October 31, 2024

It’s All Hallow’s Eve, and I feel like I’m in a time warp. I planted a bunch of daffodil and tulip bulbs the other day before a freeze that night, and have been watching the blue jays, squirrels and chipmunks hording acorns for their winter meals. Most of the leaves have fallen from the trees. Yet today it is 70 degrees. Pumpkins and Indian corn remind me that it truly is late October as well. If these pumpkins aren’t gnawed on by squirrels, we’ll use them for some pies. It’s strange because normally I would feel as if I were getting ready for hibernating, too. But today feels like a day to go out and be blessed by the sun on my face, to feel thankful for the bounty of the autumn for creatures and for me, and to anticipate the hallowing day arriving tomorrow. I will light candles for all the dearly departed, the beautiful souls whose lives enriched mine. This is a time we can feel the cycle of life in the dying leaves and waning sun, in the honoring of the dead who live on in us and nourish us, just as those buried acorns will nourish those creatures through the winter months to come. Happy Halloween.

September 29, 2024

Meet what has to be one of the cutest creatures on earth, an eastern red-spotted newt, or as it is called so adorably in this juvenile stage, a red eft.  A marvel of nature, it actually has three different life phases. Beginning as brown-green larva in a pond, after three to five months it loses its gills and crawls out onto land, now sporting a bright orange color with spots outlined in black. The striking coloration is used by other species of plants and animals as a warning to predators, “I may look delicious but I am quite a poisonous little fellow.” Then, after two or three years on land, it finds a pond, turns back to its greenish brown color and becomes aquatic again. If this weren’t amazing enough, a newt is also capable of regenerating an injured limb, and even a spinal cord or a heart! This is supposed to be due to its abundance of stem cells – would that we had such endowed powers! We are fortunate here on this land to have a vernal pool where we’ve seen the newts’ cousins, blue-spotted salamanders. Apparently there is another related amphibian called a siren, which I would love to see (wonder if the females lure their mates with an irresistible song). We used to belong to a natural history society in New York whose founder, a Wall Street tycoon, transformed into a little kid when he went out at night with his headlamp, searching to see an elusive tiger salamander in the spring. What a great cause he put some of his money toward – teaching children and adults about the wonders of nature. Maybe if there were more like him, we would have a very different world.

August 31, 2024

I’ve been so happy that my cardinalis finally appeared this year. (It’s the spiky, red-flowered plant in the middle of the photo, right below the feeder.) Hummingbirds love it, and they are said to be the primary pollinators. Lobelia cardinalis is so named for its shade of red that resembles the robe of a cardinal in the Catholic church. A friend of mine gave me some plants a few years back, but a band of wild turkeys during the winter scratched them out of the earth. The next year I planted a new one and they have begun to spread. There’s another cluster at the other end of this garden and one that’s popped up on the far side of the boxwood. I was trying to get a photo of a hummingbird on one, and patiently waited, camouflaged behind a tall plant. But, alas, she didn’t cooperate and I had to settle for the hummingbird at the feeder. I took this a week ago, and today I notice the only two females still here are feeding on everything in sight, getting ready for their epic flight. It’s always a little melancholy, as they bring such joy to me these few months of late spring and summer and lift my spirits when I feel sad. They humble me, help me put things in perspective when I think about this amazing miracle of nature, a tiny bird about two inches long flying from Maine to southern Mexico or South America. The world expands and I can breathe more deeply. Bon voyage little birds, and see you next May.

July 31, 2024

I know, many of you are thinking “yuck” when you look at this picture. After all, it is a destructive little creature that eats our precious tomato plants, and it is pretty creepy looking. But, it is also, to me, kind of wondrous in its design. How clever is nature to have this hornworm blend in so beautifully with the foliage around it, right? And how about those psychedelic colors, chartreuse with yellow stripes and little dayglow dots of yellow and black between them. Then that little horn tail – how cute is that? And the big, regal-looking head (okay, maybe not regal, but imposing anyway). Maybe I am waxing more poetic about this insect than it deserves because of how ingrained in my childhood memory is the wondrous caterpillar of Alice in Wonderland. (The hornworm actually looks a little like that literary one, but it was supposed to be a blue caterpillar.) I thought of him as a sort of sage, a kind of Socrates who spoke in riddles and asked Alice questions, to help her to think and understand things about herself and the world. Of course it was a little weird that he smoked a hookah – wasn’t sure what that meant but it made him look like he had some mystical, deep knowledge about life. So, yes, I will remove the hornworm (which eventually becomes a five-spotted hawkmoth) to the deep woods where he can’t get to my tomato plant. But it was fun to see him and think about Absolem of Wonderland, a genius creation of Lewis Carroll. I’m sure he chose this name, which is also spelled Absolom and in Hebrew means father of peace, with something deep in mind.

