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By MARGOT FLECK

Both human limitations and human resilience become strikingly evident in these multi-cataclysmic times. Stressed as I am, I find in my 80s an old childish wish arising. I want a magical transformation. I want to be instantly transformed into a...

By MARGOT FLECK

 My sister has a new passion — dragonflies. She has introduced me to the vast variety and beauty of these predaceous insects who have existed for 300 million years. A retired bio-geography professor, she is forever discovering new birds, fungi, wild...

By MARGOT FLECK

My mother often reminded me that “Fools rush in where angels fear to tread” — her words are one of those childhood memories that remain fixed in many a young brain, laid down in the synapses without our knowledge and long before we were capable of...

By MARGOT FLECK

“there’s the real mystery: the life of others” — Adam Zagajewski, poetCan we justifiably condemn anyone for their ideas, their prejudices, their loyalties?Each of us is born into particular circumstances that vary widely in terms of financial...

By MARGOT FLECK

There is much talk today about “toxic masculinity,” but I wonder, is it inevitable in this competitive culture that many boys grow up emulating the most aggressive, non-empathetic men among us?Salmon Rushdie wrote: “I have always been inspired by...

By MARGOT FLECK

Bertolt Brecht wrote:“What kind of times are these when a conversation about trees is almost a crimebecause it implies silence about so many atrocities.”Again and again we ask, what kind of times are these. We ask as individuals, and as countries,...

By MARGOT FLECK

Our world is coming apart. It is too much for us. Evolution didn’t prepare us to confront profound climate catastrophe, to bear gracefully, or otherwise, the ravages and depression of very old age, or to often live apart from family or a tribal group...

By MARGOT FLECK

Though I don’t claim the same sort of depression I suffered as a young person when I was fearful of ever finding a safe and nourishing place in the world for myself, I am sad. Stunned daily by so many cruel events, and in near continual mourning. But...

By MARGOT FLECK

In 1948, writer Henry Beston lamented: “What has come over our age is an alienation from Nature unexampled in human history. It has cost us our sense of reality and all but cost us our humanity.”I agree with Beston but I don’t want to let my thoughts...