• fall season,  leaves,  quotes

    Letting Go…

    A small flurry of falling leaves.

    Where selfishness excludes, love makes room and includes.
    Where selfishness puts down, love lifts up.
    Where selfishness hurts and harms, love helps and heals.
    Where selfishness enslaves, love sets free and liberates.

    Michael Curry

    While walking home from the coffee shop this morning I was caught in a flurry of leaves on campus. Each leaf letting go and entering their freefall into an unknown phase of their journey. I was walking in a green, yellow, gold, and red snowstorm. I loved it. I also saw it as a subtle message for me to let go of my fears, worries, wild imagination, awfulizing (which is just one type of irrational thinking), and my desire to have some control. All of these point to my selfishness. Makes me wonder if our nation of entitlement and privilege is a mask of its deep selfishness. We as a nation are moving into an unknown phase of a new journey, a freefall like the leaves of fall. No matter what the future will look like, may I let go of selfishness and remember that disorder always precedes reorder. Thanks for listening! And, it’s been a cold blustery day here. Stay warm!!

  • clouds,  landscape,  natural areas,  quotes,  Reservoir Ridge Natural Area

    A Psychic Change

    Ominous clouds at Reservoir Ridge Natural Area

    “I used to think the top global environmental problems were biodiversity loss, ecosystem collapse and climate change. I thought that with 30 years of good science we could address these problems. But I was wrong. The top environmental problems are selfishness, greed and apathy, and to deal with these we need a spiritual and cultural transformation, and we scientists don’t know how to do that

    James Gustave (Gus) Speth

    This is one of my favorite places to sit in quiet and journal. It is at the south end of Reservoir Ridge Natural Area and is about a mile from Overland Trail road. So, with the trees between me and the road there is virtually no traffic noise, just the music of nature. Directly behind me is beautiful Claymore Lake and the trailheads off to my right. I’m posting this quote because I believe he is spot on. Our environmental problems will only happen when a psychic change occurs. Because there are some people deeply rooted in selfishness, greed and apathy, who will look at this scene and not see an open meadow untouched by a plow, but they will see an object for exploitation, not a living, breathing ecosystem.