Category Archives: Nature Observation Writing

Getting Outside Often: Nature Prose

I was catching up on posting past writing, and didn’t know I’d already posted this piece on Getting Outside in www.NaturesGuy.com.

We need to get outside, to breathe fresh air, to see the sun, to feel Nature.

There was a time, when I worked at Microsoft near Seattle, where I never saw the sun. Even now, memories of sitting in a closet-like room with no windows, where I had to walk out a door and look down a long, narrow hallway to the small window a hundred feet away, to even see a peek outside, causes my stomach to twist in knots, my heart to clamp down, my throat to tighten and my head to hurt. To be kept away from the outdoors, to not FEEL Nature on a regular basis, can’t be good!

I knew it back then, in my gut, and it turns out that my desire to feel nature was right! Recent studies are showing that activities such as taking walks outside, sitting in the sun, forest bathing, can all significantly reduce stress, anxiety, hypertension, and many other modern ailments.

My current “office” lets me sit in front of a window and look out over wildflowers, many types of trees, out onto a field of corn, wheat, elderberries, squash, more wildflowers, and more. Past the rolling rills and hills, over the West Chickamauga Creek, are the stately trees of a 5,300 acre Chickamauga National Military Park. Beyond that, Lookout Mountain rises up in the distance. Birds, butterflies and other bugs flit about. Squirrels, rabbits and the occasional deer scamper past my view. The sky changes colors throughout the day, providing a new scene every time I look up from my computer screen (which is fairly frequently!) In short, from my office, I can view nature in all its Northwest Georgia glory.
But that’s still not enough. Why? I don’t completely FEEL Nature.

Feel Nature = Be IN the Outdoors!

The studies I’ve read, and the way I sense, verify that, to feel nature, to get the benefits of being in nature, you have to get outdoors. These studies say that as little as 15 minutes outside, or exposing yourself to nature, has a calming, relaxing, healing impact that can last up to two hours!
Here on Spirit Tree Farms, we try to grow a lot of our own food. We try to eat healthy. We make our own elderberry juice. We forage and make teas and salads out of native plants. Yet, too often, we stay inside for long periods of time, content with just looking out the windows at the natural beauty that surrounds us.
That doesn’t seem to be enough.
I can feel my soul, my spirit, my body start to clamp down, start to feel the angst I felt in those days at Microsoft. So I’ve resolved to feel nature more, to get outside, breathe fresh air, feel the breeze, hear the rustling of the leaves, the far-away murmuring roar of the West Chickamauga Creek rushing over the rocks of the prehistoric fishing weir, to smell the musty autumn leaves or the summer’s passion flower blooms, to feel the sun (or the rain or the mist or the humors of the night) on my face, to connect to the Earth by taking my shoes off and getting grounded.
Even when it’s cold, I can take a few moments to step outside, hold my hands out, yawp at the setting sun, wave to Orion high in the night sky, welcome the dawn of a new day, discover a new plant, bird or bug I’ve never noticed before. I can take that time to really feel Nature.

Feel Nature To Get Connected

When I take the time to really feel Nature, I can tell I’m connecting with the Universe. And it’s not just reconnecting with the land I’m on here on the Catoosa / Walker County line in Northwest Georgia, USA. It’s reconnecting with my purpose, with what God wants me to do. It’s getting back in tune, back in synch, tuning in to a universal harmonic that permeates all because it is in all and through all. To feel Nature aligns my heart, head and soul not only with me, myself, but with the greater All.
What benefits will you find
when you take the time
to feel Nature?

Expand My Coasts By Seeing What’s There Already: IMprov Meditation

What does “Expand my coasts” mean, and can it be something we already have? In the Bible’s Old Testament, 1 Chronicles 4:10, there is a short prayer by Jabez:
“Jabez cried out to the God of Israel, “Oh, that you would bless me and expand my coasts (enlarge my territory)! Let your hand be with me, and keep me from harm so that I will be free from pain.” And God granted his request.”

As I looked at this prayer, I wondered what “expand my coasts” meant. I immediately thought “Yeah, I want to expand my coasts! I want more waterfront!” But then I thought about what happened yesterday, when I felt like I should go down and look at what waterfront I do have (on my property along the banks of the #WestChickamaugaCreek in Northwest Georgia.)

As I was wandering along my “coast”, I pondered where I might put a pawpaw sapling that will increase the pollination of the existing pawpaw trees that I have there. And as I walked down to the waterfront property that we now call the beach, I found a place where I could put this pawpaw sapling. As I turned around I noticed, for the first time, a five-foot-tall pawpaw sapling that I had never seen before. And then, I as I looked a little bit farther into the woods, for the first time I noticed a 30-foot-tall pawpaw tree that I had never seen before, a tree that had been covered by Chinese privet and vines and other invasive species.

As I was thinking about that experience tonight, as I read and pondered the Prayer of Jabez, I thought maybe when we ask the Lord to enlarge our coasts, He’s not always going to give us more of anything. Often, He’ll simply going to allow us to discover what we already have.

That “expand my coast” doesn’t happen unless we work and we start looking and we start trying to see what we already have.

How To Bring Birds Back From Silent Spring: Prose

I have a solution on how to bring birds back. In today’s “Native Pollinators and Wildflowers” Facebook page, someone said: “The bird population is declining rapidly. What you grow in your yard can make all the difference. You can hear the difference.”

I agree. There is a way to bring birds back. I’ve experienced it! So I wrote this response:

Four years ago I purchased six acres of property next to the Chickamauga National Military Park in Northwest Georgia. As I stood out on my porch that autumn, I immediately noticed — amidst a lawn and the grasses and the hickory and oak and black walnut trees and massive overgrowth of Chinese privet — the amazing and frightening lack of birds.

I had been raised by my father, my grandmother, and dozens of friends, neighbors and relatives in Wisconsin to do everything I could to attract birds. Not having birds around in a city or suburb is not surprising. Not hearing any birdsongs, nor seeing any birds in flight, in the middle of woodlands and pastures was shocking.

So I started ripping up the privet, ripping up the lawn, planting wildflowers, putting up bird feeders, putting up bird houses. Unlike previous owners, I didn’t spray for bugs or mosquitoes. I suffered through chiggers and ticks. I planted, planted, ripped out invasives and non-natives, and planted some more.

Bring Birds Back

These days, when I go out on my front porch in the morning, often a dozen or more goldfinch will explode from where they have been eating the wildflower seedheads in our front yard. The other day, my 89 year old father-in-law and I sat on the porch, rocking at sunset. There was a cacophony of sound; I asked him how many bird songs he could hear. As we listened, we heard over a dozen different varieties. Those songs weren’t from several birds of the same species. They were from over a dozen different species! In fact, several of the songs had multiple singers, coming in from different directions.

Cardinal on the back deck bird feeder, March 2020

*Or they could have been one massive Mockingbird I suppose. But I don’t think that’s true :-).

I tell this story because it shows how Nature will bounce back, if given the opportunity and a little help. My property is proof: The land not only has different birds, but now there are frogs, crickets, bees, bugs, fireflies galore, all joining in a joyful chorus.

Nature has returned to my Hickory Hill House and leaves me smiling every day!

My advice? Just Start Now, Where You Are, Today.