Is wilderness important in our lives? In the latest Fire and Light podcast, Tessa and Dave describe a recent trip to Death Valley and reflect on what struck them most in that vast, wild, empty landscape. We discuss the “practice of the wild” and the joy of encountering our liberating smallness in communion with ancient stone and starlit...
In our first 2024 Fire and Light podcast, “Ordinary Plenty: Celtic...
In our ninth Fire and Light podcast, we share our vibrant experience of the Ninth Parliament of the World’s Religions in Chicago, which focused on freedom and the rights of women, indigenous peoples, and the earth itself. Tessa Bielecki's articulate introduction to our conversation will make you want to hear more. Listen wherever you get your...
In our eighth podcast, "Before, After, and the Atomic Bomb," Tessa and Dave remember the “before” and “after” of their lives in Sedona, Arizona and relate this to “before” and “after” the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. They respond to “Oppenheimer,” the latest film by Christopher Nolan, about the father of the bomb. Hear their...
Where do you place yourself? How does it taste? In our latest Fire and Light podcast, "A Taste of Place," Tessa Bielecki and I share a taste of the Sonoran Desert as we savor picking saguaro fruit with guidance from Tohono O’odham neighbors. We relish the physical act of picking fruit with a traditional tool and preparing it to eat. And we...
It’s not a stretch to say Dave Denny is what Thomas Merton would have looked like today had he lived. Both avid writers, teachers, inter-spiritual pioneers, activists, and...
Tessa’s experience of June was not so carefree, and I suspect...
Twenty twenty-three marks a lot of landmarks for the Desert Foundation, including my seventieth birthday on May 2. In this month’s Fire and Light podcast, Tessa Bielecki and I explore the mystery of our lives’ stories. What does it mean when someone from Ireland says, “My story, your story”? Concrete details of the joys and sorrows in...
Our latest Fire and Light podcast is now available: "Breathing Room for the Spirit." We explore ways to create breathing room in a world of speed and utility. We describe a recent desert camping trip and I recite “Superbloom Toast,” the poem that appears below. Since April is National Poetry Month, we ponder the value of poetry and its...
March arrived bringing snowfall in the Sonoran Desert and the arrival of our third Fire and Light podcast: "Alchemy of Earth and Soul." Tessa rhapsodizes on the beauty of compost. She celebrates the season of Lent as alchemy: allowing the cast-off peelings, the inedible “garbage” of our lives to be transformed into fertile soil for future...