Since analysis
Of social media started,
relationships interaction,
stability,
and viability
decrease by 73 percent
year-over-year.
Since analysis
Of social media started,
relationships interaction,
stability,
and viability
decrease by 73 percent
year-over-year.
Unpleasant,
this,
the man-made droning
that never goes away,
unlike the giant flights
that roar overhead
but eventually fade
into the distance.
Still,
better than the TV and social media,
with their constant
look at this look at that you won’t believe what happened today oh my goodness this is so significant!
My stomach is too full
to go hang out
at a pizza place.
I don’t drink,
so a bar provides no relief.
I’m glad I don’t live on the coast,
on a beach
where I could simply take off my shoes
and my robe
and Walk
and Walk
and Walk
toward the sunset,
until the water washed over me
and lifted me
and carried me
where it wanted.
If I Walk
and Walk
and Walk
and let my feet carry me
where they want,
there’s a good chance
I’ll find my way back
to this porch later this evening,
because the bugs always start
to bite
around sunset,
and they provide poor companionship.
Backstory: We take care of (earth partnership, earth stewardship) six acres of land, including woods, wildflowers, fields, and gardens, at Spirit Tree Farms in Northwest Georgia.
The other day I was out working in the field, planting chard, lettuce, and raking in wildflower seeds into a large area we’d burned a few days before. Sweating, I looked up at the sky and caught myself resenting the work I HAD to do. I noticed that I was feeling down in my soul.
Just then, several birds flew overhead. As they called out in a Springtime serenade, I felt my heart lift, and my soul rejoice. I continued what I was doing, but it was no longer with sadness or resentment, but with a glad and joyful heart.
Why is it that we can do the exact same thing, especially working out on the land, and it can either be a task or chore of druudgery, or something we do with joy and gladness? What is it that leaves us feeling uplifted and strengthened? What is it that makes the change?
As I thought about it, out in the field, I realized that the mere act of THINKING about what I was doing, and changing my mind about how I felt about my field work, helped me feel better about the tasks I was doing out in Nature.
Even more importantly, as I pondered about it, I had to ask myself: “Why am I doing this?” When I decided that I was doing what Heavenly Father — often — has asked me to do (partner with the land, heal the Earth), they my soul was uplifted. In fact, it was the birds flying overhead that reminded me that I was in partnership with them, and with all of Natiure. And whjen you feel like you’re part of something bigger and more significant, that you’re helping and serving the Earth and everything on it, that you’re working to heal the Land, then it is easier to feel joy in what you are doing.
Of course, that means you do have to ASK Heavenly Father and His Son Jesus Christ — the Creator — WHAT they want you to do. What part are you to play in Earth partnership? They are the great biologists, the perfect gardeners. In The Book of Mormon, the prophet Amulek said: “Cry unto him over the crops of your fields, that ye may prosper in them.” (Alma 34:24). But I think it’s even more than your crops prospering. It’s YOU prospering in the crops of your fields, learning, growing with them, connecting. Even if what the Creator tells you to do doesn’t work out the way you think it should, you will learn from it and grow and change.
Most of all, you’ll feel connected with the Earth. You’ll feel part of a greater whole. And that connection lets you #FindNatureJoy in ways that will keep you doing what you need to do, what you should be doing, in ways that will support you and bring you joy.
As the birds soared and circled and called out to me as I begrugingly worked in the field that Spring day, I felt connected to them, and to what I was husbanding, planting, and tending in the field. I felt connected to the sun, the clouds, the breeze, the dirt. Smiling, I turned my face upward and waved at the birds. Then, weeping, I waved at them, thanked them out loud “THANK YOU!” for their song and their visit, and plunged my hands deep into the ground.
ANd felt connected to the Creator, to the Earth, to Nature, to all of Creation. Because I was a part of it.
As he wearily made his way
to his king size empty bed
alone
it was a song better left unsaid,
unsung.
He heavily breathing
from sinus infection
and midwinter cold
and allergies
and dust,
from cleaning up messes
that were not his own,
yet were,
taking the green pill,
medicine that would cure
his cough
or at least let him sleep,
(although he must be woken up later to take the medicine that would keep his heart beating.)
And he just watched a movie
about lunch
that reminded him of a film
about dinner,
and why has never anyone made one
about breakfast,
the most important meal of the day,
because after breakfast no one can write.
Don’t wait up.
And the movies and the poems that spawn them,
he wonders if he could write such,
that perhaps some obscure
Art House actor and actress could make them come to life
and seem more real
and less pretentious than they are.
