“All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.”
(Julian of Norwich)
Julian of Norwich, a contemporary of Chaucer, is credited with doing for prose what Chaucer did for poetry: Writing in English instead of Latin. She lived as an anchoress and wrote of her visions. She heard from God that all shall be well.
Next to Julian of Norwich, in a wishing season, is another woman grounded in what she terms “the simple rituals and practices that deeply connect us to the more-than-human world.”
”… I let the tree know about my presence before making contact by closing my eyes and whispering words — hola, ¿puedo acercarme? hello, can I approach?”
(Leonora Simonovis, Poetry, December 2025)
Leonora Simonovis’s mother died in Caracas, Venezuela in 2021. From San Diego, CA, Simonovis recalls her mother’s genius for nurturing plants: In the ravines around our neighborhood, she’d prop up weaker plants with stakes, so they were supported as they grew, and check on them periodically, softly whispering words of encouragement.
She concludes:
I live far from my roots, but I firmly believe this land where I live now is firmly connected to the one I once called home — by the roots of trees, by migrating species, by the mycorrhizal networks that expand and weave entire communities of living beings under the earth.
(c) 2025 JMN — EthicalDative. All rights reserved
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