June 30, 2024

The peonies have almost gone by, though they lived up to their glorious reputation in their short time. This photo was taken about two weeks ago. I‘m only a beginning gardener, trying and failing in various flower-growing endeavors, including with peonies. This is my second try with them and I was so proud of how this plant was doing. So I was disheartened to see the ants crawling on the bud on the right, thinking that they must be hindering the flower’s unfolding. I shook them off, not wanting to hurt the creatures but definitely wanting them to be gone from my precious peonies. Then I came to discover that, indeed, ants have a symbiotic relationship with peony buds, feeding on the abundant nectar at this stage, but in turn, serving the flowers by keeping aphids and other insects away. It made me reflect on how automatically we can assume things, how we can think something is bad when it really is not. How we seem primed to go to the bad interpretation often when it could be either more nuanced or even, as in this case, something truly good. We often think of ants as destructive, getting into the house to gnaw on the wood or something. This is how science and facts can help us to see beyond our assumptions, to see what is actually happening, and to open our eyes to how truly wondrous relationships are between species in our amazing world.

May 24, 2024

I am a day late. Yesterday was World Turtle Day and I wish I had been paying more attention, because turtles are my very favorite creatures (rhinoceroses come in a close second) and I would have liked to have honored them on their day. I have loved them since I was a child. Where I grew up there were mostly box, painted and wood turtles. In Maine I have come across painted ones and very big snapping turtles, which I admit, are not quite as lovable. I think about them a lot at this time of year because they are so vulnerable crossing the roads to find a pond or lay their eggs on a bank. There is a spot on Rte. 90 near Rockport where I travel once a week, and one late spring day there was a turtle in the middle of the road in the other lane. I took a while to turn around because there wasn’t a convenient place. I feared the worst, and it happened. I got there a fraction too late. I cannot go by there without thinking of her and saying a little prayer. In the more than three years I have been writing this journal, I have never used an accompanying illustration other than a photo I have taken. But I didn’t have one of a turtle so I am using this lovely image I found online posted by an Indigenous woman, Sharyl Whitehawk, whom I follow. Turtles are sacred to many Native American tribes and some have creation stories that tell of the world being created on the back of a turtle. Please try to keep your eye out for turtles when you are driving down the road. Where I used to live, the town put up signs where they were most likely to cross. Maybe we could start campaigns for that in our towns here.  

April 24, 2024

The last couple of days, April 23 and Earth Day April 22, were so perfect. Not a cloud in the sky, crisp but warm enough, splendid air and light, the kind of days you breathe in and feel a little high. We went for a hike on Earth Day in one of our favorite places, a preserve looking out over Great Salt Bay, with open fields and a pond. I could not believe our good fortune to see a pair of tree swallows perched on a bird house, looking out over the pond, their iridescent purple/blue/green reflecting in the sunlight. They looked like they were so content, not moving a bit as we passed, pleased with themselves to have found a lovely place to settle down for the nesting season. Then we came home and planted some violas, which I prefer to call Johnny-Jump-Ups (wonder how they got that name?). They are such sweet little flowers that just last and last through all kinds of weather. I worry a lot these days about the weather, what we have done to make the earth angry, with its super storms and floods and fires. But days like these I feel nature reminding us we can still be blessed with days like this, if we take heed and care.

March 30, 2024

In the twenty years I’ve been here in Maine, this white pine I call the Ancestor Tree has valiantly withstood all the snow, wind and ice Mother Nature has thrown its way, except for losing a few small branches here and there. With the snow/ice storm we had last week, it was not so lucky. A few quite large branches fell from the mighty tree that stands around sixty-feet tall. When we built our house, some advised us to have it cut down because of its proximity, but its lean is in a different direction, and we fell in love with it and wanted it to remain looking over the land, the other trees, and us. Ancestor Tree has survived over one-hundred years likely; its stamina and drive to survive is plainly evidenced in how it towers over the other pines, hemlocks and oaks around it, competing for the light as they do. It contains long memory, great strength and beauty. I read that the tallest pine in this pine tree state is a one-hundred-and-twenty-footer in Morrill – twice the height of this one! – and was slated for removal because it was next to a road and deemed a danger to motorists. Why can’t trees have rights? Would it be so hard to redirect that portion of road to save such a majestic creation probably two-hundred years old that has been here since the days of the great mast pines? We owe trees so much: the clean air they provide, the stability of the earth, wood for building our homes, a resting place and home for other creatures, their beauty and inspiration.

