Woodchuck family makes Holy Wisdom home

Holy Wisdom MonasteryCare for the Earth, Friends of Wisdom Prairie, Weekly Wisdom 1 Comment

By Howard Fenton, Friends of Wisdom Prairie Council At this time of the year a lot of different kinds of families are calling Holy Wisdom home. And there’s one in particular I’d like to tell you about; the woodchuck, or the groundhog to some, or the whistle pig to others. The woodchuck, which doesn’t actually chuck wood, or eat it, is in the Order of Rodents, a member (the largest in fact) of the squirrel family. It’s scientific name is Marmota monax. The genus name gives you a clue that the woodchuck is related to marmots, while the species name …

In May, queen bumble bees are buzzing

Holy Wisdom MonasteryCare for the Earth, Friends of Wisdom Prairie Leave a Comment

By Julie Melton, Friends of Wisdom Prairie Council That large, flying insect you that just buzzed by you was likely a queen bumble bee on a survival mission. She might be the endangered rusty-patched bumble bee looking for a suitable nest site, finding flowers to feed herself, and constructing a nest. She is the original single parent. Last fall she mated with a male bumble bee. Then she fortified herself with nectar and pollen so that she could survive the winter. Everyone else in her colony and all the males died. She and other potential queens were left to form …

Kids on the Prairie: Surprise and Awe

Holy Wisdom MonasteryCare for the Earth, Children's Ministry, Friends of Wisdom Prairie, Kids on the Prairie, Sunday Assembly Leave a Comment

By Julie Melton, Sunday Assembly member and Friends of Wisdom Prairie Council member What happened last Sunday morning was the perfect return to our Kids On the Prairie walks. Twenty-two parents and children spent an hour and a half exploring nature’s beauty and surprises. To start with, everyone got a hand lens. The small plastic lenses were nothing special, but they signaled that there is something special hidden in ordinary places: three cold spiders on a piece of old dried wood, a tiny bee on a dandelion, and little bugs on Nannyberry shrub buds and apple blossoms. These wonders and …

5 things you can do to show your love for birds

Amy AlstadCare for the Earth, Friends of Wisdom Prairie Leave a Comment

Their songs uplift our spirits and their powers of flight captivate our imagination.  Birds add immeasurable beauty and joy to our world, but their numbers are declining and they need our help! As spring migrants return to Wisconsin, here are five things you can do to help our feathered friends. Keep a list Birders just love lists! And for good reason; keeping track of the birds you see at your favorite neighborhood park, or in your backyard, or even all the species you see in a year will challenge your ID skills and reveal patterns you might otherwise miss. Spread the word …

Earth, Our Home

Holy Wisdom MonasteryCare for the Earth, Prayer & Worship 1 Comment

By Dennis Crowley O Sacred Cosmos, wherein our Universe so massively and silently moves.  O Sacred Cosmos, where our Galaxy joins with numberless Galaxies drifting in spaces beyond our comprehension. O Sacred Cosmos, it is within this Universe and this Galaxy, that our small Solar System imperceptibly circulates in gyrations beyond our daily reckoning. O Sacred Cosmos, we come to you with heavy hearts because Earth, held so gently in this, oh so small Solar System, is in pain. O Sacred Cosmos, Earth is being buffeted, torn, scorched, and polluted by the very species honored with the charge, “Be faithful …

An owl family gets some help

Holy Wisdom MonasteryCare for the Earth, Friends of Wisdom Prairie 3 Comments

By Julie Melton, Friends of Wisdom Prairie Council On March 13, 2021, during one of our monthly bird surveys, Friends of Wisdom Prairie volunteers spotted a Great Horned Owl (GHO). A few minutes after the initial sighting, we spotted a nest close by with another GHO sitting on it. We knew we had seen a mated pair. We weren’t surprised because we had seen owls on the grounds before. Since December, they could be heard calling.  A few days later, one of the birders in our group, Triet Tran, sent out a picture of two nestlings in the nest. Triet …

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“Restoration and Care for the Earth,” The Holy Wisdom Podcast

Holy Wisdom MonasteryCare for the Earth, Podcast Leave a Comment

Want to be the first to hear every new episode? Click here to sign up for email notifications! What does it truly mean to “care for the earth“?  In this episode, take a deeper look at what “care for the earth” means from two leaders of our natural restoration efforts – retired Land Manager, Greg Armstrong and his successor, Amy Alstad, PhD. Both our guests share their knowledge of the restoration work that the sisters have done over the years.  You’ll also hear about Friends of Wisdom Prairie, one of our volunteer communities, and their amazing contributions to the land at …

Spirituality on the prairie

Lynne Smith, OSBCare for the Earth, Living in Community Leave a Comment

“When we enter the landscape to learn something, we are obligated, I think, to pay attention rather than constantly to pose questions. To approach the land as we would a person, by opening an intelligent conversation. And to stay in one place, to make of that one, long observation a fully dilated experience. We will always be rewarded if we give the land credit for more than we imagine, and if we imagine it as being more complex even than language. In these ways we begin, I think, to find a home, to sense how to fit a place.” – …

Meeting new members of the prairie community

Lynne Smith, OSBCare for the Earth, Friends of Wisdom Prairie, Living in Community Leave a Comment

On a recent sunny Sunday afternoon, I went for a walk in Wisdom Prairie. Friend of Wisdom Prairie member Ron Endres was harvesting prairie seeds along the path, so I stopped to find out what he was picking. He was gathering seed from anise hyssop and placed a seed head in my hand with the instructions to rub my hands together and then smell them. Sure enough, it smelled like anise or licorice. Anise hyssop isn’t very plentiful and Ron was glad to have come across a small patch of it. It is one of only a few prairie plants …

Prayer and work

Lynne Smith, OSBCare for the Earth, Living in Community 2 Comments

It was 73 degrees in Middleton on Monday, April 8, 2019. Since Monday is a day of leisure for the sisters, I spent a large part of the day outside. I raked up the sticks dropped by the oaks during the winter in the front yard at Bingen House and listened to the birds. This will be the last week of free meals for the birds. The squirrels have learned how to climb down onto the feeder from the roof of the house, hang from the upper perches by their back feet and eat their fill from the lower seed …