Category: Nature

Between Skins

Garter Snake left something behind,

a lacy sleeve

of his diamond design.

Soft and fragile,

thin as a whisper.

He breached restriction,

peeled it away.

hooked by the log

inside out and in one piece

the tissue print laid.

Trusting each twist, every turn

Surrendered to the struggle.

I wonder how that feels

to wholly leave behind

all that will not grow with you.

Wet flesh of newborn knowledge

understanding’s tender spiral.

Shedding is both

quiet and beautiful,

skin and tears alike.

Garter Snake and I

both have reached this place

where we can be

stretched no further—

stretched no further.

I looked for him

among dead leaves

and smooth grass.

Perhaps he sought refuge

under dark undergrowth.

Restless as the forces of creativity

Garter Snake can’t be held still

or tight for long.

When stirred hidden passion glows

like embers buried in ash.

In this place—between skins

all of me

wiggled free

by creative energy.

All of me free.

Here grow the light,

live in the sunfields

when you can be stretched no further

leave something behind— leave something behind.

Patch Ponder

It’s how I will begin every other day until the harvest ends in August, on my knees next to dew covered blueberry bushes, filling first my belly then a small bucket with berries. Its a humble prayerful posture. I seek the plump soft berries that hide among lush green leaves and bowed branches. I take only those ready to relinquish their attachment from tiny stiff stems. I always come to the patch with an attitude of gratitude. Anyone that helps pick has to be willing. No one is forced to pick because I want the bushes to feel nothing but appreciation for their gift. My movement in the patch is slow and easy. I know I will be returning many more times in the coming weeks. Great care is given to do no harm or hurt to the bushes that surrender their fruit.

When you pick blueberries there can be a large cluster but only a few will have color and of those few only one or two will be blue through to the stem. You can feel they’re ripeness by their willingness to release. I look too but each year I feel more and look less or my back yells at me. Blue to the stem are sweet. All other’s have a tang of sour.

Many of us are working on releasing negative experiences, thoughts and people. The blueberries reminded me this morning not to force this process. It’s OK to wait for the healing to be whole—ripe for the picking. You will be able to release AND relinquish attachment to the experience. There will be a willingness on your part. You will feel it and be Okay with whatever place the other(s) are in their healing in that shared experience. Only then can you move forward consistently. Healing can hide. Feel for it in a gentle way. You may have to return many more times.

Wish you all have ripe—sweet—healing!

Summer Feelings

Summer’s breath has been hot and heavy these past few days like an agonizing slow exhale that is forecast to reach into next week. All day the heat’s stronghold builds. My bodies profuse sweating the lubricant that allows me to penetrate its walls.

As I halter up the horses, a faint breeze offers a welcome but fleeting respite from the oppression. The horses walk at a leisurely pace down the path towards the lush field of belly high grass. Not a wrinkle of worry on their brows. Every voluptuous curve on their form moves like a gentle rolling wave disappearing into the sand. Summer is a time of loose fullness. More than bodies soften.

Growing up we didn’t have air conditioning. My Mother used to tell us when the heat and humidity of the day carried into the night and kept us awake, it was because we could hear the corn growing in the fields. The grumbling over sleepless nights instantly turned into gratitude. The saying still holds true. All around in the heat of summer things are growing. Including parts of myself.

Every season offers us gifts. We need to learn from nature how to be in harmony with each season. It’s especially difficult during times of extremes when the human minds twist nature’s wisdom into whining. When Mother Nature is in control, stay in the flow. The challenge is to turn inside if something outside makes us uncomfortable. It’s how we were designed to grow—from the inside out.

Today I feel summer feelings (inhale).

Breathing it all in

Sky Kiss

Father Sky came down to kiss Mother Earth this morning
Reassured by the sacred union,
the hard worry in my heart softened.
The affection walked beside me around the field.

I let it inside.

Opened wide and deep,
my lungs embraced the cool moist air.
Momentarily I held its love,
Then gradually I released it to the life around me.
Going, going, gone.

Winter Walk

I’ve returned home from a long walk
in Winter’s night
along the woodland’s dark edge
a place where shadows play with one’s imagination

Peaceful scents of pine escape from emerald green needles
enclosed in the wind’s frosty breath
drifting past my rosy running nose
Every last whiff I sniff

Covered by a moonbeam cloak of sequins,
the mesmerizing landscape twinkles in
the mind’s wide open eye

Wakened from a whisper on the wind
forgotten promises remembered
surely Winter, with its pure white heart,
would not be unforgiving.

