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OWLcourage
a blog invested in hope and creative possibility
Phyllis Kritek
Nov 26, 20245 min read
Small Gratitudes
Like many of my fellow citizens, I have been searching about to find purchase as I study my responses to the outcomes of the national...
Phyllis Kritek
Nov 12, 20245 min read
"Not Yet!" (November 5,2024: The Parade)
May Sarton once explained that when she wanted to know what she thought she wrote prose and when she wanted to know what she felt, she...
Phyllis Kritek
Oct 5, 20245 min read
Flow
I am a participant in a global enterprise embraced by an array of humans who believe that the exploration of human consciousness is the...
Phyllis Kritek
Sep 21, 20248 min read
"Do Something!"
Like many in the US, I am invested in, focused on, and sometimes fretful about the imminent presidential election. This blog, focused on...
Phyllis Kritek
Aug 27, 20241 min read
uncertainty
Time for another poem.... uncertainty hanging in the hall corner on a spider web… knowing i now know uncertainty with quiet...
Phyllis Kritek
Aug 1, 20247 min read
White Women
At its inception, the OWL in the name of this blog, OWLcourage referred not only to “owls”, the iconic image of wisdom which presented my...
Phyllis Kritek
Jul 19, 20249 min read
$1,651.99
At 6:30 AM on June 17, 2024, I tested positive for Covid 19 for the fourth time. Eight hours later, I went to my CVS and paid $1,651.99...
Phyllis Kritek
May 30, 20246 min read
Johnny Appleseed
The year my oldest daughter was ready to start kindergarten, we moved to a new city and rented an apartment while searching for a home to...
Phyllis Kritek
May 14, 20248 min read
Integrity
The word “integrity” has two somewhat complementary but distinct meanings. One focuses on “the quality of being honest and having strong...
Phyllis Kritek
May 4, 20246 min read
Productivity
Productivity is defined as the state or quality of producing something. This simple, seemingly harmless definition is amplified with...
Phyllis Kritek
Apr 24, 20247 min read
Competencies
My educational preparation as a professional registered nurse was in a collegiate baccalaureate program, an emergent leap forward in the...
Phyllis Kritek
Apr 15, 20244 min read
Flowers
Spring comes early in Goleta, with harbingers announced in February, a shock to my midwestern system of weather management. Suddenly I...
Phyllis Kritek
Apr 9, 20241 min read
Corridors
(This poem showed up early this morning, unexpected and uninvited, and volunteered to be my next blog post. I was startled, skeptical,...
Phyllis Kritek
Mar 4, 20249 min read
Belief Systems
The concept of “belief systems” has a wide variety of meanings, so my first intention here is to share what meaning that concept has for...
Phyllis Kritek
Feb 25, 20246 min read
Taylor and Caitlin
If you immediately added the last names, you may, like me, have taken note of these two amazing women who have captured the imagination...
Phyllis Kritek
Feb 21, 20244 min read
Life Lessons
Like many humans, I have spent a portion of my life grappling with the lurking uncertainty about the meaning of my existence, always...
Phyllis Kritek
Feb 7, 20245 min read
Improvement
Few national values are as readily observable as the one that incessantly declares that we Americans seek “Improvement”. Indeed, we...
Phyllis Kritek
Jan 8, 20246 min read
Letting Go
Virtually every wisdom system I have studied, and of course my pattern is insistent and persistent, eventually advises me to learn to...
Phyllis Kritek
Dec 19, 20236 min read
Expectations
Over time, I have learned to think of this time of the year in the US as the season of “Great Expectations”, explanatory without being...
Phyllis Kritek
Dec 10, 20235 min read
Kindness
I have been the recipient of thousands of acts of kindness during my life. I think most people could say the same thing if they reflected...
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