February 29, 2024

It is so rare to see wildlife in my part of the Maine woods, outside of resident birds, squirrels, chipmunks and occasional wild turkeys and deer, that I’m thrilled when snow reveals animal tracks. There wasn’t much snow last night – only a dusting – but it was enough to reveal these coyote tracks. I’ve been hearing them lately in the woods – their raucous, wild and even chilling sound wakes me up out of a deep sleep. In a pack, they howl and yip at different pitches, as if they’re singing in a chorus. I leave scraps of food up the driveway on the edge of the woods for a resident fox I have seen only a couple of times over the years. The coyotes must have found a stash one night and returned, but I hadn’t left anything last night so maybe they were howling “Come on now, bring us some goodies.” It makes me sad to think they are indiscriminately hunted in this state, with no limit to the hunting season. They are beautiful creatures and have been a sacred totem for many civilizations over thousands of years in the Americas: in murals the Aztecs depicted warriors with coyote heads, and many Indigenous North American tribes see coyotes as teachers, magicians, tricksters and even creators. They symbolize good fortune and transformation, so maybe hearing their wild sound and seeing their tracks bode well for me.

January 31, 2024

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow sings the dark-eyed junco! One of my great pleasures at this time of year is to see these sprightly birds hopping about joyfully in the snow. They come down here from the north to a more tolerable winter climate. Their nickname is the snowbird, because, right on cue, as soon as the white stuff starts flying, they appear out of the blue (or rather white). I’ve always been curious – where do they go when there’s no winter snow? They can’t be back in Canada; they roost in conifers and under thick brush, so I guess that’s where they hide out waiting for the white stuff. I tried to find out if there’s something physiological about their affinity to snow, as they so obviously revel in it, but could not find a thing: one of nature’s intriguing mysteries that not even Google can explain. I wish I could have taken a photo of the underneath of this one, because it is a bright snow white, as are some of the tail feathers which you can see clearly when they fly. Of the sparrow family, a group of them is sometimes called a chittering – a perfect onomatopoeia as this is how their singing sounds! They make me want to sing on a cold and grey winter’s day.

December 31, 2023

The last sunrise of the year — and finally, there is sun! It has been raining 0r cloudy and foggy for days, very unusual for this time of year here in Maine when we normally have snow. I don’t think there’s much I want to say on this new year’s eve morn. This photo already says a lot to me: the suggestion of bright beams of inspiration from above; the calmness that water can instill; the sturdiness of white pines to fortify one’s strength and courage; the mixing of dark and light clouds, always moving, the light ones holding forth today, but maybe tomorrow the dark ones will prevail; yet to know the light of imagination can reach through to you, if you only look, give thanks, and open your heart. Happy 2024, world!

November 27, 2023

I am so, so thankful! Some chickadees, titmice and nuthatches are returning! Not in quite the numbers of past years — yet. I was a bit gloomy in last month’s post about their absence, and heard from some friends who said they hadn’t seen a change and others who were experiencing the same as I was. One of the theories I posited was that there was an abundance of food in the woods from the warm autumn weather. I do think that was part of it. The pine cones are plentiful this year and I have seen little birds feeding on the seeds nestled in the woody scales. I also wondered whether there had been a predator around but I hadn’t seen one. Well, the other day we saw a red-shouldered hawk swoop into the woods near the kitchen window, his sights set on a scurrying squirrel which barely managed to escape into a hole in the maple tree. So, perhaps this large predator had been scaring the small birds away. We even have some doves back. They all seem to be a little more cautious, not going to the feeder in the middle of the lawn as much as the one pictured here that’s more protected. Oh, it is pure joy to hear their songs again! My mind had taken a pessimistic bent last month. Maybe a lesson for me: worry only makes you sadder while manifesting positive energy, and being thankful, helps good things happen.

