Over thousands of years, much of what we now call Indiana was flattened by glaciers, and when they left, they buried the land’s topography under massive deposits as they gave up the earth they’d dragged under their bellies. Gradually, vegetation returned, then forests arose.
When, millennia later, settlers felled Indiana’s forests, they created the contemporary landscape, where endless farm fields stretch their monocultures to the horizon. But the land still holds surprises.
Continue readingFrom the rural heartland to the populous coasts, American Bahá’í communities are building and maintaining archives, preserving the legacies of spiritual ancestors for present-day and future learning.
The Iowa Bahá’í History Project takes a unique approach: it encompasses materials from across the entire state, and it lives online. In 2022, a group of friends decided to create a repository of stories, interviews, newspaper articles and photographs to trace the growth of the Bahá’í Faith in Iowa.
Continue readingI am doing one of my favorite wintertime activities: watching the snow fall, gradually erasing the yard, from my sofa nest. As the white accumulates, the frenetic dance of juncos and titmice comes into sharper relief as they search for the seeds I sprinkled and sip from the heated birdbath (an extravagant gift to myself to attract more birds).
I wanted to try growing native prairie plants from seed. While planting nursery-raised flowers gives more immediate satisfaction, it would take a huge budget and great labor to rival the variety of a seed mix like the one I chose, which contains the possibility of 100 species of grasses and wildflowers.
Entelechy is a word I learned the first year of grad school from a classmate who studied ancient Greece. It means potentiality, as a huge oak tree lies metaphorically bundled into an acorn, or a teeming meadow waits within a packet of seeds.
Continue readingThis year marked the final road trip Dan Geiger undertook to deliver his report as delegate to the Bahá’i National Convention, the annual gathering that elects the National Spiritual Assembly of the United States. After serving on and off for 30 years, Geiger is retiring.
For most of his life, Geiger has lived in Billings, Montana. Montana and northern Idaho belong to a single electoral unit, which currently encompasses eight Local Spiritual Assemblies and 16 registered groups. “It’s actually bigger than California land wise,” Geiger says.
Continue readingNearly two million people of Chinese descent call California home. In Southern California, Bahá’ís and their friends are learning how to accompany Chinese populations, including newly arrived immigrants, with activities tailored to local needs in the San Diego, Orange County and San Gabriel Valley areas.
Collaborators from these three localities regularly connect to share insights, challenges and advancements with each other. From their conversations emerged an idea to host a Chinese family camp that would bring together participants from across Southern California.
Continue readingWise eyes under stern brows watch us. Those eyes are made to inspect sun-dazzled waves, but here, they look out into the dim interior of the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Makana is a Laysan albatross, unreleasable. After her handlers finish their presentation, they invite us to step closer, which I do. Two different employees ask me if I have questions, but my questions are for the albatross, not them: what’s it like to be an elegant, permanently landlocked seabird? But mostly I just want to look at this bird, as I’ve never seen an albatross in real life before.
Humans have hung so many interpretations on the albatross. To see this individual right in front of me feels like encountering a celebrity: here is the actual being, breathing and fidgeting, unswaddled by what others have said.
October. It’s been a couple weeks since I’ve seen my summertime favorites, hummingbirds and monarchs, which have no doubt departed on their southward migrations.
Looking back on the warmer months, watching caterpillars enjoy my plantings was a highlight—with one exception.
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Smith, Zoe, Caroline LeFever, and Layli Miron. “Student-Consultant Interactions: From Single Visits to Partnerships.” The Peer Review, vol. 10, no. 1, 2025.
Abstract: What can consultants do to move students to return to the writing center? To identify strategies that accomplish this end, two undergraduate researchers and an advisor surveyed students who had repeatedly visited a single consultant. We then analyzed the data, coding consultant strategies and noting repeated occurrences. We also recorded appointments of consultants with high rates of returning clients, collecting transcripts detailing the strategies they use in first-time visits. Our research contributes to our field’s understanding of why some students return to the writing center and what students want from their consultant, intersecting with current conversations that acknowledge student writers as co-creators of writing centers and recognize peer tutors’ emotional labor. The consultation that we document and analyze may find use in consultants’ professional development.
Full Text: You can read the article or the full issue.
In Alabama, where at least a hundred trees inhabited our lot, one of my favorite activities was lying on the porch swing, gazing up at the leaves as they danced in the breeze. Once, a Caroline wren landed on me as I lounged, perhaps mistaking the motionless tree-gazer for a log.
It’s taken some getting used to our yard in suburban Indianapolis, where lawn predominates.
To be fair, it’s not entirely treeless: three cherry trees were presumably planted about a decade ago when the house was built. Besides the cherries, the landscaping included clematis, daisies, daylilies, daffodils, hydrangeas, hostas, and weigela. Each of these ornamentals is an exotic, generally with origins in Eurasia, so, while beautiful, they don’t do much for the ecosystem.
Of course, the majority of the quarter-acre lot is covered by lawn, which was a pristine, sterile monoculture when we arrived, thanks to the prior owner’s fastidious attentions. We heard they killed voles to keep the grass safe.
Continue readingWalking in the woods, I see a field of pink phlox. A giant swallowtail butterfly pumps her wings beside a stream. As I swat mosquitos, signs along the path encourage me to consider this landscape in geological time, its current form molded by the glacier sheet that retreated some 12,000 years ago.
Time to contemplate time: 12,000 years, a moment to our 4.5-billion-year-old planet, yet an unfathomable ocean compared to my few droplets of decades.
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Layli Maria Miron 