Then, in the midst of his rambling,
the door opens
and she who was once
the author and finisher
of his life and salvation
interrupts
and he doesn’t know if it’s about
old men’s diapers
or the ice cream mess
he had to clean up from the floor
because she,
unaware,
left it there.
Will the House burn down someday?
Is he the only one who can see?
And the art house films
remind him of his daughter,
cosmopolitan
(though not in a cosmo girl type of way,)
but living in the Queen City
or the Big Apple,
and now he is out
in rural deplorable land
and he wonders if his lack of connection
to the arts,
to music,
and to Passion
is robbing him?
Or is it feeding his soul
with something much deeper,
much more mature,
something that Nature can bring
only to those who are immersed
deep
within her.
He shuts his eyes
and picks his toenails
and slowly moves
back
and
forth,
wondering if he will fall
while reaching for
the box of Kleenex
rescued from the back
of a non-functioning SUV,
at first covered with mouse feces,
but then underneath functional enough
to capture
the dregs of his draining brain
as he pushes
and pushes
and pushes
so hard that
his ears pop.
You blame me,
us,
them,
for stealing your dreams.
“How Dare You!”
you shout,
face twisted, contorted
into emotion.
Sadly, no one told you,
no one guided you,
to know,
no one can steal your dreams.
Just you,
and only you,
can let your dreams,
hopes,
desires,
visions,
slip away.
You can blame others
all you want,
as loud as you want,
but the truth is this:
You’ve lost your dreams?
That’s on you.
Thanks to my daughter’s use of “micro-garbage”, I made a submission to Urban Dictionary. Even if they don’t approve it, here’s the definition!
Micro-garbage, aka micro-trash: Small pieces of plastic and other non-biodegradable litter and garbage that annoyingly show up even in forests, beaches, parks, and gardens. Examples include cig butts; bottle tops; plastic tape from cardboard boxes; gum wrappers; broken glass; fast food anything (wrappers, cups, lids, straws, styrofoam containers, condiment packages). Take a deep look at any nature setting and see how many small pieces of garbage litter the ground and plants. (Then, pick it up!)
The wildflower patch was so full of micro-garbage that we couldn’t enjoy the beauty until we’d picked up the junk.
My walk on the park trail was disturbed by the micro-trash littering the bushes.
By the end of our walk in the woods, our pockets and backpacks were stuff with micro-garbage.
She laughed at my nature-loving attitude, saying: “Your yard is full of micro-garbage!”
Have you ever had the experience of being certain you are doing what God inspired you to do and someone came up and told you that you should be doing something else with your life? How did it make you feel? Did it confuse you? Did it make you frustrated and angry? Did you feel contention? Or that you were being derailed? Did you question yourself? Did you question your own inspiration? Did you doubt?
This happened to me recently, and I have to admit that it was one of the most emotionally painful experiences of my life! I’m certain this person had good intentions, but it hurt. What they did was tell me about something that concerned them, then insisted that Marnie and I spread the word about the issue they were concerned about: Lift up a voice of warning! Use your social media and communication skills and experience to educate and warn others about this awful danger!
Unfortunately for them, as soon as they brought up the subject, I felt like throwing up. The issue was not new to me, and I’d already resolved how I’d deal with it. But their pushy insistence that I pay attention to this vital issue and DO SOMETHING NOW! raised contention in my heart. It didn’t feel good, and it was not something I wanted to be involved with at all.
Unfortunately for me, it made me doubt what I am about.
“We teach Nature observation so people can hear and feel and experience God’s love and messages in Nature. As they do, we show them, by example, how to let Nature inspire their own unique creativity.” Mission Statement: What We Do At Spirit Tree Farms
I also feel strongly about where that inspiration comes from, and so it was like a renewal of my testimony about my purpose. I don’t doubt. And the arguement actually is motivating me to do more. Because as I was sitting in my rocking chair, getting ready to watch a sports event on TV, I realized, through this discussion, that, although I was passionate about this topic, I hadn’t done a lot recently to move forward with what Heavenly Father had asked me and inspired me to do. For all the anger and contention this discussion and criticism brought into my house and my soul, it ended up being a positive, because it motivated me to work harder at what I know I should be doing.
And that’s a good thing.
And now I’m even more motivated to go plant blueberries and connect with the Earth!