October 31, 2023

I have been waiting and waiting to see a chickadee. Usually at this time of year, my bird feeders are alive with those cheerful little birds, along with their cousins the tufted titmice and their friends the nuthatches. It is so eerie. In the twenty years I’ve been here, I have never experienced such an absence of these birds. I have asked others and searched online. Where are they? I have a near neighbor who says she hasn’t any of these birds either. One professional birder told me they could be in the woods feeding on an abundance of caterpillars and other creatures that the warm weather this fall provided. But I have walked farther into the woods and I only hear a few off in the trees. And they should be coming out by now with the temperature dropping to 33 last night. I saw an article in the Bangor Daily News in which a birder had noted he saw more chickadees than ever before in Acadia National Park, about a three-hour drive north of here. Have all my chickadees found something amazing in Acadia? I don’t have any answers. Every morning I put the kettle on for tea, then go out to fill the feeders. It is the way I start my day, greeted by these sprightly creatures. I usually try to write something uplifting in this journal, but I just can’t find anything uplifting to say about this. I miss them and my life feels very different and a little sad. They are a way for me to connect with something beautiful and eternal in the world, and when so much seems so awful and sad as it does these days, I miss them even more.

September 28, 2023

I found this pale tiger moth caterpillar on a deck chair and thought it would be happier on a beech tree. But a little while afterward I found him settling into some leaf litter where he’ll probably create his winter cocoon. The metamorphosis of butterflies and moths is truly one of the most wondrous occurrences in nature. One summer, when I was working at an environmental camp and teaching youngsters about this, there happened to be an epic infestation of gypsy moth cocoons in the oak trees surrounding the cabins. The magic of their transformation process was threatened with being upstaged by the sheer icky mass of them. But, even under these extreme circumstances, the message of wonder got through to these kids from the inner city who had virtually no exposure to nature before. From tiny egg to crawling thing, pupa to flying thing. Nothing in Marvel Comic books could top this!

August 26, 2023

It was a day I needed to find the best way to relax. What came up was to go out in a kayak and float amongst the fragrant water lily pads on the lake, which I hadn’t done yet this summer. There’s something so deeply calming about this, suspended in time and place as you are, like in meditation (which I’m still trying to get sufficiently good at). Maybe it’s because the beautiful round lily pads themselves are floating, sort of magically, on the water, suspended in time and place, too; and then, even more magically, the lotus-like flowers appear, in pink and yellow and white. The pinks are much rarer; I searched for them and, just as I was about to give up, I finally found a few. It was past midday, so most were already closing up, as they do. They’re best seen in the morning, when their fragrance can also be better detected—sweet and lemony. Being mid-August, the leaves were losing their bright greenness, turning a light green and yellowish. I saw a mallard dipping down into the water, probably to fetch some lily rhizomes, which they love. Beavers, muskrats, deer, and moose also like to munch on these thick stems. Bees and other insects enjoy the pollen produced by the stamens in the flower’s center, and the pads supply cover for small creatures like minnows and a resting spot for damsel and dragon flies. And for humans like me.

August 2, 2023

I wrote about ferns at the end of June; we were having so much rain, they were popping up everywhere. Well, we are still having lots of rain, and now I’m seeing mushrooms appearing earlier than their usual fallish time, when the cooler, damper weather enhances their growth. Mushrooms are one of the most fascinating of all living things. They are a type of fungi and aid in breaking down matter. (A nuclear physicist, who belonged to an eclectic group I once belonged to – the Eastern Long Island Friends of Mycology – said that, in the event of a nuclear holocaust, the one thing that could survive would be mushrooms.) Many kinds are prized for their delicious flavor and also healing properties. More recently, their vital role of providing a super underground infrastructure, through their mycelium, to aid trees in communicating with each other, has come to light. The photo here is of false russulas, which are delicious when cooked, and are quite distinct from the russula emetica, commonly called the sickener because it, well, makes you very sick if eaten. It’s interesting how cute little mushrooms with red caps seem to be favorites in folktale illustrations accompanying gnomes, also to be found as lawn ornaments in many neighborhoods today. Especially popular are mushrooms with white or yellowish spots – which are fly agarics of the amanitas deathcap family, the most poisonous of mushrooms. Some are also hallucinogenic. Makes you wonder how folks imagined happy gnomes amidst mushrooms communicating with the trees and animals. Maybe those lawn ornaments are an innocent statement of wishing we could, too.

June 30, 2023

I look outside these days and half imagine dinosaurs to be roaming about. With all the rain we’ve been having this month, the ferns along the edges of the yard have grown abundant and enormous, lending our plot of land the appearance of a primeval garden of Eden. It even feels they are about to start finding a way into the house. It’s kind of fun to think about that—our being overtaken by plants, which were here millions of years before us and from where our life began. Photosynthesis is a phenomenon that should give us pause to appreciate just what a miracle it is we are here today. Life, life, life, is what these ferns seem to be shouting with their outstretched fronds like embracing arms opening to the light. Appreciate your life and all of life!

