Category Archives: Nature

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Green is Easy on My Eyes

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I work for a Conservation Foundation. We try very hard to be green! Protecting watersheds and wildlife habitat while preventing the development of natural lands into human-dominated environments is a labor of passion and commitment for me. Green is not just my favorite color and the highlight in my eyes, it is my preferred world view! Here’s my green gallery:


It IS Easy Being Green!

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Atop

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Mountaintop experiences give you a spiritual perspective. The sky is bigger; the minutiae of the earth is even smaller.  

Humility and awe meet you at the top of your climb. 

The view (and the climb!) is breathtaking.

And the opportunity to stay atop a while and ponder your place on the crust of Earth is a special reward. 

Seek higher ground. It’s good for your soul.

 

 
Atop

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Flowers! Just because….

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The sun peeked out today for the first time in about a week. Cold, gray, snowy, icy, cloudy, foggy Wisconsin tends to get me down. Getting up in the dark, working through a sunless day, and then going home in the dark seems to pull all the shape out of life. And the news is even more depressing. So, I’m injecting some color and light into things with this post. Enjoy!

 

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Weekly Photo Challenge: The Nature of Grace

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This is the challenge of a lifetime. Grace is my middle name – for reals! I have been striving to live gracefully ever since my parents explained to me what that name means, hence the blog motto above. I find subtle differences in the nuance of the definition now that I’m learning Buddhism and leaving the Christian world view that I was raised with in my background.

There is something of elegance, but not a worldly elegance. 

warm-rose

There is an element of casual generosity, an unearned favor and abundance.

lilacs

The Buddhist perspective lends the flavor of ego-less-ness to it; it is beauty without attachment, as ephemeral as frost.

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To live a life of grace is to open yourself mindfully each moment to being in the flow of the kindness of the Universe, in a way. To walk in harmony with my surroundings – people, places, things – and to be a living benediction is my aspiration. It sounds pretty lofty and ethereal, like a cloud, and I don’t claim to be doing the metaphor justice. But I might as well aim high in my practice. 

graceful-cloud

 
Graceful

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Resilient

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Resilient: able to withstand or recover quickly from difficult conditions.

rose-snow

“Just remember in the winter, far beneath the bitter snow lies the seed that with the sun’s love, in the spring becomes the rose.” – Amanda McBroom

To all of you who hold a seed deep in your heart – a seed of peace, of love, of tolerance, of equality, of community, and of hope – I give you my warm wishes for a wonder-filled New Year. To all of you who shine love on the seed that is deep in my heart, I give you my undying gratitude for your support. 

Resilient

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Anticipation

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One of my favorite Advent anthems I used to sing with our church choir was titled “Anticipation”. It was a jewel of tight 20th Century harmony supporting a beautiful poem whose author I cannot find. It goes something like this:

The sky is black
The dawn is but a promise
and here I wait
impatient for the light.
My dearest friend is coming back
Tomorrow.
Anticipation fills the endless night
and soon the sky will fill with golden sunlight.
The day will break with joy beyond compare, 
and I will fly…I will fly…
to meet him in the air. 

I haven’t got the music or the lyrics to cite the source, but it haunts me in these long nights of darkness waiting for my dearest friend, The Sun, who warms me and enlightens my soul. Soon we will celebrate the Solstice, the return of the Sun, and days will lengthen steadily. That is a hope and a joy to anticipate! 

mystery

foggy-sunrise

arboretum in winter

 

 

Anticipation

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Weekly Photo Challenge: New Horizons

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A New Day dawning…

magic-mist

…in a new place. Since the first of November, I’ve been living on land owned by the Conservation Foundation where I work. However, at the end of the month, my boss tendered his resignation. What direction will the Foundation take going forward? I’m not quite sure. As the only employee there now, I have a lot of work to do. It will be an uphill slog along an obscured path, maybe more like this photo:  horizonSo, “we’re not out of the woods yet”, but frankly, the woods is where I want to be. That is where new life is pushing up from under the decay. growth piercingAnd that’s pretty exciting! So, my resolution: keep practicing conservation of resources and doing no harm, no matter what others around you may be practicing. Live with integrity and love with generosity. 

warm-rose

Happy Horizons to all!

New Horizon

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Weekly Photo Challenge: RELAX

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I can’t help being reminded of a T-shirt my late husband wore. It was commissioned by his barbershop quartet; they wore them together on a barbershop weekend retreat for practicing, hanging around the lake house, and just “chilling” (in Palm Springs). The shirt simply said: RELAX.  A lot of the people near and dear to me have been experiencing heightened anxiety – myself included.

November has been a difficult month. To cap it all off, my boss resigned on the last day. My boss and I are the ONLY employees of the Conservation Foundation where I work. And I just moved onto conservation land at the beginning of the month. I have a lot of questions about my local future to add to the bigger questions I have about a global and universal future.  

*sigh* So…what do I do to relax? I go outside. I walk. I watch the trees, the sky, the animals, the sun doing what they do without anxiety, on a larger scale, and with the simple grace of the present moment. It never ceases to be helpful to my mood. So, pull up a bench…and relax with me. 

benchLook closely at the beauty all around, and wonder in silence.

moss

Now, don’t you feel more relaxed? I do. 

Relax