While sitting out in Creation Girl and my work-in-progress grape arbor on the banks of the West Chickamauga Creek at Spirit Tree Farms, I had some thoughts about sitting in nature. Rather than wait until I was at my computer, I picked up my phone and did a voice recognition verbal riff. A new prose-writing method for me, but one I could get used to! It’s quick and effective, and I hope captures the message well.
Sitting in nature requires putting your phone away, or maybe not even bringing it. It means laying your tools down, including pulling your snippers out of your pocket and throwing them onto the ground, to better be prepared for the messages Nature is going to send you.
Sitting in Nature means looking around and, instead of seeing privet that needs to be pulled, or wild grapevines that need to be trellised, or invasive grasses that need to be burned, or ironweed seeds that need to be gathered, just sitting. Listening. Feeling. Sensing.
Taking this deliberate time, making this purposeful effort of rest and nature observation and connection means hearing and feeling the negative ions of the distant creek running over the rocks placed there as a fishing weir by pre-contact native residents of this land. Sure, these Ancient Ones worked, but they also stopped, looked, listened, felt, learned, and taught.
Like us, they watched the late season butterflies flit among the few goldenrod and burn weed and ironweed blooms still available. They no doubt marveled at the bright blood-red stalks of pokeweed, nearly spent, holding on to the last vestiges of purple berries, to provide fruit throughout the winter swaying with the late autumn breeze.
These people of the land saw that same breeze give dead and dying ironweed stalks a shake, spreading their seeds like salt from a shaker. They felt the late Autumn breeze and wondered at its warmth and smiled at its gentle caress. They looked at the skyline of multi-hued deciduous trees and probably put that sight in their memory banks for later on, when they would make blankets and paint paintings showing those same Earth tone colors.
Undoubtedly, these nature observation experts listened to the squirrels chattering, gathering and husking hickory nuts and black walnuts, preparing for the winter. In the Indigenous tribal culture, the older wise ones probably showed the younger ones which plants to gather. Then, the younger ones, full of life and energy and supple bodies able to bend and lift, used the old ones wisdom and knowledge to quickly harvest what the tribe needed. The old ones sharing that knowledge freely, and accepted the youth’s gift of energy and work, a symbiotic relationship in a group of humans mirroring the symbiotic relationships found throughout nature.
Throughout the entire Nature observation and gathering process, either the elderly or the young — or perhaps both — felt the presence of the Creator, the Great Spirit. Together, they shared the joy found in sitting with and being enveloped by Nature. Maybe the sun caressed their shoulders as they munched on a foraged turkey tail or a goldenrod blossom. Or when they discovered and shared and relished a late-fruiting passion flower, they felt joy, and they gave thanks. And when they went to work again after sitting, resting, and feeling, that Nature joy stayed with them, so work was no longer work and drudgery, but instead a joint celebration with each other, with the plants and animals all around them, like dancers separate but in harmony, swaying and moving through creation itself.
We can learn much from the Ancient Ones. We should mirror that dance with Nature. Let’s make an effort to put down our tools and technology. Let’s take the time to find nature joy today, ourselves. Because, if we let it, if we spend time sitting in Nature, the energy we get and gather to us stays with us, lifts us, buoys us, and carries us through life.
An updated, more in-depth copy of this is on our Spirit Tree Farms blog.
As I read these responses, I thought of our own experience at our six-acre Spirit Tree Farms in Catoosa County, Northwest Georgia. I realized that the original post exhibited the same fears and frustrations I’d felt when I first purchased the property:
A Facebook friend posted this thought: “You don’t need to “orient” the elderly, even if they have dementia. Spend time with them where they are at … even if it’s 1959. Ask them about what they do remember.” To which I responded:
“When my grandmother was going through that phase, where she couldn’t remember things even a few minutes after they happened, I had this thought: Old people get to that phase so they can pass their knowledge and wisdom and stories from long long ago onto to the next generation. She could remember the name of her four-year-old best friend, but she couldn’t remember what she had for breakfast that morning. So I asked her about her four-year-old neighbor and her childhood and the first time she saw an airplane. I learned how to fillet a fish. I played endless hours of cribbage and listened to stories and got to ask questions and watch her face light up as she remembered things she hadn’t thought of in decades. I spent months going through the years of 1920 to 1990 with her, looking at old photo albums, making video and audio recordings. She talked about those memories and photos as if the events captured had happened yesterday. Because to her, they probably had. It was an amazing experience.
As a result my children have heard and know more “Grandma stories” than my father, her eldest son. I’m grateful I took the time to listen about yesterday, instead of trying to force her into today.”