Author: Simone Butler

It’s been almost a week since Hurricane Dorian ravaged the Bahamas. At least 45 people are dead, hundreds are missing and some 70,000 are homeless.…

My Virgo mother disliked camping almost as much as she did gardening. The dirt! The bugs! It was more than her fastidious nature could handle.…

“It is never too late to be what you might have been.”  –George Eliot

Many years ago, I turned down a job that would have given me an exotic, international life.  …

Melanie Knecht was born with spina bifida and uses a wheelchair – but she still manages to pursue her life-long love for camping.…

An aboriginal tribe had embarked on a long journey. After walking for a few days, they made camp and paused for another couple of days before moving on. When asked why they did this, one of them replied, “We need to stop and rest so that our souls can catch up with our bodies.”

This story, recounted by Wayne Muller in his book Sabbath, reminds me of something Joseph Campbell said in the first episode of The Power of Myth (now on Netflix).…

I have always been a big fan of Liz Gilbert’s. Though I’ve yet to read her latest work, City of Girls, I’ve devoured everything else she has written, from Eat Pray Love to Big Magic.…

I moved from L.A. to Sedona, Arizona in the late Eighties, seeking refuge from big city life. But as I soon discovered, the once-charming little town was fast becoming an overcrowded tourist destination.…

Jean Houston often took her dog on after-school walks down Park Avenue in New York City. One day, distracted by grief over her parents’ divorce, the 14-year-old girl accidentally knocked down a frail old gentleman.…

After tending to a sick relative for hours, Peggy came home exhausted and fell into bed. At some point in the night, a noise awakened her. Groggy, she stumbled into the hallway to investigate – where she encountered a stranger.…

It was a beautiful autumn morning in 1996 at Mike Reynolds’ headquarters outside Taos, New Mexico.  I dipped my hands into the rich, brown mud and set a dollop atop a low wall.…

“We think that the point is to pass the test or overcome the problem, but the truth is that things don’t really get solved. They come together and they fall apart.…

Recently, a friend and I visited Old Town here in San Diego to seek Zoltar’s counsel. He had disappeared from his former location, so a manhunt was required. But at last we found him, in the foyer of the Alamo restaurant.…

Born with a cleft lip and eyes of two different colors, seven-year-old Madden Humphreys often came home in tears after bullies at his school called him “ugly” and even worse names.…

One stormy day, a distraught man walked far out onto a jetty, as high waves crashed around him. In deep despair, he thought how all he had to do was take one step forward, and his troubles would be over.…