May 29, 2023

I love the month of May in Maine. There’s so much going on in nature, it’s hard to pick out just one fantastic thing. I haven’t often written about scents. Though smell is supposed to be the sense that evokes our strongest memories, it’s actually hard to find the words to describe what something smells like, so recollecting fond sights, sounds and lyrical lines seems to be a better way. I was sitting under the lilac bush and the smell of the flowers at their peak was so heady, sweet, but not overly so. It could be a lovely perfume. Somehow they seem old-fashioned – the faded lavender color, and maybe because many of us had lilacs in our yard when we were children; I think of my grandmother and great-grandmother; and then there is that elegiac Whitman poem, magically containing both a sense of time past and time perennial. Behind the lilac bush is an ever-spreading bed of lilies of the valley. The smell of these delicate white coral bells on their slim green stem, blushing in the protecting green leaves, is more subtle than the lilac, more sensuous, younger, like a pretty girl in a lacy dress; these, too, evoke strong memories, of my mother’s bed of lilies of the valley on the edge of the lawn in the shade, a refreshing birdbath in their midst; and that song we sang in the round, lilies of the valley deck my garden walk, oh don’t you wish that you could hear them ring, that will only happen when the faeries sing. More magic.

May 1, 2023

It’s such pure delight to see daffodils after a long Maine winter. They always look happy, little faces filled with the color and light of the sun. Last night we had a wicked rainstorm, maybe four inches with high winds, so some flowers are a bit bedraggled, but they’re perking up with some afternoon sun. Today is May Day and a perfect time to celebrate flowers, greenness and growth and the union of female and male energies. When I was young, we had Maypole parties, boys and girls laughing and spinning around in a circle with their red, yellow and blue ribbons. How beautiful it was. And how lovely it would be if we could still enjoy such innocent joy in creation.

March 27, 2023

There’s a whole lot of hooting going on in the woods. March is mating time for Barred Owls and, following the distinctive “who cooks for you” baritone hoots, I hear what an Audubon site describes, quite accurately I think, as the “maniacal laughing” of a courtship duet. This is accompanied by a dance composed of head jerking from side to side and the spreading of impressive wings. They mate for life, so I guess they want to get this courtship thing just right. In the photo above, he, or she (females are up to a third larger than males), was perched on a hemlock where he had an excellent view of a bird feeder under which a mouse or shrew might be seen scavenging about in the evening.  It is amazing how well he blends into the tree.  As I took his photo, he just stared at me with those big, dark, penetrating eyes and eerie stillness. It was a sort of other-worldly experience, for I felt that he was seeing me, more than the other way around. As if he could even see through me, asking me, “So, who are you, really?”

February 27, 2023

The minimal palette of winter offered by snow, evergreens and blue sky somehow does not get old for me. Those gray days, when the snow is not so sparkly new anymore and the sky doesn’t have one patch of blue, well, that’s a different story. But, coming upon a little beech in the woods still holding on to its coppery leaves, always makes me smile – for the variation in the landscape’s color, but also in appreciation of how the steadfast leaves withstand the snow, wind and cold. As the winter goes on, their color turns more a sort of beige and fewer remain. It’s always the smaller and younger beech trees that have any leaves at all. One theory is that in dryer and nutrient-poor soils, young trees retain their leaves so that in the spring when the leaves finally fall, they offer a rich compost for the older trees to leaf out successfully when they need it most. I like this idea – that the young help the older generation grow into better versions of whatever they are. When I was a young person, I tried to get my parents’ generation to listen – mostly to my pleas against environmental destruction, but also that there were more important things than making money, that war was obsolete, and that people are people no matter what color they are, what country they come from or whom they love. Many young people today are still making the same pleas. Will we listen?

January 22, 2023

One of the things I love most about winter in New England is being reminded of living amidst the animal kingdom. Dwelling in the middle of the woods as I do, there are lots of different animal tracks to be found. I saw some ermine prints the other day, like a tiny hand with its five toes. It could have been another sort of weasel, but I happened to sight an ermine a while ago—a very rare sighting which made me catch my breath with its white loveliness and little black eyes and nose against the snow. I regularly see the stately single line of fox tracks; I’ve spotted this exquisite animal too, and do leave out some food scraps near a certain rock. This year we’ve seen more deer in the woods than in other winters, and their hoof prints sometimes can be seen in the yard (and evidence of undesirable munching on cedar trees). Then there are the tracks of crows and doves and other birds that gather round the feeders, and of course the squirrels’ distinctive prints. But today I saw some tracks that baffled me, a mystery in the snow. It could be a kind of bird because the tracks start in the middle of the yard, not from the path, though it could have been an animal that jumped from the path to the snow, like a squirrel perhaps. But the straight line with no distinctive prints is strange. Into the bushes, the tracks just end.  As much as I like identifying what I find in nature, I also like that I can’t. The mystery makes me curious to know more, but grateful that I can feel a sense of awe for a kingdom of beings with which we share the bounties of the planet, and from which we could learn much about living more thoughtfully.

