Unknown's avatar

Weekly Photo Challenge: Wanderlust

by

Ya know what I like about blogging? I get to travel the globe vicariously with some of the most adventurous. Truth is, I am not one of those. I’m over 50. I don’t have a lot of money. I have four grown children and spent my younger adult life being a stay-at-home mom. I have never done the exotic traveling that so many of my blogging friends are doing. But I’m not complaining! Next month, I am taking 3 weeks off to go on a road trip to the Canyonlands of Utah. This will be my fourth cross-country trek in nine years. I can satisfy a lot of my wanderlust just by getting into my car and camping my way across the U.S. of A. 

Sturgeon River Gorge Wilderness, Michigan

Wanderlust

Unknown's avatar

Weekly Photo Challenge: EARTH!

by

I plan to celebrate Earth Day 2017 by helping the conservation foundation I work for plant 5500 trees on 11 acres of land that has been farmed for a long time. White oak, pin oak, red oak and shagbark hickory seedlings will be growing up around monarch and pollinator meadows for years to come. Eventually, the area will resemble more closely the hardwood forests of the area prior to European settlement.

I think a lot about the impact of the human race on our planet. 

I am trying to have a harmonious relationship with the Earth. It’s not easy. So much was put into place before I was born. I feel locked into an abusive and foregone conclusion. I greatly admire those who break out of that and live courageously and radically “off the grid”. I do what I can, beginning with raising my own awareness and spending more time listening and observing. 

How do you get to know a planet? It’s a complex organism. So many moving parts…

And I have been deeply moved. You too?


Earth

Unknown's avatar

Weekly Photo Challenge: Surprise!

by

“Poor, dear, silly Spring, preparing her annual surprise!” – Wallace Stevens

Thank you, Jen, for quoting Stevens, one of the best at intuitive word play and surprise.

Thank you, Spring, for injecting life into the world just when we thought everything might be dead forever. 

Surprise

Unknown's avatar

Weekly Photo Challenge: Security

by

My first thought on this subject is of Linus Van Pelt, the wise but neurotic younger brother of Lucy the fuss-budget in the Peanuts cartoons.  His blanket is rarely out of reach. He is aware of his dependence on it and unapologetic and creative in his relationship with it. He seems to be coping better than most adults. Aren’t we all neurotic in some way?

Now that I’m fifty-something, I’ve gotten to know my insecurities pretty well, mostly through the loss of things I relied on. I no longer depend on my husband for security, since he died 9 years ago. My kids all moved out of the nest and I sold the big, suburban house. Shortly after that, I stopped practicing belief in Christianity (and I had a serious practice). As all of these big pieces began to fall away, I began to realize that security was not about them, but about how I think about myself in the world.

You see, either I belong here, or I don’t.

If I don’t belong here, all of those things won’t help. If I do belong here, all of those things are unnecessary. I finally began to see that I am part of this natural world. I fit in it, just the way I am. And even when I die, all the bits of me will be reabsorbed into the earth and fit in just as well that way.

It’s pretty simple, really, but I have to say that I still get anxious and neurotic sometimes. The one who shows me what being secure in the world looks like is my partner Steve. We camped in the Sturgeon River Gorge Wilderness in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. By the time we got to the place, he was pretty tired from driving. So he just lay down and fell asleep. No tent. No bug spray. No gear.

No problem. 


Security

Unknown's avatar

It was 30 years ago today…

by

My smallest baby and only boy was born 30 years ago today, on a Sunday morning. We gave him a name to live up to: Joshua for lordliness and salvation, David for beloved (after a great grandfather and two uncles), and the Italian family surname that he could perpetuate into future generations. Quite a bundle to hoist onto a little guy! 

As he grew, he began to reveal what he had to give us: a happy and entertaining spirit, generous competence, and faithful companionship – qualities that echo his father…

…especially now in the years since Jim’s death. 

And today, he celebrates his 30th birthday. I am so proud of the man that he has become and the work that he is doing in his life, continually growing more helpful and loving.
I wish him a day of joy! The Birthday Boy:

Unknown's avatar

Weekly Photo Challenge: Who You Callin’ Dense?

by

I appreciate the beauty found in the thick of things, like a solid mass of redwood roots…

…or lush undergrowth…

…or tangled hunks of kelp…

…or billowy cumulus clouds.

I like my environment filled in, robust, varied and fecund.  A sparse monoculture is not my aesthetic ideal. 

There is great wisdom in diversity, and intelligence in supporting it. 

Dense

Unknown's avatar

Weekly Photo Challenge: Green is Easy on My Eyes

by

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!

Unknown's avatar

Science in Culture, Religion and Politics

by

This month’s theme at the Be Zine is “Science in Culture, Religion and Politics”. To see the entire issue, click HERE. 

Science, the scientific method, and related modes of logic and thought are wondrous tools. Like any tool, they are beneficial when applied wisely, and they are detrimental when applied unwisely.  The ‘If’ and ‘When’ and ‘How’ and the results of their applications to culture, religion and politics are so varied and storied and possibly ambiguous that I decided not to write an essay for my submission this time. There is just too much to discuss. So, although I am the least of all the poets here, I put my thoughts into a poem.

Ages of Thought,
whether Dark or Enlightened,
attempt to encompass the world.
Is it magic and mystical,
hypothetical, physical?
Can our rigorous study
render clear from the muddy?
Will our critical thinking
keep the spaceship from sinking?
Systematic inventions,
clever social intentions —
are they matters of preference,
coercion or deference?
Does “control and predict”
do us good, or constrict?
Can brain work help to consecrate
Humility and celebrate
such Human traits
as Wonder? Appreciation?
Morality? Cooperation?
When bullet points kill conversation,
and no one takes your word,
Do you trust experience, experiment, story or definition —
And whose?

 

 

 

Unknown's avatar

Weekly Photo Challenge: Atop

by

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

Unknown's avatar

Weekly Photo Challenge: Wish

by

I wish for the health and happiness of all beings, all inhabitants of this planet. May the land be happy…

May the water be happy…

May the air be happy…

May all the plants be happy…

May all the animals be happy…

And may all the people be happy.


Wish