A chapter from Aldo Leopold’s A Sand County Almanac, 1949 Image: United States Forest Service   A deep chesty bawl echoes from rimrock to rimrock, rolls down the mountain, and fades into the far blackness of the night. It is an outburst of wild defiant sorrow, and of contempt for all the adversities of the […]

Retold by: Rachael Pecore-Valdez, Image: Francis leading the wolf to Gubbio (Henry Justice Ford, 1912) If you were to travel today, along the narrow streets of the village of Gubbio, in Italy, you might venture across a monument commemorating an event in 12th century Gubbio, where St. Francis of Assisi once met a gray wolf. Francis, […]

Before there was earth… before the dawn… before there was light… there was Tirawa, the great creating one…

There once lived a wealthy tradesman who had a daughter named Akiko. Akiko was generous and well-loved. Early in her life, her mother died and her father remarried a woman who was sharp-tongued and mean. Envy surged through every inch of the new wife’s soul. She tried to weaken Akiko’s grace and charm by ordering her to take on extra household tasks. Although the work loomed before her like an immense mountain, Akiko worked until it was done… and she still managed to greet visitors at the door with a smile and beggars with a bowl of rice.

Once upon a time there was a Tsar named Berendei, and he had three sons, the youngest of whom was called Ivan. Now the Tsar had a beautiful garden with an apple-tree in it that bore golden apples. One day the Tsar found that somebody was visiting his garden and stealing his golden apples. The Tsar was very unhappy about this. He sent watchmen into the garden, but they were unable to catch the thief.