Eddy Gilmore

Embracing the Challenge That Comes From Observing a Successful Unschooler

February 13, 2015

Families that choose the unconventional path of unschooling for their children are rarely boring. Typically they are utterly fascinating. After all, boring people rarely have the fortitude to do anything as counter-cultural as this. Ben Hewitt and his family provide a fascinating case study of this movement that I was previously unfamiliar with. I urge … More Embracing the Challenge That Comes From Observing a Successful Unschooler

Keeping Things Simple Ensures We Keep Kids Moving and IN the Outdoors

February 12, 2015

Each and every day we need to be moving, physically that is. A perfectionist by nature, I’m working hard to not let a need for perfection squelch the “good enough.” This winter has produced an embarrassing dearth of snow in these parts. This has often made getting the kids outside rather difficult. Below-zero temperatures and … More Keeping Things Simple Ensures We Keep Kids Moving and IN the Outdoors

In Requiem

January 21, 2015

99 years. Mere months from 100. 1915 – 2015. Think of the changes that transpired in her lifetime. She was around when Spanish Influenza ravaged the population. World War I raged. A revolution rocked Russia. The automobile was still uncommon, only possessed by a wealthy few. Most families in her neck of the woods didn’t … More In Requiem

Slow, Nimble, and Fully Alive

January 20, 2015

A sense of timelessness emerges if we allow the rhythm of daylight and darkness to structure our days. The darkness at this time of year can especially encourage this state of near-bliss that finds us calm and unhurried. One is then able to take each moment as it comes, enjoying whatever it brings. This makes … More Slow, Nimble, and Fully Alive

In Praise of the Spiritual Quest

January 15, 2015

Wild. Even the title is captivating. The story even more so. Cheryl Strayed’s story of becoming unhinged after the death of her mother is a real page-turner. The author’s path to being “found” involves a complete separation from her previous life as she hikes 1,100 miles of the Pacific Crest Trail. Thoroughly untested, the experience … More In Praise of the Spiritual Quest

An Urban Adventure for Sixty Cents

December 27, 2014

From this distance the sign advising of a bus stop may as well designate a hidden cache under the ice for a hungry explorer. I brave four lanes of traffic on Central Entrance in order to reach my destination. The sidewalk is snowed in and the bench is buried. My waddling motion with two heavy … More An Urban Adventure for Sixty Cents

Gratefulness In and Through Scarcity

December 20, 2014

From the forest, a vast boreal civilization, our family obtained our Christmas tree this year. As the kids went in one direction to hunt for options, but instead delighted themselves in sledding down a hill, I ducked, bowed, twisted, and turned through a tangle of alder. I was scouting a clearing, where the few balsams … More Gratefulness In and Through Scarcity

Chasing the Light During the Dark Times

December 7, 2014

It was at about this time that I concluded my month-long epic voyage by backpack and train 19 years ago. I climbed aboard Amtrak’s “Southwest Chief” one last time in sunny Albuquerque, following a one-hour layover that I maximized like an escaped convict soon to be returned to “the hole.” Soon I would return to … More Chasing the Light During the Dark Times

A Christian Environmentalist Comes Clean

November 24, 2014

Righteous indignation. It is difficult to avoid this reaction after Republican Congressional leaders appointed Senator James Inhofe to head the Senate committee on the environment. In essence, he will become the most powerful Republican on environmental issues in the country in January when Senate control swings to the right. I am uniquely qualified to be … More A Christian Environmentalist Comes Clean

A Christian Sings the Environmentalist Blues

November 22, 2014

There’s something about 36 wool socks, a union suit, various woolies, and one unmentionable tossed in for my own amusement, that brings me joy. All hanging on the clothesline together with the snow as a backdrop, it is art in some sense. The newspaper ran a short column of mine today in which I come … More A Christian Sings the Environmentalist Blues