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OWLcourage
a blog invested in hope and creative possibility



Homecoming
This is not the blog posting I was going to write, the one chasing me through restless nights and ambushing me when I least expect it. ...
Phyllis Kritek
Mar 117 min read


Anniversary
I posted my first OWLcourage blog contribution on January 3, 2022. This fact shines a light on progress made and changes that have...
Phyllis Kritek
Feb 67 min read


Small Gratitudes
Like many of my fellow citizens, I have been searching about to find purchase as I study my responses to the outcomes of the national...
Phyllis Kritek
Nov 26, 20245 min read


"Not Yet!" (November 5,2024: The Parade)
May Sarton once explained that when she wanted to know what she thought she wrote prose and when she wanted to know what she felt, she...
Phyllis Kritek
Nov 12, 20245 min read

Flow
I am a participant in a global enterprise embraced by an array of humans who believe that the exploration of human consciousness is the...
Phyllis Kritek
Oct 5, 20245 min read


"Do Something!"
Like many in the US, I am invested in, focused on, and sometimes fretful about the imminent presidential election. This blog, focused on...
Phyllis Kritek
Sep 21, 20248 min read

uncertainty
Time for another poem.... uncertainty hanging in the hall corner on a spider web… knowing i now know uncertainty with quiet...
Phyllis Kritek
Aug 27, 20241 min read


White Women
At its inception, the OWL in the name of this blog, OWLcourage referred not only to “owls”, the iconic image of wisdom which presented my...
Phyllis Kritek
Aug 1, 20247 min read

$1,651.99
At 6:30 AM on June 17, 2024, I tested positive for Covid 19 for the fourth time. Eight hours later, I went to my CVS and paid $1,651.99...
Phyllis Kritek
Jul 19, 20249 min read


Johnny Appleseed
The year my oldest daughter was ready to start kindergarten, we moved to a new city and rented an apartment while searching for a home to...
Phyllis Kritek
May 30, 20246 min read


Integrity
The word “integrity” has two somewhat complementary but distinct meanings. One focuses on “the quality of being honest and having strong...
Phyllis Kritek
May 14, 20248 min read

Productivity
Productivity is defined as the state or quality of producing something. This simple, seemingly harmless definition is amplified with...
Phyllis Kritek
May 4, 20246 min read

Competencies
My educational preparation as a professional registered nurse was in a collegiate baccalaureate program, an emergent leap forward in the...
Phyllis Kritek
Apr 24, 20247 min read

Flowers
Spring comes early in Goleta, with harbingers announced in February, a shock to my midwestern system of weather management. Suddenly I...
Phyllis Kritek
Apr 15, 20244 min read

Corridors
(This poem showed up early this morning, unexpected and uninvited, and volunteered to be my next blog post. I was startled, skeptical,...
Phyllis Kritek
Apr 9, 20241 min read

Belief Systems
The concept of “belief systems” has a wide variety of meanings, so my first intention here is to share what meaning that concept has for...
Phyllis Kritek
Mar 4, 20249 min read


Taylor and Caitlin
If you immediately added the last names, you may, like me, have taken note of these two amazing women who have captured the imagination...
Phyllis Kritek
Feb 25, 20246 min read


Life Lessons
Like many humans, I have spent a portion of my life grappling with the lurking uncertainty about the meaning of my existence, always...
Phyllis Kritek
Feb 21, 20244 min read

Improvement
Few national values are as readily observable as the one that incessantly declares that we Americans seek “Improvement”. Indeed, we...
Phyllis Kritek
Feb 7, 20245 min read

Letting Go
Virtually every wisdom system I have studied, and of course my pattern is insistent and persistent, eventually advises me to learn to...
Phyllis Kritek
Jan 8, 20246 min read
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