Tag: nature

“One Of These Mornings You’re Gonna Rise Up Singing”*

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I haven’t been writing much for the past two months for reasons I hope to blog about soon. Basically, life has gotten in the way. This is a post from a couple of years ago that still makes sense. I’m surprised by how consistent I am. I edited a little and the photos are new.

WE ARE RACING TOWARD SUMMER, AREN’T WE?

It’s feels to me, after such a long and difficult winter, that spring lasted no time at all. April seemed to go by in the blink of an eye and incredibly, we celebrated the unofficial start to summer last weekend with Memorial Day.

When I realized we were quickly coming to summer’s front door, I initially had an anxiety attack thinking of all the springtime activities and chores I haven’t yet gotten done. (As I’ve mentioned before, I’m a list maker.) But then I relaxed and allowed myself to think about the things I have enjoyed this spring, which is a much healthier exercise.

I was fortunate enough to watch the progression of buds to blooms to leaves on the trees and the pushing up of flowering plants from inside the ground to up  toward the sun.

I put the first of this year’s tomato plants and herbs into the garden. While planting the herbs, I held some aside to make some air fresheners, teas and lotions. I naturally have more energy come spring so I’ve been walking in the nature preserve to bird watch and I got to see goslings make their initial appearance at the pond’s edge.  Also, after talking about it ALL winter, I finally got to take the little people to the playground for a game of Hide ‘n Peek Seek. I engaged in each of those activities and enjoyed them completely in the moment as they happened. So if it seems that the springtime flew by, it is only in retrospect.

I hope you enjoyed your spring and that summer will be an equally wonderful set of precious moments for you. I hope you’ll find the recipes below useful. And lastly, I hope you had a great Memorial Day and thanks so much for reading.

*Lyric from “Summertime” by DuBose Heyward from Porgy and Bess

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Baking Soda Air Fresheners

Mason jars
Baking soda
Essential oils, I use lavender, rosemary or lemon
Dried herbs (optional)
Fill the jars to 3/4 with baking soda, leaving a little room on top. Add about 5 or more drops essential oils and stir. Sprinkle on top about a tablespoon of matching herbs to whichever oil you’ve used. (Some people punch holes in the jar lids and screw them on. I never bother, preferring to leave the jars topless.) Shake gently occasionally to reactivate the oils. The lingering aroma will be subtle but fabulously fragrant.

 

DIY Lotion

2 oz Shea Butter
2 oz Vitamin E oil
1 oz Jojoba oil
1 oz Lanolin
1/2 tsp essential oil
All of these measurements are approximate. I find its good to play with the proportions so you get just the right mixture for your skin type. Also, I cut the amount of Lanolin from the original recipe because I don’t care for the smell.

Another Change

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Well, it happened. For the first time since  re-launching this blog, I missed a post. I had committed to posting at least once a month but I missed October. It’s not for the lack of trying. I wrote two pieces but hated one and didn’t finish the other. I sat up Halloween night hiding from the trick-or-treaters while trying to come up with something. Nothing. I closed my laptop and turned on the TV.

I have this problem more autumns than I want to admit. I seem to follow a pattern. The leaves change color and start to fall and I get depressed. Then the temperatures dip and I begin to eat for comfort (and store fat for the winter, I guess). I have trouble writing, which I hate because writing is my real comfort. I swore I was going to resist the pattern this year. I thought I’d stored enough warm sunshine in Tulum in September to see me through. But the empty takeout containers in my recycling bin and the lack of an October post seems to mean it wasn’t enough.

It’ll be ok, I’ll make it through. At this point in my life I’ve learned it’s not either this or that, warmth or cold, light or dark, it’s both. There is beauty in the warm sea tides and the fallen leaves. So, I’ll share with you poems about both. The first is one I wrote which is actually part of a larger work by the same name.

autumn autumn leaves branch color
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

The Only Things Certain

Dying
green
cascading brown
down

to stream water
wearing still rock.

Degrading
green
turning red
up

reaching, beseeching
to moving sky.

Trees, stream, sky.

Passing out of,
seen
and unseen
beauty

in change
and death.

(©Kat Tennermann2018)

 

And then there’s this one from the beach in Tulum. It’s a Navajo poem courtesy of Richard Rohr’s Daily Meditation. I read this out loud every morning.

beach beautiful bridge carribean
Photo by Nextvoyage on Pexels.com

Walk in Beauty

In beauty I walk
With beauty before me I walk
With beauty behind me I walk
With beauty above me I walk
With beauty around me I walk
It has become beauty again
It has become beauty again
It has become beauty again
It has become beauty again.

