“Our Turn at this Earth” airs weekly on High Plains Public Radio.

“Malaysia to Send 3000 Tonnes of Plastic Waste Back to Countries of Origin.” So read a recent headline. Apparently, the Malaysians are tired of being a dumping ground for the world’s trash. They are not alone. China, which used to take 70 percent of the hardest to recycle plastic, is refusing it now too.

Imagining all that plastic junk being dumped back on the countries it came from reminds me of a science fiction story I read as a teenager.

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Our Turn at this Earth” airs weekly on High Plains Public Radio.

I grew up with a healthy respect for a form of intelligence my mother referred to as common sense. Ever since that Kansas childhood, I have equated the place, and the people in it, with that theory of knowledge, which holds that you can know in your bones a whole lot of  stuff without having to be taught.

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“Our Turn at this Earth” airs weekly on High Plains Public Radio.

One of the most heartbreaking essays I ever read was by Alice Walker, about a lonely horse named Blue. One joyful day, a mare arrived to share his pasture, and Blue entered a brief period of bliss. A few months later, after a trailer came and carried Blue’s best friend away, he galloped “furiously” around and around his pasture,

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“Our Turn at this Earth” airs weekly on High Plains Public Radio.

As a young woman, I met a guy who consulted the I Ching whenever he needed to make a decision. When he consulted that ancient Chinese book of divination about me, the result seemed beyond coincidental. The answer he got fell under a heading that, in English, meant “The Joyous, Lake.” It thrilled and flattered me that the oracle had made that connection.

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“Our Turn at this Earth” airs weekly on High Plains Public Radio.

If you could relive just one moment throughout eternity, which one would you choose? I asked myself that question a few weeks ago, as I watched After Life, a movie by the Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-eda. In this movie, people who have recently died are instructed to choose a moment from their lives that will then be recreated on film and replayed,

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