About the Ghost Turtles
150 years after Robert Duncanson painted this luminist scene on the Little Miami River, I stood in the same spot and saw a soft-shelled turtle sunning on a snag. It slipped silently into the water when it heard me. That’s when I knew past is present and destiny, too. That’s when my vision of the Ghost Turtles began. Read more
Ecology of the Senses
Returning to Lake Superior year after year like a migrating loon, I’ve learned the other side of a slow, uncertain process that could be called “going blind.” With the lake as my teacher, I know what lies on the other side. I call it letting go of sight. Read more.Prayer at Big Creek
![Sandhill cranes land on Platte River sandbar roosts west of Rowe Sanctuary’s Iain Nicolson Audubon Center southwest of Gibbon, Nebraska. [Photo by Lori Porter| Kearney Hub]](https://www.ghostturtles.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/sandhill_cranes_kearneyhub_032015-300x225.jpg)
At the threshold of consciousness, as I slipped back and forth between two worlds, I put my mind in the best place I could imagine, a marsh on Lake Erie called Big Creek. I knew I’d find cranes waiting for me. I cannot say whether I prayed for them, or to them, or with them. The cant of words doesn’t matter. I believe in the still, small voice. I believe what the poet Yehuda Amichai said. Gods come and go. Prayer is eternal. Read moreFreedom to Read
![An endangered Whooping crane takes flight. Yhe large bird has a 7-foot wingspan. It is all white except for black wing tips and face markings. In this photo its long neck stretches forward; its wings sweep upward; and its black legs trail straight behind it. [Source: International Crane Foundation]](https://www.ghostturtles.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Whooping-crane-eastern-ICF-080622-300x157.jpg)
Whenever I hear sanctimonious pronouncements about woke, parental rights, and banning books, I think of Whooping cranes. In my family, the gawky, audacious, elusive and endangered birds are synonymous with our values about the First Amendment and the freedom to read. Read more.Sister, Teacher, Pathfinder
A guidance counselor in high school told my sister Diana, “With your eye problems you will never make it in college. Just forget about it. Get married. Raise a family.” That advice only deepened her determination. She did it all in due time, in her own way –college, marriage, family. She became a guidance counselor herself. She certainly was the most important guide and pathfinder in my life. Read more.Flaneur & Bouquiniste
![Mark Willis peruses a 1745 volume by Voltaire at a bouquiniste book stall on the banks of the Seine in Paris. He wears a brown leather jacket and checkered flat cap. He holds the open book in his hands. Rows of old books are seen on shelves behind him. [2005 photo by Ms. Modigliani]](https://www.ghostturtles.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/mw_bouquiniste_05-300x225.jpg)
I remember the book I held in my hands that day. I remember the feel of its time-warped, water-stained pages. I remember its murky, moldy river smell, call it the book’s bouquet, suggesting years of storage on the banks of the Seine. Had I bought it then, I could feel and smell it now and know it from a hundred other books in my library. Read more.R & K: A Rant
Marjorie Taylor Green auditioned for R&K’s Authoritarian It Girl at the 2023 State of the Union address. She and her Republican colleagues yelled like Tarzan swinging through the trees as they jeered and booed the President’s speech. Read Rants & Kisses.R & K: A Kiss
Songs by Burt Bacharach and Hal David. Singers like Dione Warwick and Dusty Springfield. What Do You Get When You Fall in Love? The Look of Love. I Say a Little Prayer. I sit in the car’s back seat and listen. I’m glad it’s dark. I’d be embarrassed if anyone could see the dreamy look on my face. Read Rants & Kisses.
Author Archives: Mark Willis
Remembering Wounded Knee’s Ghost Dance
Fifty years ago, Russel Means led the American Indian Movement (AIM) to take back Wounded Knee. Their political action was a 1970s version of the Ghost Dance. Eighty-three years before that, the U.S. Cavalry rode into Wounded Knee and massacred 300 Ghost Dancers. The U.S. government was threatened by the dance. They had to stop it. They couldn’t stop it. Pray they never can. Continue reading
Posted in Histories
Tagged 1970s, 19th cenrtury, Ghost Dance, Native Americans, religions
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A Ghost Dance for the Turtles
Robert Duncanson painted “Blue Hole, Little Miami” in 1851. Today it hangs in the Cincinnati Art Museum. A hundred and fifty years after he painted the luminist scene in Clifton Gorge, I stood in the same spot and saw a soft-shelled turtle sunning on a snag. It slipped silently into the water when it heard me. That’s when I knew past is present and destiny, too. That’s when my vision of the Ghost Turtles began. Continue reading
Posted in Memoir
Tagged art, Ghost Dance, Ghost Turtles, Little Miami River, turtles, Yellow Springs
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Sandhill Cranes Are on the Move!
Thrilled to hear a flock of Sandhill cranes fly over my garden this morning. Spring is on the move! Listen @ bird-ssounds.net | FB022323a |
Posted in Ecology of the Senses
Tagged bird sounds, birds, DSBO, Yellow Springs
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Riding to Ukraine
Whoa, Trigger: No one expected Joe Biden to take a train to Ukraine. Not to be upstaged, Vladimir Putin needs to get back on the horse, take off his shirt, and find another falcon willing to ride on his shoulder. … Continue reading
Posted in Rants and Kisses
Tagged Biden, political theater, Putin, Ukraine
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More Manhattan Moj0
I hope I smiled then at their mom, if I can call her that. Hell, I hope I beamed. I should have asked her for their names. In such situations I never think of the right thing to say until a day later. That’s why I’m a writer. Continue reading
Posted in Memoir
Tagged Brendan, Grammercy Park, Manhattan Mojo, New York, walking
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Manhattan Mojo for a Walkable Neighborhood
I felt like the guy in that Joni Mitchel song, “I was a free man in Paris, unfettered and alive.” Except it wasn’t Paris, it was New York. I hadn’t gotten my Manhattan mojo yet. I needed to settle into the tempo of the street, the people and the traffic. Continue reading
Posted in Memoir, Rants and Kisses
Tagged foot rage, Grammercy Park, Manhattan Mojo, walkable community, walking, Yellow Springs
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