• Ai enhanced,  fall season,  leaves,  Plants

    The Power of Unity

    October 29, 2026

    “The trees act not as individuals, but somehow as a collective. Exactly how they do this, we don’t yet know. But what we see is the power of unity. What happens to one happens to us all. We can starve together or feast together.”

    Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants

    When I left the coffee shop this morning I was fascinated with the fallen leaves along Howes Street. I may have looked a bit strange walking among them looking for colors, patterns, and shapes, camera in hand snapping an image here and there. Also, stooping once in a while to get a closer look. I look at all those leaves that are individually unique, yet in unity they make for a colorful fall collage. And as a special touch nature adds a few drops of moisture from the night’s frost. We are a few degrees cooler than yesterday but still blessed with blue skies and sunshine this afternoon. Another beautiful fall day to enjoy. I hope you are also!

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  • grass,  Plants,  quotes

    “We” rather than “I”

    August 24, 2026

    “In a gift economy, wealth is understood as having enough to share, and the practice for dealing with abundance is to give it away. In fact, status is determined not by how much one accumulates, but by how much one gives away. The currency in a gift economy is relationship, which is expressed as gratitude, as interdependence and the ongoing cycles of reciprocity. A gift economy nurtures the community bonds that enhance mutual well-being; the economic unit is “we” rather than “I” as all flourishing is mutual.”

    Robin Wall Kimmerer, The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World
    Backlit Foxtail Barley (Hordeum jubatum)

    It looks to me like the Foxtail Barley has a better grasp of the meaning of “We” than we do.

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  • flowers,  nature,  Plants,  quotes

    Living its life…

    July 19, 2026
    Edited with Lightroom and enhanced with Jetpack Image Editor

    The practice of observing the living world and taking inspiration for human ways of living from its model is an essential element of Indigenous science. It embraces the reality that there are intelligences other than our own, from whom we might learn.

    Robin Wall Kimmerer, The Serviceberry

    As I waited outside the coffee shop one morning last week, I spotted this dandelion boldly living its life to the fullest. So I knelt down low pressed my shutter button and thanked it for its presence. Interesting to notice the dandelion knows where and when to rise up and greet the morning sun. I’m thinking that’s pretty smart!! It will be another hot day, so please stay cool.

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  • bicycle rides,  bicycling,  natural areas,  quotes,  trees

    The Mornings Conversation

    July 8, 2026

    If we think of the Earth as a big warehouse of commodities, as mere objects, we claim a kind of privilege to exploit what we believe that we own. In that property mindset, how we consume doesn’t really matter because it’s just stuff and the stuff all belongs to us. There’s no moral constraint on consumption. And so we find ourselves in a time of ecological and spiritual depletion.

    Robin Wall Kimmerer, The Serviceberry

    My friend Jeff and I both just finished reading a book titled The Serviceberry by Robin Wall Kimmerer. The above quote from her book stuck out for both of us and brought up a wonderfully enriching conversation this morning. Every once in a while we enter into such conversations which allows us to get to know and experience ourselves better at deeper levels. At least that’s true for me. I am aware of the amount of consumerism I partake in and have been practicing more moral constraint in my consumption the past few years. I am also aware of how much marketing is placed in front of me every day to increase my consumption. I took the above image this morning on my bicycle ride to the coffee shop. This is the same cottonwood tree elder as yesterday but looking from Stuart St. just before I turn onto Fisher Natural Area. I loved the clouds!! They say possible rain this afternoon so to help out I started dancing and rolled all the windows down in my car.

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  • landscape,  quotes,  sunsets

    Mother Earth

    July 1, 2026

    Water is life, food is life, soil is life – and they become our lives through the paired miracles of photosynthesis and respiration. All that we need to live flows through the land. It is not an empty metaphor that we call her Mother Earth.

    Robin Wall Kimmerer
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  • Glacier National Park,  lake,  landscape,  quotes,  reflections,  sunsets

    It’s What I Want Too

    October 13, 2025
    Sunset Lake McDonald in Glacier National Park – 2004

    I want to be part of a system in which wealth means having enough to share, and where the gratification of meeting your family needs is not poisoned by destroying that possibility for someone else. I want to live in a society where the currency of exchange is gratitude and the infinitely renewable resource of kindness, which multiplies every time it is shared rather than depreciating with use….

    Robin Wall Kimmerer
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  • Dewdrops,  grass,  Plants,  quotes

    Doing the Work of the World

    July 14, 2025
    Dew covered grass at the meadow’s edge

    Sometimes I wish I could photosynthesize so that just by being, just by shimmering at the meadow’s edge or floating lazily on a pond, I could be doing the work of the world while standing silent in the sun.

    Robin Wall Kimmerer

    I’m not sure we can be doing the work of the world unless we know
    we are a part of the world rather than apart from the world.

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  • flowers,  musings,  Plants,  quotes

    Learning to be Present

    July 8, 2025

    Time as objective reality has never made much sense to me. It’s what happens that matters. How can minutes and years, devices of our own creation, mean the same thing to gnats and to cedars? Two hundred years is young for the trees whose tops this morning are hung with mist. It’s an eyeblink of time for the river and nothing at all for the rocks…If there is meaning in the past and in the imagined future, it is captured in the moment. When you have all the time in the world, you can spend it, not on going somewhere, but on being where you are. So I stretch out, close my eyes, and listen to the rain.

    Robin Wall Kimmerer

    As a young man I would lay in the grass and daydream. Seems I usually ventured into the future, accomplishing feats such as being the hero in the big game or the hero saving the fair maiden. Now that I am older I’m able to look back and see how those daydreams kept me from living in the moment. I was not experiencing the world I was a part of. The lessons they have given me is an awareness that helps me live in the now more often and the desire to live there. The gift of photography, recovery from alcoholism, and a spiritual practice have also been key in that transformation. Now when I stretch out, close my eyes, and listen to the rain I am learning to be present and enjoy the rain. I have the time to be present.

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