Loving-Kindness Meditation Beyond the Human

Lovingkindness meditation, or metta, is a Buddhist practice for developing compassion. Practicing it over time, I started to wonder why we are limited to primarily wishing lovingkindness to ourselves and other humans (until the very end when ‘all beings everywhere’ are included). So, I created my own version! I flipped the order of the traditional […]

Post-Halloween Haiku

candy wrappers lie among red, yellow, brown fallen leaves

Primatology Haiku

honeymoon langurs on the sunlit, Himalayan hillside- primatologist identity crisis

What is an Almost Anthropologist?

I just attended the North American Association for Environmental Education (NAAEE) annual meeting. It was my second environmental education (EE) conference, and during both I lamented the fact that they were not the anthropology or primatology conferences where I feel the most satisfying sense of belonging. (Note: Not everyone feels this way, and that’s a […]

EE Haiku #2

In honor of attending the NAAEE conference this week, I offer this environmental education themed haiku: scat garden flop no sprouts from this bear poo plop

Not-So-Great Apes Haiku

talking to Mom about greedy orangutans “same shit, different species”

Usual Love for an Ordinary Pelican

Years ago, I posed for a picture on a day trip along the Wakulla River in northern Florida. A juvenile brown pelican bobbed behind me as I aimed my cheesy smile at the camera. I turned back around, greeted the bird with enthusiasm, and delighted as it swam closer to my rocky perch on the […]

Herp Haiku

red eft contemplates nerdy birders across a muddy ditch

Watermelon and Dead Monkeys

A farmer plucked a watermelon from the vine and cut it into chunks with a machete. We sat in the garden surrounded by forest, munching on the fruit as the juice trickled down and dripped off our elbows into the dirt. I chatted with farmers in between greedy bites of the snack that was grown in […]

Should You Skip the Straw?

Single-use plastic straws carry a lot more than a sip of iced tea from the glass to your waiting lips these days. Are straws really harmful to marine life? Does refusing a straw really make a contribution toward reducing ocean pollution? You can Google these questions ’til the sea cows come home. For me, the […]