 

 

Summer Meditation: Notes From the Road

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jeep-218956_640It’s sunrise and I’m on Route 95 headed toward Richmond. The early sunshine works its way through thick bands of pine and maple trees along the highway. Puffy clouds sit static behind the green backdrop. I’m glad to be on my way further down south from Virginia. This visit to my cousin in Raleigh means I get to explore what I’m told is the “real south” which is what I’ve been trying to do since I moved two years ago. Funny, when I lived in Boston I thought northern Virginia was the real south but apparently Richmond is a dividing line, it’s history as the Confederate capital still having significance.

I’ve been to Atlanta and Myrtle Beach but as I enter the city of Richmond it feels different. I can’t help wondering what this landscape looked like 150 years ago. Did the sun penetrate the foliage then as it does now when soldiers stood between the trees trying to detect the blue or the gray of the perceived enemy? Did any of my people run this route on their way from confederate North Carolina to the contraband camps in Alexandria where I live now? I see long swaths of grass between mighty trees. Were they part of battlefields? As I pass by I’m thinking about all those who might have been left lying out there. What a time that must have been! Were the issues of the Civil War clear-cut back then to the citizenry of both sides or did they seem as confused as the ones we wrestle with now; war, conflict, ideology?

I exit onto Route 85 and into North Carolina. The cops are less visible than on the Virginia roads. Are they waiting til they have a good breakfast of grits and eggs before starting their patrols? Old time asphalt reverberates and rattles my soul along with my wheels. I see a sign for Ace Hardware and Gun Store. Hills, valleys and pickup trucks. No helmets needed by the Harley riders here. Cigs three dollars a pack and a speed limit of whatever you can bear. Ghosts of tobacco plantations, dusty hills, slave-owning forefathers but license plates that only mention Kitty Hawk. Places like Creedmoor and Falls Lake; Ruin Creek, Nutbush Creek, and Bullsville inhabit this two lane stretch. I roll down the window a bit to smell the air. It’s hot and humid just the way I like and aromatic with bellflowers and jewelweed in full bloom. I know this place’s unsettling and violent history but like many folks, I still find the scenery beautiful and somehow peaceful.

I turn off the highway just outside Raleigh onto the Triangle Expressway. It’s a big, newly paved road dotted with the shiny office buildings of tech companies. I start looking for my cousin’s subdivision. There are so many of them here that have replaced old farms although, come to think of it, it’s the same in Virginia and Pennsylvania. I find the “Springwell” community and pull in. (All the subdivision around here are named.) I’m looking forward to the lilt in my cousin’s speech and his traditional southern hospitality. I hear there are only three Starbucks in these parts but that’s ok because I’m ready to try something else.

 

Subtitle: Seasonal Affect Disorder in March

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Today’s break in this year’s unending winter weather prompted me to take a nature walk.  I wanted to take advantage of this: 

Glenn Carlyn Park today
Glenn Carlyn Park today

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Before the weather once again turns to this:

My yard last week
My yard last week

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It wasn’t a beautiful day, the sky was milky but it was warm which brought out all manner of creatures;  squirrels, joyriders, walking widows and kids. Lots and lots of kids. There were also lots and lots of birds, mostly robins.  I didn’t need my binoculars to watch them as they were confident enough to hop and peck around the mish-mash of natural material on the ground. Apparently they gathered, discussed and decided we walkers were no threat. I  thought I was there in the park to bird watch but it turned out I was actually there to contemplate, write and look for signs of spring. It appears, we’re not the only creatures sticking our “necks” out on hope and optimism:

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Anyhoo….Today’s weather reminded me of a poem I wrote a few years ago titled:

Spring’s Deception

Do you feel the sun waking warmer in the morning?
It’s gentler when rising every day.
It spends time a little longer now
Chasing the winter blues away.

Did you notice the air has changed its’ smell?
It’s including a trace of the earth.
It’s teasing with that aroma of promise
Suggesting of green and rebirth.

There are days when the chill is obstinate
Then spring’s certainty seems a cold deception.
But March winds will blow the clouds from here
In time for the sun’s scheduled reception.

  

Cool Change

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IMG_1805Well, fall is officially here. The autumnal equinox occurred just 2 weeks ago and I already miss summer. It could be my imagination but I feel cold. One of the many reasons I moved south is because I like it hot and humid. In the summer, I enjoyed going out for my 8AM morning walks when the temperature was already a steamy 80 degrees. I’d rather sweat than turn on the A/C. Ok, that might have more to do being cheap but when it’s below 70 and the air is dry, my lips get chapped and my hands get ashy. My friends and family in Boston feel differently. They wilt in the heat and perk up on the first crisp morning with a nip in the air. Fellow blogger The Modern Philosopher  lives in Maine and recently described summer and fall the way a typical New Englander does.