December 21, 2022

I caught the last of the light tinting the lake an orange pink on this Winter Solstice eve.  In about ten minutes, at 4:48, winter is supposed to officially begin, and, with that, daylight will commence to increase.  It seems counterintuitive to think of light increasing as we go into what surely seems like the darkest depths of winter.  I’m grateful that nature offers us such questions to ponder and helps us see that hope and beauty and connection can exist in the bleakest of times in our lives and the world. I love this orange pink color. It feels like something new, and something good, coming upon the horizon.

November 24, 2022

I think of this as a good transition image, from late autumn into winter. The leaves are brown now and the trees bare. Yet there is so much beauty to be found—in the contrast of the shining white bark of the birch that always seems youthful in some way and the sturdy oaks that appear older and maybe wiser. The rocks remind us of endurance, constancy, and the flowing water over them, the idea of change, the flow of seasons, of life and time. And they remind us to be grounded in some essential beliefs: of love and kindness, in the beauty of the world and its creations, with change and the flow of history and events passing over us but not uprooting us. On this Thanksgiving Day, I am grateful to be able to see this and try to live by it.

October 29, 2022

The fall is so enlivening in New England—the colors, the air. You want it to last and last. But the leaves are falling, the light retreating. I took this photo on a recent hike, wanting to capture the beautiful leaves in their dying glory, though didn’t realize until I looked at it later how symbolic and fortuitously symmetrical it is. I see the two halves of darkness and light, but each is seeping into the other. This is a reminder to me inspiration can come out of loss and dying, allowing the shadow world more into our awareness. It was the first hike I had taken without my long-time companion, a lively four-legged creature named Henry. I cried when I first began the walk, but just kept putting one foot in front of the other and knew I’d feel better eventually. Looking at this photo now, I can begin to smile at his memory.

September 21, 2022

I’m always a little sad when the hummingbirds leave in September. I am glad they leave when they do, as it is starting to get colder, but I still look at the feeders longingly, missing the birds’ bright beauty and exuberant presence. If I’m feeling somber, hummingbirds always make me feel happier. This year they left a bit later than usual, on September 17. One female seemed to be saying goodbye as she hovered magically outside the window, looking straight at me. I think about their journey, from here to south Florida or maybe even Cuba, and worry: Will they weather the storms and winds and human hazards of tall buildings and bright lights? But then instead of worrying I try to think of it as a grand adventure for them – what wonders they will see and experience. For all we know, maybe they can tell, in their lively high-pitched chatter, their friends and family in the South about their epic journey. Change – sometimes it is so hard because we get attached. But if we try to go with the flow of the seasons – this is a season of migration for some fauna and of rest and dying away to make new life in the spring for most flora – we can be alright.

August 12, 2022

The volatile weather thick with humidity and threatening thunderstorms has resulted in some dramatic skies lately. Living in the woods, I have to go down to the lake or up the road to view them. The perspective feels so expansive after viewing the close world of flowers, trees and hummingbirds flitting about. Clouds pique our imaginations in a way nothing else in nature can. Remember when we would lie on our backs and gaze aloft imagining the clouds as funny faces or curious animals? We could feel our minds expand to take in a bigger world. My brothers and I would huddle on the screened porch when summer thunderstorms struck, thrilling in the scary sound of rumbling thunder and the sight of lightning bolts. It’s hard to feel such innocence in these days, with storms becoming so destructive due to our destructive habits. Hopefully, with concerted awareness and will, we, and children to come, will be able once again to experience the innocent beauty of those days.

July 7, 2022

At this time of summer, what gets my attention most are the day lilies. The orange wild ones along the sides of roads, their blossoms leaning out toward the road like trumpets heralding those passing, make me feel welcomed and happy. A lemony yellow variety I just planted in my garden in fact has the very fitting name of Big Time Happy Day Lily. I had to replace some darker yellow lilies whose bulbs had been devoured by marauding chipmunks. (Funny, I had worried about the cute little critters in the early spring, not having emerged from their borrows as usual which made me think maybe they had taken a hit in the icy winter; but now they seem to be everywhere – careful what you wish for, right?) I was fond of those lilies, but these new ones make me feel Big Time Happy, and that is what I need as a respite from much trouble and sadness in the human world. I’ve read that in Japan, lilies are a delicacy included in soups. Eating some Big Time Happy — now that’s an idea. All hail the day lilies!

