coast Guard vessels. Is nothing sacred?

Anniversary flowers brighten a room just as a loving marriage brightens a life.

Our lives are enriched by our differences, be they cultural, racial, religious, political or creative.

We are each a strand in the worldwide web. Every act of violence that breaks a strand puts the entire web at risk of collapse. Why then would we ever choose to harm our neighbor, knowing that would also put ourselves and those we love in peril?

The odd juxtaposition of an October snow shower while our lawn was being mowed made me wonder about the validity of my longheld assumptions. I guess anything is possible.

If you are going to challenge the authority of a Superpower, does being an oil-rich nation protect you or put you in greater peril? How about being a nation with no oil reserves at all? What then?

May I never take for granted the gift of living where autumn shows its splendor with such abandon.

Rain mixed with snow is forecast for Thursday. So much for my Zen detachment!

This morning fog looked beautiful, but what about the fog in the heads of our country's leaders? That looks chilling, not beautiful.

Have you ever seen those kaleidoscopes made with mirrors, the ones that fracture reality in ways that force you to see things differently? Maybe that's what we need now.

In photography, light is everything. In life too.

On full moon nights even the most ordinary things are touched by magic. It gives me hope that peace is possible.

Like the maple leaf, we are most brilliant when we let go of our need to belong.

It's hard to feel too discouraged about the state of the world when you're doing all you can to change things.

So how can you tell a decision of conscience from one of politics? The former elicits respect even if you disagree with it, whereas the latter doesn't sit well even if you agree.

Wherever did we get the idea that beauty could be bought and sold?

When you find a community of persons who share your passion for peace and justice, you know you've come home.