There is a lot to like about the fall, though. I do love the autumn foliage, exposed as I was to its glory growing up in New England. The trees here in Virginia turn later than they do in the Boston area. It feels to me as though in New England the change is dramatic but too fast. The trees have started to color here and I’ll grudgingly admit that it is beautiful. It feels as though the slower southern way of life extends to the foliage and I can take it in over a longer period of time. I saw a tree today that was green except for the tippy top, which was bright red. (It reminded me so much of a Dr. Seuss character.) And of course there was the stunning Harvest Moon last month.

Still, I’m slower to wake in the mornings now that the sunrise is later and I experience some anxiety since the sun sets sooner. Did you know Daylight Savings Time ends on November 3rd , darn it? There are days when I ask the migrating birds stopping by my feeder on their way farther south to take me with them. They give me looks of pity with black birdie eyes then fly off without me.  On the other hand, I watch the squirrels pull the acorns from small oak branches and throw the defoliated sticks to the ground. They dash across the streets of my community with stuffed cheeks to hidden homes. Obviously their internal season sensors are telling them there is limited time left to store their supplies for the winter. I’m taking heed and doing the same by making soup and canning vegetables. I appreciate the heads up.img_0344.jpg

So while I feel the pangs of a loss of summer’s delights like long days, dips in blue water and inhaling warm, moist air instead of using my neti pot, I also appreciate the wonder of the change of seasons. I don’t take for granted the blessing of awareness; intellectual, sensory and spiritual, of nature’s cycles being played out miraculously and in living color.

My gratitude goes to Little River Band for the title of this post. I couldn’t think of anything that didn’t sound banal.

Reblogged for:  The Daily Prompt: Mid-Season Replacement, October 11, 2013. 

To Market, to Market……

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Is there any thing better than the fresh produce available at this time of year? I certainly don’t feel there is.

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Going to the farmers market: the colors, smells and interacting with other people. It’s a complete experience for me.

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Preparing the produce is a lesson in mindfulness: slowing down time, listening to the birds while I cut and chop.  I try to really taste the food and appreciate it.

Where I live in the mid Atlantic area of the United States, it seems as though the winter offers only limited agricultural products; apples, oranges and the roots of plants. They are wonderful in their own right, they’re just not my favorites. I gravitate toward the kinds of produce available during the warm seasons. I love the abundance and variety of fruits and vegetables like strawberries, peaches, tomatoes, tender lettuces and lots of fresh herbs. It’s one of the many, many advantages of summer. One of my favorite recipes that uses vegetables available now at  farmers markets is Pasta with Greens and Tomatoes. I’ve added to the Heaven’s menu page.

Happy Summer Solstice!

Time That Neither Marches Nor Flies

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Welcome little one.
Welcome little one.

Ok, Let me get this out of the way at the onset. Here is the main reason I’ve been away from my blog for a while. We met on March 16th in a NY hospital. But I don’t want to talk about her. (Even though she’s adorable.)

I wrote about my view of western medical facilities a year ago in a post called “I Steal From Hospitals”. (https://stopalongtheway.wordpress.com/2012/04/27/i-steal-from-hospitals) My experience on March 16th with the place that’s’ name sounds like a Caribbean island did nothing to change my opinion. The only difference was at this hospital there was nothing to steal. But I don’t want to talk about hospitals either. I want to talk about time.

Today i took hold of time and hung on tight. I had to. I had to in order to get this post written. There has been so much packed in what seems to be each moment that I decided to just stop and create a few more minutes devoted to WordPress. I’ve been  disoriented in time recently. Back before I was a mother of adult children, a widow and a grandmother, I used to use the Gregorian calendar to keep track of the passage of time like a lot of western folks. I put particular emphasis on the seasons and my clan’s traditional holidays as transition markers. And of course I used clocks. I watched the clock like it was my job and patted myself on the back for being an up to the minute type of person. Years, months, days, hours, those distinctions we call units of time made sense to me.

We miss you Dad.
We miss you Dad.

Now it seems I blink my eyes and the seasons have changed, yet at other times I blink again and again and it’s the same moment. Sometimes it feels like something happened a very long time ago and something else will feel as though it happened in the last five minutes.Then I realize they both happened yesterday.  How to explain the change? What has happened to make my sense of time so different? I think part of it has to do with getter older.The other day an actor who I thought was attractive when I was in my twenties died. He was 95. According to my sense of time he should have been 65. I had to update how I see aging. And life events like the deaths and births that have occurred in quick succession in my family have also caused me to develop a more fluid delineation of the flow,the pace, the time of life.

