• clouds,  landscape,  mountains,  Plants,  quotes,  sunrises,  trees

    All a Truth

    July 21, 2022
    Sunrise at Pineridge Natural Area

    “What if everything you have been taught is all a lie and everything you feel is all a truth?”

    Nikki Rowe

    There was a time in my youth when the things I was taught did not seem to fit with my feelings. That feeling came from somewhere within, a place I was not that familiar with, yet. Later I came to know it as intuition, a gut feeling, voice of my authentic self, the ground of my very being or whatever we choose to call it. I am now aware that when I was younger I was not taught the whole truth in school and church while expected to believe what I was taught. A controlling society does that whether it be a parent, a church, a government or an educational system.

    I’m learning the importance of listening and trusting my intuition. There needs to be a connection between what I think, what I’m told to be truth and what my intuition tells me. With so much access to information it is vital for me to listen to the voice within. Connecting these together has given me much better results in knowing my truth, making decisions while not living to someone else’s truth.

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  • Plants

    Love my mornings

    July 20, 2022
    Mushroom outside the coffee shop

    I enjoyed this particular morning with predawn pink clouds over Dixon Reservoir. Then while driving to Reservoir Ridge Natural Area a nice buck bounced across the road and up the hill, with such grace. Wild turkeys grazed nearby, with one watchful eye on me. My peeps were everywhere; squirrels, robins, meadowlarks, and now baristas.

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  • landscape,  quotes,  sunrises

    What will it take…

    July 19, 2022
    Early morning at Watson Lake

    “What will it take for us to change so that other species like the greater sage grouse, the grizzly, the wolf, and the wolverine can live and thrive in peace? What will it take for us to honor what they need, instead of what we want?”

    Terry Tempest Williams, Erosion
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  • insects,  quotes

    A Sense of Wonder

    July 18, 2022
    Spotted Skimmer Dragonfly

    “We will recover our sense of wonder and our sense of the sacred only if we appreciate the universe beyond ourselves as a revelatory experience of that numinous presence whence all things come into being.  Indeed, the universe is the primary sacred reality.  We become sacred by our participation in this more sublime dimension of the world about us.”

    Thomas Berry

    Dragonflies hang around my ponds this time of the year. I really don’t know them that well but planning to change that. I do not have many images because they are such an elusive creature who needs patience to photograph. As I watched them over the weekend, I decided to set up my tripod and wait. I quickly began to sweat while standing in the 96 degree sun but I was determined. They skim and dart across the water with vigor at 22–34 mph.

    The twelve-spotted skimmer, which I think this is, has twelve dark brown wing spots, three on each wing. Males have eight additional spots that are white. Dragonflies are predatory insects. The hunting behavior of adult dragonflies is called “hawking.” Their legs are held in a basket shape during flight, which is perfect for grasping mosquitoes and other small flying insects. Many Native American tribes consider dragonflies to be medicine animals that had special powers. For example, the southwestern tribes, including the Pueblo, Hopi, and Zuni, associated dragonflies with transformation. So today I watched and learned a lot about dragonflies. From now on I will look at them with different eyes, more respect and appreciation. I fell in love with this sacred creature, who I now know is my mosquito eating neighbor.

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  • landscape,  quotes,  sunrises

    Sloth

    July 15, 2022

    Putting things off is the biggest waste of life: it snatches away each day as it comes, and denies us the present by promising the future. The greatest obstacle to living is expectancy, which hangs upon tomorrow and loses today.

    Lucius Annaeus Seneca

    For years I lived in sloth, almost a depressive place. A turn around took place about 20 years ago. I now can find the motivation to crawl out of bed before sunrise to drive out and greet today’s sunrise. If I put it off then I cannot expect an image of yesterday’s sunrise today. Can’t say I have the same motivation about cleaning the bathroom but its improved.

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  • natural areas,  reptiles,  Reservoir Ridge Natural Area

    …without words.

    July 14, 2022

    I posted yesterday about having conversations with nature and then had a short but very important conversation with this rattlesnake on the trail at Reservoir Ridge Natural Area last evening. They initiated the conversation when they started to shake that rattle while I was about four feet away. Thus began our conversation. As soon as I heard them rattle I immediately stopped in my tracks. Without any words I knew exactly what they were saying to me, “That’s close enough! I’m coiled and ready.” I answered them by saying loudly something like, “Holy Crap!!”, then stepped back. I frantically looked for them. Once discovered, I moved off the trail and let them have it. After all, they were there first. I then asked if I could take a photo or two. I understood that rattle perfectly, without words.

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  • clouds,  landscape,  natural areas,  Pineridge Natural Area,  quotes,  sunrises

    The New Story

    July 13, 2022

    “We are between stories. The old story is no longer effective. Yet we have not learned ‘the new story.’ We are talking only to ourselves. We are not talking to the rivers, we are not listening to the wind and stars. We have broken the great conversation. By breaking that conversation we have shattered the universe.”

    Thomas Berry

    I talk to birds. I also listen to birds. The above quote made me think about my old story which said I could only talk at birds and they could only talk at me. Having a conversation was impossible. I’m realizing how that story is evolving for me. Although birds and I do not speak one anothers language, I wonder, is there a conversation going on?

    Conversation happens between humans without words. Many will attest to having conversations with their pets. So, can there be a conversation with all of creation, without words? When making eye contact with the cottontail, is that a form of conversation? Can there be a conversation going on between the wind and trees as they dance together. Is the sweet scent of honeysuckle a form of conversation with all who will pay attention? And, could it be that just paying attention and observing creation is a form of conversation? I do not have a solid answer to those questions but at this stage of my life, I am experiencing conversations with creation at new levels, a conversation that goes deeper than human words. Maybe, this is the new story!

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  • clouds,  grass,  landscape,  Plants,  quotes

    Indigenous

    July 10, 2022
    Cumulus clouds in the distance

    “… becoming Indigenous to a place means living as if your children’s future mattered, to take care of the land as if our lives, both material and spiritual, depended on it.”

    Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass

    I have places inside and outside of the city that are sacred to me. I do not have civil ownership to them but I visit them because this is where I find quiet, solitude and regeneration. I cannot think of one place I visit where the hand of man has not trashed it in some way with beer cans, whiskey bottles, old tires, mattresses, chairs, cigarette butts, etc. It is a sign of how little we know about caring for our world, and those we share this land with or ourselves. I believe the care for the land must start with me.

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