Clear and cold, attention starved thoughts
a constant companion
no turning back now
I follow where they go
down and deep
up and away

Winter nights walk stillness inward
where I hear silence speak
in a soft slow voice
of wonderful things

Feeling warm, cozy and comfortable
with myself
I turn towards home
I’ve returned to my heart

Pie Potential

Early in its life a rabbit nibbled away the tender bark at the trunk base. Exposing a swath of naked wood, the length of a fully extended rabbit body nearly all around the tiny trunk. I did my best to care for the wound. No apples this year but she lived.

A late Spring cold snap brought snow. Delicate blooms fragrant and supple the day before were now vacant of scent. Frozen stiff. Some leaves anxious to begin again followed the sun’s subtle cue to unfold. The cold hardness of the world nipped the new growth. When touched the scarred tips disintegrated into a brown powder. The potential to taste pie crumbled like the dry brown leaf tip pressed between my fingers. I witnessed the vulnerability of opening. I witnessed how not to let the hardness of the world stop you from growing. No apples this year but she lived.

By all appearances last summer seemed to be the year we’d taste pie! July brought pests of biblical proportions, hell-bent on devouring every last tree in the orchard. The August sun melted summer’s green into the earth. Each day the mother tree struggled to continue her simple life. Beneath her laid the enormity of her sacrifice to do just that. Dozens of immature apples carpeted the ground. To sacrifice is to make sacred. I knew one day I’d harvest apples. The only question was when. The horses appreciated the taste of apple. No apples for pie this year but she lived.

Last week I made two pies with apples from the Prairie Spy tree in our orchard. As I peeled and sliced the sweetness of life in my hands, I reflected on the tree’s many teachings over the years. What I saw was pie. Potential In Everything life takes from us to give us what we need to grow.

And that first bite…heaven never tasted so good.

Holy Harmony

What ear doesn’t turn towards the winged-one’s song thick in the March air?
Passionate chords strung together on heart strings,
hoping to snare a mate.

On a limb touching the sky I see him.
His crisp crimson outline easy to spot against the drab scenery.
His whole body reverberates the rapture in each note.
The beat found in nature’s pounding chest.
I pause.

Such intensity.

I wonder, could it be a primordial song of survival?
I feel the lifeless unborn come alive.
That’s what spring does.
It saturates the world with fresh life.
Soak in the song of rebirth.

I thought of St. Augustine who said, “He who sings, prays twice.”
Listen for the holy harmony around you.
You will hear singing from your heart.

Ready For Anything

With good reason, many Wisconsinites are agonizing over the blast of Siberian like cold passing through the region. Temperatures with the wind chill plummeted to 50 below zero in parts of the state last night, creating exasperating problems in our daily existence. We have descended downward to temperatures that could surely freeze hell over.

Dressed in the wool of two sheep, I found myself sweating before I finished feeding and watering the horses. At times, being over-prepared can be no better than being under-prepared. Sweating was my body’s voice of common sense, telling me to restore the balance between the outside and inside climates. Taking two sheep’s worth of sweaty wool clothing off was more of a relief than the warmth that consoled me at the wood stove. Extreme cold weighs heavy on the mind and body. Clothing adjustments will be made, a last minute decision to throw on a pair of ski goggles— borderline genius.

I am grateful for the bitter cold’s wide opening to feel compassion’s inexhaustible warmth. Folks are filling bird feeders, checking on the elderly and helping each other, two-legged and four, survive the cold. Duchess my 23 years wise Pinto mare, insists on standing outside. Even though I’ve hung two heat lamps in the shelter and laid down a good two feet of shavings on the floor. I did blanket her, more for my comfort than hers. She spent most of the night standing in the shelter of spruce trees bordering the pasture; out of the wind, underneath the light of stars, in a good two feet of snow. Who am I to argue against 23 years of horse sense?

I am also thankful that the jet of glacial cold is forecast to leave the area tomorrow afternoon. By the weekend, meteorologists predict the temperature to be in the upper thirties. Mother Nature’s playground is the weather and she has two pieces of equipment in it, swings and teeter-totters.

I am walking in two winters, one outside and one inside. How well I can balance the climate changes in each has intense implications on my life. Winter invites us to explore the hidden closets old thoughts get hung up in and forgotten. Temperature fluctuations outside, mood swings inside, both create chaotic conversation within us. We become uncomfortable but they are necessary to “feel” what we’re wearing. Adaptability is fundamental to restoring balance in one’s life. It is the sheer definition of preparedness— for anything!

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