Editorial Section

• The Briar Patch | Banging on pots

  By Cheryl DurgansNovember 22, 2023

  

  “My mom — or was it my aunt Annie? — told me that my Grandma Ira used to cry while banging on pots and singing hymns when she was in despair. I always wondered what hymns she sang; no one could recall.”

• The Briar Patch | Crying in the weeds

  By Cheryl DurgansSeptember 1, 2023

  

  “Something in the denseness of the brush sounded like the words, ‘We missed you.’ Maybe not words, maybe emotion, maybe vibration, I can’t quite describe it.”

• The Briar Patch | Mothering motherwort

  By Cheryl DurgansJune 18, 2023

  

  “This spring, the inspiration to grow motherwort came through a dear herbalist friend — at a time in which I am cajoling myself through a life phase that feels far less pristine than anticipated.”

• The Briar Patch | Why I left ‘higher’ education

  By Cheryl DurgansFebruary 24, 2023

  

  “I was also exploited, through the insidious drum beat of indoctrination that many of us believe — you know, that I chose this profession not to make money, but out of some higher noble purpose.”

• The Briar Patch | Love thy neighbor

  By Cheryl DurgansAugust 24, 2022

  

  “I guess I took it for granted that both Richardsons would always be around. They greeted me when I arrived home for the first time wearing that yellow outfit.”

• The Briar Patch | Seeing the Self Beyond Addiction

  By Cheryl DurgansJune 9, 2022

  

  “Through my own family experience, I know the throes of addiction can be a revolving door, a process that challenges even the saintliest of saint’s capacity to forgive.”

• The Briar Patch | The Myth of Reproductive Agency

  By Cheryl DurgansMay 20, 2022

  

  “We stand on the precipice of a time in which the reproductive rights of millions of teenage girls and women hang in the balance in the shadow of a disintegrating medical system and toxic patriarchy.”

• The Briar Patch | Venerating our Black girls

  By Cheryl DurgansMarch 10, 2022

  

  “Black women in this community are not a monolith — there are plenty of us who had different experiences within the social framework of this community.”

• The Briar Patch | Horses and synchronicity of spirit

  By Cheryl DurgansFebruary 16, 2022

  

  “These boundaries — fluid, but rigid at the same time — are hard to navigate in Yellow Springs, particularly as a Black woman.”

• The Briar Patch — The architecture of community

  By Cheryl DurgansJuly 7, 2021

  

  “Sometimes it’s good to be reminded that dwellings have meaning beyond an individual’s portfolio investment and can be designed in such a way as to protect people, transform and shift functions beyond a shelf life of 50 or 60 years.”