June 17, 2022

Spring has been very lush here in midcoast Maine, with an abundance of rain and sunshine in almost equal amounts. I live in the middle of a beech, oak, hemlock and white pine forest and sometimes it feels like their new leaves, needles and branches are going to overtake our little abode. The predominant tree is the hemlock, some towering at least seventy-five feet. I love the reddish brown of their bark, the emerald green of their needled-branches, their fragrance and their shape, reaching outward so gracefully and then dipping down toward the earth at their ends. The iridescent green new needles at the tips of the branches create a wondrous contrast with the darker green. When the sun hits them, they seem to glow. It’s unfair that hemlocks have traditionally symbolized sorrow and bitterness, arising I think from a confusion between the hemlock tree and the poison hemlock wildflower. Rather than inspiring poems of sadness, seems they should inspire poems of gladness and hymns of love.

May 18, 2022

So much is happening in the spring and so suddenly – the leafing out and blooming, singing and buzzing – that I often find it hard to focus on one aspect. I like looking out and feeling overwhelmed by the layers of light-filled green and the sweet sounds. On morning walks with my dog, I began noticing a bumblebee always on the rhododendron. I thought: This little buzzing creature, with amazing abilities like flapping its wings 200 times a second and communicating back at the nest where good nectar and pollen and can be found, is essential to life on our planet. When I was a little girl, I had a club with three other neighborhood girls we called The Busy Bees. Without understanding much of the science about bees, we admired their industriousness, their going out into the world to do as much good work as they could and then coming back home to share with others. Seemed like something we could aspire to. Long live the busy bees.

April 12, 2022

It was the first time I had seen him in a long while, though I look for him nearly every day. I heard a rustling off in the distance and turned just in time to spot him trotting in his brisk and stately pace along the stone wall. He stopped and our eyes met briefly. He didn’t run, just continued on his way along the wall, presumably to find the little cache of dinner leftovers I had left for him as I occasionally do. I did not have my camera, but his image is so vivid in my mind that I prefer to recall it that way: the reddish brown luxuriance of the coat, the long tail carried with such self-assurance, the intense, light-filled eyes. It’s always a great gift to encounter him, to feel wonder there’s such diverse beauty and intelligence in the world. But a longing, too. Most of us are so much closer to this other world when we are young – through the fables and stories and cartoons we grow up with, so many featuring animals both scary and kindly, the toy animals we’re given that we cuddle with when we’re lonely. And as the distance from this world grows, so often does our curiosity and caring. Can we, as Blake so fervently encouraged us, get back this wonder of the child’s mind?    

March 20, 2022

It is the first day of spring and everything feels like it’s emerging – from the cold, the ice, and the dark. I dug away some of the wet leaves blanketing these snowdrops so they could stretch and breathe in the warmth of the sun after their long winter nap. Some were even still under a layer of ice yet were blossoming underneath, so determined to find the light, to live and offer their beauty to the world, to have their few days in the sun. So it is with the creative force in all of nature. And as I think about these little flowers, I think about the determination of the beautiful people of Ukraine, to live out their lives as they were meant to be lived and offer their particular gifts to the world. Sending prayers across the world that soon they will emerge into the yellow of the sun and blue of the sky we’re reminded of so vividly in their flag, still waving valiantly above the darkness.

February 28, 2022

Snow. One of nature’s most magical creations. When it is new it is especially beautiful. So white in the sunlight, so perfect in its crystalline designs formed in clouds high above. I love the fact that snow is white because it reflects the light yet contains all the colors of the universe. If you mix red, green and blue you get white. When the land is newly blanketed with snow, one feels a comfort and cleanness, a peaceful purity. Maybe the greatest comfort and underlying mystery is the thought that this picture of peaceful purity is made up of all the colors of the world and the colors of its people and the flags of their lands, shining together as one bright light.

February 10, 2022

Today the sky is grey but yesterday was the bluest of skies. Maybe it’s because the air is so crisp or maybe it’s just the contrast of so few colors – the white of snow, the dark green of pines and bare grey-black limbs of oaks – that makes it appear almost beyond blue. I can breathe more deeply, feel my heart and mind expand. Blue, blue – why is it associated with sadness when it makes me feel so happy? It must be a darker blue, a midnight blue that can enclose you in its heavy shroud, making you feel alone and untethered to anything. But this is the blue of the spirit, lifting you up beyond winter, beyond this little piece of time and space, into something much bigger.

