• coffee life,  coffee shops,  fall season,  fountain pens,  journal,  journaling,  musings,  Photography,  quotes,  seasons,  writing/reading

    A Reason to Journal

    October 29, 2022

    “With words at your disposal, you can see more clearly. Finding the words is another step in learning to see.”

    Robin Kimmerer

    I believe that each pen, or any writing instrument, is a tool filled with words and that it is the task of the writer to find them. And, I define a writer as everyone! We just don’t know it yet. Just pick up the pen and put it to paper. I also believe words are found in blank journals and it is the writer’s task to find them. If you don’t believe me then get a journal and pen and begin to write daily. The words may be just for you but they are there.

    This morning we had a light frost with the temperature around 30 degrees. By mid-morning the sun and bright blue sky had melted it away. It has been a quiet day for me. This afternoon I sat in my chair in the sunshine and let the sun warm me, inside and out. I watched the wind blow leaves across the yard, making that rustling sound as they danced in front of me. Now it is overcast and cooling down. My journals are my attempts to find words that describe such moments. and they also help me see such moments. It is a practice where progress not perfection is the task. I love what I see in this world so I use photography and my journals as ways to describe them. That’s my reason to journal and why I love my photography.

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  • landscape,  National Parks,  quotes,  river,  Smoky Mountains National Park

    The Earth is a Gift

    August 12, 2022
    Fall colors on Roaring Fork River in October of 2003

    “Our elders say that ceremony is the way we can remember to remember. In the dance of the giveaway, remember that the earth is a gift that we must pass on, just as it came to us. When we forget, the dances we’ll need will be for mourning. For the passing of polar bears, the silence of cranes, for the death of rivers and the memory of snow.”

    Robin Wall Kimmerer

    This quote reminded me of my visit to the Roaring Fork River back in 2003. I went up there with a fellow photographer to share expenses and have my first visit to the Smoky Mountains. It was also my first year with my first digital camera, a Nikon D100. I was very impressed with the beauty of this area. Someday I would like to make a return visit.

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  • horizons,  landscape,  natural areas,  quotes,  Reservoir Ridge Natural Area,  sunsets

    Gifts of the World

    August 6, 2022
    Setting sun at Reservoir Ridge Natural Area

    “When I close my eyes and wait for my heartbeat to match the drum, I envision people recognizing, for perhaps the first time, dazzling gifts of the world, seeing them with new eyes, just as they teeter on the cusp of undoing. Maybe just in time. Or maybe too late.”

    Robin Wall Kimmerer, from the Epilogue

    I’ve finished Robin Wall Kimmerer’s book called Braiding Sweetgrass. It’s been a while since a book has captivated me, educated me, moved me to tears, laughter and anger but left me with a desire to start rereading as soon as I finished. I found much enlightenment about nature that I was never taught in school or don’t remember or my focus was on the ballgame after school.

    Kimmerer said she wrote the book because, “I wanted readers to understand that Indigenous knowledge and Western science are both powerful ways of knowing, and that by using them together we can imagine a more just and joyful relationship with the Earth.” She explains how Indigenous people know a nature different than we do, most of that gained from reading the book of nature. That has stirred me to want to read more of this book of nature which means spending more time with her. Highly recommend the book.

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  • leaves,  Plants,  quotes

    Good advice for us all…

    August 1, 2022
    After the rain at Inniswood Gardens

    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
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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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  • Avian,  natural areas,  Pineridge Natural Area,  quotes

    Happy to see me…

    July 5, 2022

    The land is the real teacher. All we need as students is mindfulness.

    Robin Wall Kimmerer

    Magpies do not sing as a robin or meadowlark, they chatter. Constantly. As soon as I arrive they will land on the fence in front of me while still in my car and jabber away, and sometimes making good eye contact. I’m going with the assumption they are happy to see me. Hope you had a wonderful 4th of July!

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  • flowers,  Plants,  quotes

    Just Being There

    June 5, 2022

    Joanna Macy writes that until we can grieve for our planet we cannot love it—grieving is a sign of spiritual health. But it is not enough to weep for our lost landscapes; we have to put our hands in the earth to make ourselves whole again. Even a wounded world is feeding us. Even a wounded world holds us, giving us moments of wonder and joy. I choose joy over despair.

    Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass

    As I write this, threatening clouds have moved in. The wind has picked up and the trees are waving those arms adorned with new green leaves. I pray that it rains. I started the morning at a coffee shop, then moved on to one of the natural areas to journal and get in a walk. I’m one of those wandering souls always heading out the door, the wanderer who is committed to the adventure of seeing new places and discovering new things1 A quote the book Eternal Echoes by John O’Donohue. The wanderer cannot do that from their easy chair. I’m aware of my desire to spend more and more time in the company of nature. I find joy just being there.

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