Category: <span>Blog</span>

Category: Blog

Meeting the Woman on the Mountain by Mary Jane Di Piero

Sometimes, looking back after years, I am startled to see a map that leads to an outcome I would never have dreamed. The route is never the super highway one but is oddly disjointed, with little mapping points popping up here and there and long lapses when the road might seem lost. Perhaps I stopped at an all-consuming job or dallied with divorce, or mixed in a major life map like raising a child. But then I can see how a theme picks its way through the landscape,…

The Woman on the Mountain by Mary Jane Di Piero

How does one become “The Woman on the Mountain”? I think the important thing to know is that it is a “becoming”—a learning and growing that has brought Barbara over her 85 years to this clear and culminating time in her life. A couple of years ago she broke her leg, and last year she had three operations and pneumonia. These apparent misfortunes had a result that turned out to be beneficial: they kept her tied more closely to home as she recuperated. The other day she was…

A Collaboration Begins by Mary Jane Di Piero

 A few months ago, Barbara Thomas asked me if I would help her write a blog about the gnomes she has been communicating with for many years on her property in the Santa Cruz Mountains. I have been visiting her redwood amphitheater, studio and home for quite some time and have been fascinated by her stories and continually inspired by the place.