When world leaders see events through eyes distorted by their own hubris, it puts us all at risk.

A November bouquet of fresh flowers helps keep my annual "winter's dread" away.

Our past is often hidden in plain sight.

Like this eucalyptus we must keep stretching up into the sunlit skies where hope exists. Let us believe that peace is possible between Israel and Palestine.

We can't wait any longer. We MUST bring our troops home now!

This quilt made by the Sacred Web Women of Canada's Western Provinces shows our human capacity to wed beauty with usefulness. As the western world indulges in its annual holiday buying orgy, where is the beauty or the usefulness in our purchases?

So what are you most thankful for? For me it is the gift of living in a country where most of us can still sit down to a peaceful dinner with friends and family.

When you eat your pumpkin pie, save a bit for the squirrels. They love pumpkins too.

May we never lose sight of the wonders around us.

How comforting it must be to see Mommy and Daddy waiting to catch us when we take a risk.

These leaves will be mulch for next spring's flowers. Mother Nature was the first and remains the best recycler.

I painted this in my journal four years ago on the November day that my mother died. Her passing was so gentle that all I could see was light.

Do you remember the last time you jumped for joy?

Rain clouds are rare and welcome guests in arid lands, yet we so often call them "bad weather."

At 88, Lyle Dolyert still looks the world straight in the eyes and says it like he sees it. After 65 years of activism, this Canadian is a model of "Do it, don't just talk about it!" Two weeks after I took this picture, Lyle was out at the coldest, rainiest anti-war demonstration I've ever attended. Talk about being "in it for the long haul"!

A year ago today I was sitting down to lunch in Aramoun, Lebanon with Rabih, Sulaima, their five children and Rabih's mother Aisha. Fatima had made one of her specialties, a delicious tomato eggplant dish. A colorful sunset would soon draw us out onto the balcony overlooking the Mediterranean Sea. We could never have imagined that war would come in eight months' time.

What do you see when you look at these orange branches against the blue sky? If you're a botanist, you see one thing; if a child, quite another. So which is the truth?

Both.

One person's sunset is another’s dawn.

There's enough for everyone if we'd learn to share.

Will the needs of each person in this picture be represented by the 110th Congress?

After these American midterm elections of 2006, I see the eagle standing a little taller and prouder than he was a week ago. So are we all.

All it takes is a drop of hope.

As our U.S. government thaws and changes shape, the ice of the past six years breaks up and open waters create avenues for peace.

"Hope is a duty, isn't it?"

...quote by Walid Demachkie, my friend in Beirut

November's full moon with its unblinking eye sees through all pretense and deceit. May we voters here in America do the same.

I vividly recall a dream in which I skimmed over the surface of a lake feet-first on my back. When I see birds fly like this, I know how it feels.

As snow showers hit Michigan and nighttime temperatures drop into the 20s, how sweet it is to recall the hot summer day when I took this picture.

Remember the days when you and your friends would jump into the piles of leaves your dad had raked to the curb? How after you'd scattered them everyplace, he'd make you rake them neatly into a pile again? Remember the smell of burning leaves, the crackling sound they'd make, the excitement you felt as you stood beside the bonfire?

If America doesn't get the regime change it needs in next Tuesday's election, lots of us are going to be looking like the snow monkeys pictured above.

Children get along. Why can't we?