Welcome to Prairie Country

No passports required, but you’re welcome to leave a calling card in comments.

Lots of changes are going on these days in the blogworld. The beauteous ladies of Firedoglake are takin’ it up a notch. Skyscrapers and wide boulevards and streetlights for the sidewalks. They’ve already inspired some of the regular denizens to venture forth themselves. Egregious midwifed this scribe from the print world to the voice of blogging. Snarkassandra dove right into her own blog with the assuredness of a longtime pro. TRex has a brand new treehouse. FDL’s built bridges to Blue America and Emptywheel’s regular digs.

Out there beyond the blogworld, the seasons are changing as well. Imus is back on the radio-teevee-satellite world. [DirectTV 379, just sayin’]. Cafferty’s back in CNN’s Situation Room [what? He doesn’t have his own time slot yet?]…from vacation, or the booktour, or the best of both.

Politics are heating up. After complaining about John Edwards holding Hillary’s feet to the fire, Hillary’s now saying “it’s beginning to look a lot like”….not Christmas….

We’re missin’ Jon and Stephen and the rest of the late night guys…and hoping for strong positive results for our colleagues fighting the good fight for all writers via the WGA strike.

Think of Prairie Country as an oasis, a garden space, a rest stop amid all the hurly burly of the toobz. We’ll move at a slower pace here. Like the splashing water fountain you hear behind the walls, and maybe only have captured a small slice of view through a creaky old wooden gate. But this portal’s ready for you to slip through anytime.

The season changes are vivid here in Prairie Country. We’ve learned life can change in an instant in a delivery room [joy of all joys] or a doctor’s office. We’ve learned about survival. We’ve learned about traveling across the globe and sampling the best of Marrakesh and Rome and Granada and Mazatlan and…now we’re learning the best of life’s inner journeys.

Here in this oasis/cloister/way station we’ll take a more languid look at the world, but no less thoughtful than we are challenged by those who have already blazed trails before us.

Sit a spell. We plan to offer food for thought Tuesdays and Saturdays and when the mood strikes. The paths in this garden meander a bit amid the evergreens and understory greenery, perennials will thrive here, and occasional more planned annuals of theme and conversation. There may be hidden treasures amid comments to come, ideas that send our garden growing in new directions. I won’t promise it’ll always be sunny. Like life, gardens have their thorns and thunderstorms, too.

How can there be a cloistered garden amid the vast expanses of the Prairie? Well, I think it’s the shelters, the sanctuaries that feed our body and spirit to sustain us as we venture out under broad skies and down unfamiliar byways.

So seek out the hammock under the stand of red pines. Or down that path there’s a reflecting pool, long and broody shaded as evening in the Alhambra. But water lilies have found their way there and send up smiling white lotus faces. There are inglenooks and benches, and if you look closely, you’ll find the quiet inner spaces of your own heart, in sanctuary here for a brief time or a long stay. Do come back again and again.

We’ll offer up a little food for thought as you come through the gate and the topics will likely be eclectic as we all are; there are no harsh blacks and whites, good’n’bads to be found here. Rather, the misty drift of colors and spirit, hopefully softened a bit around the edges.

Prairie Country is a state of mind—but it’s also a state of heart. And the sure steady heartbeat is what carries us all along and informs us and colors our lives.

Welcome to Prairie Country—leave your thoughts, take along your dreams and inspirations and motivations to nurture the garden within your own heart. See you back again soon.