January 18, 2022

Ice. I’ve been thinking a lot about it lately — the way it sounds when you walk upon it or when the lake gods converse in deep, resonant tones below it in the middle of the night; the way it looks solid and like a mirror or thin and melting into water, the gorgeous etchings of lines created by wind and water and cold. Ice can be such a source of freedom and grace when you can skate or sail upon it as people do on the lake in front of my house. And it can be a source of fear as people drive or walk cautiously upon it, afraid to skid or fall. One year when I was new to Maine winters, I did fall and break an ankle, out of sheer stupidity and lack of respect for a formidable aspect of nature. It was a hard but good lesson. Often we think we can outsmart nature — after all, aren’t we the smartest of life forms on earth? But nature is always trying to show us, if we only pay attention, that failing to give it its proper respect only ends to our detriment. Sometimes it even seems we are in a death-battle with nature — who will be the boss? Will we learn our lesson before it is too late?

December 21, 2021

A turning today, inward to a quieter, more reflective time. It isn’t to be feared but celebrated, as the ancients did in times past. They understood what the bears and other creatures knew. But we have gotten so far away. Today, as the sun rises over the lake, I say a prayer that I will try to appreciate this coming time more, not fight against the dark — and remember that more light is coming — and be steadfast in my love of this earth, this air, this water and fiery sun, so that generations to come can stand here and feel and see what I can now. It is the great paradox of life this season provides for us: that in the midst of darkness we are yet getting closer to the light.

December 3, 2021

A bold contrast of light and dark clouds this morning, the sun disappearing and peeking out again — much like my volatile mood, a brightness peering out from a lurking darkness. Walking amongst the trees, I come upon a birch lit by streaks of sunlight. There are just a few scattered amidst the dark hemlocks, pines and beeches, and coming upon them always feels like a special encounter. The dark and light contrast is so pronounced in this tree. I find myself suddenly smiling at the way the bark is curling away, beginning to peel. This is the remarkable way the tree photosynthesizes when its leaves are all gone. On a sunny winter day, the tree can still grow with the outer bark peeled away exposing the inner bark to the light. I feel a layer peeling away from my heart, opening me up more to the light.

November 14, 2021

It’s the morning calm after another stormy night. The leaves are almost all gone from the trees now. I miss them — their exuberant color, the bright uplift they gave. But by falling they have made way for a new opportunity — of seeing more clearly through the mass of forms to the shimmering light beyond. The world does feel crowded with much stuff to have to see through these days. So it is the pared-down beauty of the winter that challenges us to see into the essential nature of things. I like the cross of reflected red color in this photo, bringing to mind the four directions of our planet earth — or as our First Peoples would say, the four sacred winds that whisper of our past, present and future — and of us, our arms outstretched embracing the world and all that’s in it.

October 31, 2021

The wind is blowing fiercely early this morning on this All Hallows’ Eve. The oaks and hemlocks sway above me dizzyingly. It is easy to feel pursued, even hounded by something I cannot name. Wind like this always seems it is trying to remind me of something important, a stern voice from my past — Why did I ….or Why didn’t I….? It’s a mystery, no matter how hard I try to decipher its message. Maybe it has come just to remind me not to get too comfortable in my thoughts, rather be open to the whistling and sometimes even howling of change. And, like the trees above me, I may be buffeted fiercely by those changes, but if I stay rooted in nature I will weather any winds that may come my way.

October 16, 2021

So much is in the moment. I took this photo yesterday when the sun was streaming down in a corner of the yard where three leaves from a red twig dogwood nearby lay against a moss-covered granite rock and some stray blades of grass. The fall colors are almost at their peak here in the midcoast of Maine. There are other beautiful leaves on trees and fallen ones scattered about — yellows from beech and moose wood, reds and oranges from maples — but these caught my eye as they contain all the lovely colors in their moment of beauty in the light before they turn brown and become part of the ground. Today it is raining and the moment of the three leaves in the sun is gone, and another mood has set in — one of reflection, stillness. If I had not taken that photo yesterday, I wouldn’t be able to reflect on it today. It is a gift from the universe that we are able to behold this light within and on the changing leaves, a gift of startling color and beauty before the darker and more monotone days of late fall and winter set in, a hint of which is in the granite rock. But in the granite one feels the other cosmic energy — of stability, endurance. It is all there to be found in the moment.