Awareness, movement, marks in the earth - all require different skills than research on the Internet.
I started out thinking I could create a balanced life in both domains. I realize now why I cannot. It has to do with how I move, what parts of my body move and how my brain processes the incoming information. (more…)
The price of gasoline is beyond excessive. So, I have a new personal rule: if it’s within four miles, I walk. I have discovered a hiking trail less than a mile from my home. I can walk to the post office, two food stores, three bus stops and a train stop in less than a half hour.
I even passed two car rental agencies in my trek on foot. The bus and train can get me to other hiking trails, a major city and even an airport, should I need it. If I can carry a backpack with camping gear, I can carry groceries in the same pack. (more…)
Tags: Climate Change, Political
This evening at 8:00 PM your local time, turn off your lights for an hour.
This is an event, sponsored by the World Wildlife Fund, which grew out of a civil action in Sydney Australia last year. I find a great spiritual comfort in taking one small action to focus on the natural world.
It’s supposed to be a beautiful night, so I plan to take a look at the constellations. Don’t know any? Try this skywatching game. If you want to take skywatching a bit further, I am delighted with Richard Bell’s The Night Sky on Paper.
The days are getting longer and I could choose to fuss about our nutty economy or bizarre leadership choices. But given all I’ve learned this year about earth mentoring, foraging, mycology and given that there are still song birds, trees, and the promise of mushrooms, I plan to focus on the natural world, while I still can make that choice.
Tags: Climate Change, Political, Tracks
On tightly wound coils. The fierce, gale-force winds have been blowing for over 24 hours. Snow flurries swirled and collided just before dusk, then the sun appeared briefly before setting. The full moon makes it harder to see some of the other stars.
I’ve been reading and listening to news reports. I have to stop doing that. I need to get outdoors and hike, but monsoon rains and the dangers of high winds have been enough to keep me working on my homework for Mushroom U. Sorting out boletes is no small task. The good news is that there are no deadly boletes, although sorting out the bitter lookalikes from the choice edibles takes “dirt time,” and a workable key to sort out details.
The more I want to improve my nature skills, the more carefully and slowly I need to move in nature and in research. So, what do I do for exercise? These past few months, swimming and aquatic exercise. But the gym is far, which tugs at my carbon footprint issues and my budget.
I am blessed. My needs are met. My biggest concern is avoiding nature deficit disorder. It all seems so tangential, until you realize that trees are critical to our ability to breathe clean air. Trees also keep soil from eroding and prevent flooding.
Richard Louv, author of Last Child in the Woods, writes that deprivation from nature causes “increased feelings of stress, trouble paying attention, feelings of not being rooted in the world.”
I am blessed, I know where I can get a good 5-mile hike protected from the prevailing winds. That’s exactly the right way to celebrate this first full day of spring.
Tags: Hiking, Political, Survival
As a writer, reading enlightens me in a way that watching images cannot. Words have power. Pete Seeger sings the Hudson River clean. I’m hopeful that Barack Obama’s words will get us closer to a UNITED States of America?
This is the best piece of writing I have read in a very long time. Take the time to read each of his words, even if you watched the delivery on screen. It’s worth reading more than once. (more…)
I heard a report that Texas is the largest producer of carbon emissions in the US. If Texas were a country, it would be 7th largest greenhouse gas producer in the world.
My respect for Texas-based nature writer Wendee Holtcamp reaches new depths. Wendee is a scientist who writes with passion, like Rachel Carson. Texas is about being larger than life, including driving the largest vehicles possible.
I’m truly impressed that Wendee thrives in an environment that is officially deaf to what naturalists hold dear. (more…)
Tags: Climate Change, Political, Survival, Writing Life
Years ago I lived at warp speed. I was in the middle of New York City, there were opportunities all around. It made sense.
But since I could walk, I’ve always sought the wild places. I’m not surprised to find myself in a position to choose what work I accept and how I spend my time.
In today’s value system, anyone looking at me would wonder if I have both oars in the water. I choose to use something until I no longer works. I don’t need a newer car, a newer computer or a newer pair of shoes.
Yes, I’m a fashion victim, but I’m a stress-free fashion victim. Those cares went away with anorexia.
When I was a homeowner, I devoted valuable marketing time to securing 4.5 acres of tax delinquent property into a town park. I met resistance, mostly from the drug dealers who thought all open space, including my woods, were for their use.
I put up with getting shot at, having the police tell me that swastikas painted on rocks was not a crime, and town board members tell me the land was the county’s responsibility.
In the end, God sent an angel in the form of a neighbor with connections to the community. We got the town and the county to work out a deal to turn the spot into a town park and even a bit of money from a county legislator. I carried petitions for the town board representatives who supported me. I even registered five neighbors to vote.
But, I could have been spending that time building my business and making money. I just didn’t. Somehow I always end up with what I need. I am deeply grateful.
Sometimes it would be nice to measure my successes by the size of my client list or my billing hours. But then I ride by that town park and think about how there are no drug dealers. A bit of grass is growing and no garbage has been dumped. That’s major.
It may qualify for a DEC tree planting. That would be exciting.
I can’t exactly explain why the park is a measure of success in my mind. Maybe because I’m such a poor business woman.
Tags: Climate Change, Journal, Political, Survival
I’ve been writing a lot of what Anne LaMott calls “crappy first drafts.” This writer’s challenge gives me some comfort. I would like to feel that what I am writing will become publishable. Maybe I’m too hard on myself.
I’m in a dark mood.
I struggle with the physical aspects of rage. Why am I raging? Everything I love and care about is being destroyed and I feel powerless to change. (more…)
Tags: Internet, Political, Writing Life
I just played the consumer consequences game. Thanks to my friend Abby for sending me the link.
My score was 1.9 I’m pretty good, but as frugally as I live, it would still take two planets to support my lifestyle. (more…)
Tags: Climate Change, Political, Survival
In the past two weeks, my ceiling collapsed and my refrigerator died, taking all my frozen wild edibles with it. I feel blessed. I’m alive. And these problems have solutions.
Having lived in NYC for 20 years and worked in the twin towers, it’s hard not to think about what happened on this day six years ago.
On September 11, 2001, I owned a home outside of NYC and had been running my Virtual Assistant business for a little over one year.
In the ensuing six years I don’t feel spiritually, emotionally or financially better off. We have lost many of our civil rights and we have made life so much worse for people in other parts of the world.