My daughter ripped me/
about my land’s micro-trash./
Now, pockets are filled.
Backstory: A few years ago, my daughter came to live at our house in NW Georgia. Our objective at Spirit Tree FarmsSpirit Tree Farms is to create a place of peace and healing, where folks can come and connect with Nature, tap into their God-inspired creativity, #FindNatureJoy.
One day, as she and I were walking in the woods and fields, she turned to me and basically called me out, saying something like: “This place is not what you’re trying to have it be. It’s not peaceful. There’s no Zen here.” Taken by surprise, I asked her, honestly, what she meant. She pointed around and said (I’m paraphrasing) :”You come out here and leave plastic bottles and pieces of paper and shreds of plastic bags. You say you’ll clean them up later, but you don’t. You’re trying to partner with the Earth, and have Earth and this land be a healing place, but there’s micro-garbage everywhere. It doesn’t work!”
I looked around and saw that she was right. Ribbons of torn plastic, busted milk jugs once used for watering native plants but now falling apart and useless, plastic bottle caps, pieces of paper, all were interwoven with the very plants, trees, grasses, and wildflowers we were trying to grow! I was not being authentic at all!
Since then, because of her ripping on me, I’ve been much more aware of micro-trash on our land and elsewhere. Does it still exist? Sure! It’s micro-trash, and despite my Boy Scout, nature observation and trash-pick-up training, I do miss things. (And having the neighbor’s dogs and local racoons and birds get into bags and boxes and shread and spread things doesn’t help!) But it’s a lot better than it was.
I used to come back from my nature observation and grounding walks in the woods and fields with bags of micro-trash. Now, it’s rare if I fill up my pockets with litter.
I hope my daughter is proud of my efforts. I’m certainly grateful for her example and chastisement! In fact, I sent her a text with this haiku, then said:
I’m always thankful every time I pick up a piece of micro-trash in my yard, for your chastisement and vital lesson. Thank you.
A grateful Dad
After all, if we expect Mother Earth to heal us, we have to be partners with her, and help heal her. And we can all, always, do better.
Just past noon, I turn
my face to the Sun, bask in/
warmth, know God loves me.
*(added to it the next day) —
The old Saint and I
basked in the warmth of the same
Sun, and both rejoiced.
Do you want to be more connected with Nature, and develop
more Creativity? Visit SpiritTreeFarms.com
How surprised am I/
to see a cold December/
butterfly flit by!?!
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.
The dark, little-used/
spot in the woods is perfect/
for rare medicine.
Setting: I saw a photo of a forest bathing group. Everyone was using yoga mats. That confused me, so I wrote this:
My observing has
small purpose unless learned from
and shared with others.