By Marguerite Jill Dye “Be a nuisance where it counts. Do your part to inform and stimulate the public to join your action. Be depressed, discouraged, and disappointed at failure and the disheartening effects of ignorance, greed, corruption and bad politics – but never give up,” said Marjory Stoneman Douglas. Marjory Stoneman Douglas (1890-1998) must be…

By Marguerite Jill Dye How have we come to this point, America, that students who cowered in closets and classrooms, beside murdered classmates and coaches, must lead the charge to bring sense to our laws? How have we come to be represented by leaders who solely represent the NRA? How have we sunk so low…

By Marguerite Jill Dye “Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over,” British journalist Dan Hodges tweeted when the gun debate ended after the Sandy Hook massacre where 20 elementary school children were gunned down. We have had 239 school mass shootings since Sandy Hook, and I ask our so- called leaders: “What…

By Marguerite Jill Dye “Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts . . . there is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature – the assurance that dawn comes after night, and spring after the winter,” wrote Rachel Carson. It’s hard…

By Marguerite Jill Dye On Martin Luther King Day, while investigating the roots of segregation in America, I stumbled upon an article in The Atlantic that shocked even my husband, who grew up in segregated North Carolina. “Segregation Had to Be Invented” by Alana Semuels describes what occurred between the Civil War’s end and the…

By Marguerite Jill Dye One day last August I was stupefied when words spilled from my pen without pause or thought, as fast as I could write them down. When I reread what I’d written, I was confused and afraid that such words had poured out. I could only imagine they must have come from…

By Marguerite Jill Dye We are beginning to recognize the immense power of Facebook as a forum, and vehicle of propaganda and fake news since learning about Russia’s cyberwarfare and meddling in the U.S. election. Through Russian Facebook and Instagram accounts, 80 million political posts by fictitious organizations were sent to 23 million American voters…

By Marguerite Jill Dye The past year has been an exercise in striving for balance in a turbulent sea. The wear and tear has been quite extreme, often exhausting and terribly frustrating. Many people, including me, have fought depression and lacked motivation. How is it possible, in such tumultuous times, to stay above water and sustain…

By Marguerite Jill Dye “I learned this, at least, by my experiment: that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.”—Henry David Thoreau The Winter Solstice and the New Year are especially auspicious times…

By Marguerite Jill Dye “Not what we have, but what we enjoy constitutes our abundance.” – Epicurus Extreme self care is called for in extreme times, and these times are most certainly extreme. I learned this lesson when I returned home from Argentina after living under the military dictatorship. Feeling powerless to help a friend…

By Marguerite Jill Dye We left Marseille in a powerful Mistral, crossed the Atlantic without event, and landed at Logan in another strong wind, the last hurricane’s tail end that wiped power out across New England. Indeed, the world is all stirred up. Although I’m always sad to leave Europe, it’s good to be home on…