The birdbath extended from my front porch like the graceful curve of a ballerina’s arm. When I moved into the house, almost two years ago, I saw it as welcoming, the polite gesture of after you from a kind hostess. At the time, I had no idea that this wide flat bowl, perched on a pedestal of intertwining branches, would become a symbol of transformation. But I always liked how it looked, and warmed to the prospect of birds splashing and drinking in its generous bowl.

When I first moved into the house, the winter rains…

Spread your ashes yesterday at Bolinas, where you wanted. The date was my choice: the fortieth day after your death. I selected it for the lore: Buddhist souls, they say, leave the earth and continue on into the circle of transmigration. For Christians, it’s the day Jesus ascended. Seemed as good a time as any to let you go.

A storm threatened offshore, vast blue masses of cloud in high winds, the beach hazed and empty but for us. Everyone came wrapped in weather gear: Marcie and Margaret, Jackie and Vivian, Laura, Dawn, Steph, Loreto and…

I conceived Blood of Paradise after reading Philoctetes, a spare and relatively obscure drama by Sophocles. In the original, an oracle advises the Greeks that victory over the Trojans is impossible without the bow of Herakles. Unfortunately, it’s in the hands of Philoctetes, whom the Greeks abandoned on a barren island ten years earlier, when he was bitten by a venomous snake while the Achaean fleet harbored briefly on its way to Troy.

Odysseus, architect of the desertion scheme, must now return, reclaim the bow, and bring both the weapon and its owner to Troy. For…

By Renee Comer Miller

I wasn’t going to watch it. My sister actually worked the phone lines. I, on the other hand, was pretty uninterested. Maybe I just didn’t want to hear. Maybe I’m done with it. Maybe I hate it so much I want to turn it off.

But cancer won’t turn off. Instead it just keeps killing more than half a million people a year. I didn’t know that before tonight. I should have.

I am a two-time cancer survivor.

I was 26 years old and pregnant…

written by Guest Author: Erin Kennedy

“What else do you do?”

He says it with such condescension that I think of slicing his ashy skin and bleeding the arrogance from him.

I know what he’s asking. He is giving me the opportunity to detail the achievements of my life, to justify my existence before serving the second course. He wants me to prove that I am more than his waitress.

I know the answer he is looking for. He wants me to entertain his company with the background of…

The National Arts Policy Roundtable is a project of Americans for the Arts and Robert Redford’s The Sundance Preserve. It is an annual meeting of an ‘A’ list group of people from various sectors – arts, business, government, civic, academia, etc., to talk in relatively general terms about very big issues. This year’s focus was on creativity in business, specifically, “The Role of the Arts in Building the 21st Century American Workforce.” The Roundtable made a number of generalized recommendations on conducting research, facilitating a dialogue, developing a vocabulary, increasing awareness and fostering more alliances.

Whereas…

The right book will change the world. A book that changes the United States will change the world. And such a book is more likely to originate in the San Francisco Bay Area than anywhere else.

The natural beauty of the Bay Area, however parched; the wealth and diversity of its people, places, processes, and institutions, and its openness to new ideas and peoples, make it a magnet for creative souls.

More than one hundred and fifty years ago, the intrepid poured through the Golden Gate searching for gold. Today they come to  mine…

1.

I am nine or ten years old, standing in the hallway and picking at the door jamb with my thumbnail when I tell my mother that when I grow up, I want to work in the car factory where my father works. “I want to make Jeeps, just like Dad does,” I say.

My father wears a jacket when he goes to work in the plant, shiny red with his name embroidered in gray on the breast, his union local numbers splashed across the back. Everyone knows him, loves him, calls him for help when…

It might sound strange, but I’ve learned a lot about myself and the world by being ill. Suddenly your priorities change and your whole world comes into focus loud and clear. Things that were so important seem so trivial. Here are the things that I’ve learned from this experience:

Be present in the moment. Enjoy the now of your life and savor where you are. Don’t wish away the past, or worry about it.  Don’t bother worrying about the future, either. There’s nothing you can do to change or control either. Simply live and make…