Wisdom & Wilderness with Eileen Gebbie

02/19/2026

Starting in March, The BTS Center is hosting another cohort of group-based spiritual accompaniment. Led by skilled and credentialed facilitators, and drawing on the deep traditions and practices of spiritual direction, these circles are brave communities of exploration, questions, and contemplation.

Groups fill up, so we encourage you to register when you’re ready: thebtscenter.org/wildedges-2026

02/16/2026

I know that Montana is Big Sky Country but the Illinois cornfields sure afford me some fine views.

02/14/2026

This teen robin was NOT ready to fly the coop on our back door light last summer. Their parents had left and three siblings. It sat anxiously on the edge all day, not eating, calling out, the sun getting hotter on its body. Finally, after debating with my wife what to do, I walked below on the sidewalk with my arms up very gently saying, "I am a scary predator." And it was gone.

This is a love story.

02/09/2026

Why did it take me so long to see the common buckeye. It was everywhere - common - and always stunning.

Because I did not yet understand that each of them is my neighbor.

And that for all of my blindness, they could see me.

02/02/2026

The weather was so unusually warm at Christmas that we had the front door open for the dogs to go free range. Now that winter is here - and then some - they are relearning that severe cold means a closed house and a sacrifice of dignity. And in Dusty's case, adding a second layer because you are now too "big" for the first layer to snap together.

01/31/2026

"Many of the people that we (meet, know) have endured situations and conditions that stagger our minds and break our hearts. This is the starting point for connecting to the heroic-we must discover how people have survived, how they have gone on in the face of their trials and disappointments, how they have taken charge of their fate and their future." -Dennis Seleeby, 2005

There is nothing new under the sun, including fascism, racism, sexism, and q***rphobia. There is only every generation's learning and relearning how to say no more.

01/29/2026

Our climate-changed world demands ever more from us: more presence, more love, more courage, more capacity to hold grief.

In response, I'm taking part in another cohort of group-based spiritual accompaniment for respite and discernment.

Along with other skilled and credentialed facilitators, and drawing on the deep traditions and practices of spiritual direction, these circles are brave communities of exploration, questions, and contemplation.

Registration is now open: thebtscenter.org/wildedges-2026

01/29/2026

I preached a few years ago that a White woman who breeds and shows Border terriers is the most dangerous person in America. I had found this particular woman because of a hate post she made in response to a White supremacist attack on mosques in New Zealand. I compared her to Carolyn Bryant Donham, the White woman whose lies condemned Emmett Till to a violent death.

The current administration has scads of similarly dangerous White women in leadership. You know their names. Their violence is mandated by their ideological alignments and so predictable.

But they were joined this week by other White women who think they are on the right side of history. Keri Ottesen, a trauma-informed yogi, posted "Can we just go back to regular police brutality, please?" and Cheri Ree, who is making money off of Liam Ramos' abduction by selling patterns for a hat like his.

White women have consistently failed Black, Indigenous, and other people of color because of our proximity to White patriarchy and willingness to be compliant to it for the few crumbs we may grab. Will the murders by ICE be the turning point? Will seeing ourselves executed and called bitch finally force us to listen to what the rest of America has been saying and follow their guidance?

01/25/2026

Sometimes when I walk the dogs I would listen to a podcast particularly if I had just been watching TV. I couldn't take the transition to a lack of digital stimulus.

Since following the Walk for Peace and hearing the reminder that multitasking depletes mindfulness, I've stopped. It is sometimes hard not to want to stop the noise in my mind with the noise of a ghost story or fiction, but without fail that struggle is worthwhile.

Becoming a pastor and spiritual companion did not grant me a one-and-done access to spiritual peace and wisdom. Both have been invitations. I am grateful to the teachers who continue to extend more.

01/24/2026

I was in a spiritual companionship space recently when another member lamented that nothing is normal any more. Another replied that some things still are: Those of us in that space had been able to go to bed the night before and get up that morning.

In the past I probably would have resisted the comfort that reminder provided. I would have been quick to see it as a self-soothing that abnegated responsibility.

Now I understand differently. Now I understand that in order to continue to withstand fascism and authoritarianism, I have to find practices that keep me capable of acting rather than reacting.

Systems of oppression benefit from our disorder. They cannot withstand our community-building or our self-control.

01/24/2026

Everything is fine: a means to endure
news cycles, historic cycles, menstrual

cycles. This is walking home after work,
crawling into bed naked. Night, quiet with

snow. I am an empty bank account.
I am a pylon glowing in the dark. I am
a primal scream. I am not here.

The body speaks first. If that doesn’t work,
the mind empties: a crate of crabs scuttling

toward nothingness. Authoritarianism
blossoms like a co**se flower: foul men

spread their stench across the globe.
I remember these songs. It’s all on fire.

A meteor // a virus // a bomb
like a dark-eyed angel hurtles toward us.

I’d like to see the ocean lap against a glacier
before the end. I’d like to see the northern

lights. I’d like to watch effigies of foul men
burn in the desert. I’d like to be there, reel there,
at the end.

Copyright © 2026 by Amy M. Alvarez. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on January 23, 2026, by the Academy of American Poets.

Everything is fine: a means to endure / news cycles, historic cycles, menstrual

01/15/2026

Remembering a friend I made last summer.