Driftless Animistic Ministries

  Welcome to the Driftless “Ancient.” “Primeval.” “Wild.” “Paradise.” “Canaan.” These were just some words used by the first white settlers in the 1840s to describe the land we know today as Richland , nestled in the Lower Wisconsin River Valley in the Western Coulees and Ridges , a portion of the area known as the Driftless Region (1, 2). No doubt similar words were shared in those early days and beyond, when Louis Jolliet and Father Jacquess Marquette traversed the Meskousing , or “Red Stone River” as it may have been known to local Algonquin, in 1673, or when Spanish explorer Hernando De Soto first gazed upon Miisi-Zibi , “Gathering of Waters,” as it was known to the local Ojibwe, in 1541 (3). Between these two warm rivers, colder rivers from beneath the earth have danced a delicate ballet with wind and sand for millenia, shaping the very foundations and bedrock of the land.  The Driftless Period: Age of Stone & Water Let us turn now to a timeless ...

  Considerations for the New Year Welcome all, we hope you are well. So many plans and ideas have spun through my mind in recent days, and I often find myself overwhelmed by the need to do more than I am physically and mentally capable of. Even so, a feeling deep in my chest and in the pit of my stomach makes me move, forces my hand. “Write,” it says. “Please,” it begs.  So write I shall. Words cannot properly sum up all of the abstract feelings floating around inside, proper reactions to our own daily lives that cannot compare to the feelings of helplessness and powerlessness that come as we not only consider the larger events of our world, but the thousands of years of history that led us to where we are in the present day. To write about modern injustices, we must discuss the sins of the past. To write about contemporary successes, we must first discuss historical defeats. My heart and mind are heavy as I look over and contemplate the world. The promise of a new year seems ...