Tag: gregory ormson
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Halleluijah in a Northern Wisconsin Bar
Various renditions of every song are worth listening to. Some renditions move beyond our recognition, yet if we appreciate music and musicians, we can find something to enjoy. And some songs are nearly sacramental with ineffable or opaque elements that strongly affect the listener. Leonard Cohen’s “Halleluijah” is one of those songs; it’s not just…
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Speaking as Hospitality
Can a speech feel like Grandma Grace’s table? When I think about hospitality, I think about my grandmother’s table. When I was a teen, my family visited Grandma Grace and Grandpa Harry in Barron, Wisconsin. They were always home, and always welcomed us inside where we sat at a simple table in the kitchen. Grandma…
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Speaking as Hospitality: A First Look from Sutra House
It may be odd to hear that effective public speaking is about learning to pay better attention. Attention to the room. Attention to another person’s fears. Attention to the conversations taking shape before your first word. This attention led me to write Speaking as Hospitality and Sutra House has released the pre-publication page, and I’m…
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Blue and Broken in the Keweenaw
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A Dust Bath for Five Chickens: satisfaction in small things
I’m in Wisconsin, helping my daughter with a small chicken project. Her five chickens needed a bin in the coop to take their dust baths. So we gathered a couple of old vegetable beds and transferred the soil into sheltered boxes where they could scratch, roll, and clean their feathers. Building a dust bath for…
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YOGATECTURE: The Elegant Arc of Change
Originally published in Asana International Yoga Journal on October 2, 2017 Yoga empowers and brings seeds to fruition. From the mat up, yoga-tec-ture is the process of yoga. And the process of yoga is the work of personal transformation formed by the elegance and heritage of an ancient blueprint that molds bodies, minds, and spirits.…
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Team Flame Takes the Field for The Twin Bill
Today is publication day, and I am delighted to share that my essay, “Team Flame,” appears in Issue 24 of The Twin Bill. The Twin Bill is a literary quarterly devoted to baseball writing and art. Each year, the journal releases a special issue on the day of Major League Baseball’s All-Star Game, bringing together…
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Yoga Reset From the Inside
My latest article published in OM Yoga Magazine May 1, 2026 A yoga reset from the inside takes time. And when we stay long enough, the surface may may open-up, curl, or crack like birch bark drying in the sun. But eventually, resistance to self-discovery and tuning into self gives way, and what begins showing…
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Why Liturgist of the Land
A Single Work Completed Does anyone experience a single work completed? A work done so perfectly that nothing more needs to be added or taken away. In my recent lyric essay “Liturgist of the Land: A Single Work Completed,” the entire meditation turns on four actions. They form the simplest structure of labor I have…
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Why “Liturgist of the Land: A Single Work Completed” Matters
Dig.Dump.Bury.Cover. Sometimes a piece of writing begins with an image that won’t leave . . . with fish remains buried in a deep hole. In “Liturgist of the Land: A Single Work Completed,” It was simple and exact: a gravedigger finishing the work in a deliberate sequence: Dig. Dump. Bury. Cover. Nothing added for appearance,…