Nature Walk Through Heritage Park

Green
Cascading down to
Still water 
Red
Reaching up to 
Moving Sky 
Stream
Trees
Cemetery
Coming into
Moving out

I guess I’m learning that it’s all one big minute. One long second. The one big, long nanosecond that’s really the nature of existence. As Boethius called it “the abiding instant”. Or as George Clinton says “Everything is on the one…”

Butterflies Ain’t Free

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How should I tag this post, who knew, never again, don’t let this happen to you?

IMG_1290That little person I play with 4 to 5 times a week told me she likes butterflies. We’ve laughed and pointed when we’ve seen them in the park, flying their colors while weaving back and forth in the air. So who would have blamed me for thinking a trip to the Butterfly Pavilion at the National Museum of Natural History would be a treat for both us. It seemed to me that seeing live butterflies up close and personal would be big fun and educational.

You have to understand, that person doesn’t take trips easily. She can be squeamish and demanding. It turned out she needed TWO pairs of arms to reassure her that the museum was a good idea, because of the butterflies, which she likes. She decided she would be happy to go although she seemed to have some reservations.

IMG_1286So off we went yesterday to the exhibit (I thought it was last week but then I realized it was just that yesterday seemed like it was a week long.) Anyway, I paid and we went. We had to go through the butterfly airlock. It’s to keep the special butterfly air and the butterflies from escaping into the rest of the museum. We emerged from the airlock into the beautiful terrarium-like butterfly space where they have lovely blooming plants and pretty butterflies everywhere. That was supposed to be the major pay-off for packing up all that person’s belongings and walking them and her 2 long city blocks while she gasped for breath in the cold wind. I wanted to see the look of wonder and joy on that face. I had my camera open and ready. Don’t get me wrong, the little person seemed interested, amused even, by the butterflies as long as the weren’t too close and she could look at them from someone else’s shoulders. Remember the special butterfly air I mentioned? They keep it special by blowing mist into the room through pressure hoses. That person didn’t like the mist at all. It came on every three minutes. So the butterflies heard three minutes of screaming followed by three minutes of laughing followed by three minutes of screaming followed by three minutes of laughing. You get the idea. For the sake of the butterflies we cut our visit short. (Do butterflies have ears?)

2011 Natures Best Photography mnh.si
2011 Natures Best Photography mnh.si

After that the little person found the room with all the big color photos of animals. She enjoyed that much more (even though she swore to me she likes butterflies). She ran in her silver pretty shoes from photo to photo identifying the animals. There was a Ba and a Ca and even a Ma and she knew them all. There was a bench where she could also sit and watch a little animal TV, an activity she knows well. She felt very comfortable in that exhibit so who cares that we could have seen it for free at anytime beside the very early morning appointment we had to keep with the butterflies.

I’m going to go ahead and call the trip a success. That little person took a really, really long nap when we got back home, I’ve dropped the big idea of dressing up as the Easter Bunny and that special mist did wonders for my complexion.

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Seriously, the Butterfly Pavilion is a fabulous place (http://www.butterflies.si.edu). One of the volunteers told me that many kids react to the noise of the environment maintenance system so if you want to take a little one, consider their sensitivity level before you go. The Smithsonian museums are unbelievable national resources. I’m having the best time checking them out. 

Super Moon Mania

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Super moon maniaI’m so excited about tonight’s full moon. If you read this blog regularly you know that I have what I call “moon mania”. (I’m a moon maniac?) And as you’ve probably heard, this month’s full moon occurs on the perigee side which makes it a super moon! At the bottom of this post is a link to a great article on NASA’s website about it. Anyway, I’ve got my seat and snacks picked out for the viewing. (Who am I kidding, I’d have snacks moon or no moon.) I’ll be there from 7:30pm on to take advantage of the unusual sight.

There’s something special about the moon for me (Please see my other moon posts). Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that I’m a nature lover exactly. I don’t have an affinity for tree hugging, although a hike in the wood would go a long way in trimming off the snacks. No, it’s that I’m a wonder lover. It’s the wonder of the moon that affects me. It makes me mindful and sometimes it’s a struggle for me to be mindful. The moon makes me mindful that we live on a big ball made of elements that are hot and cold and wet and dry and hard and soft. It makes me mindful that the ball that we call our planet shifts and rotates. And that it is moving around with other planets in a largeness and a vastness that I can’t begin to imagine. It makes for a mindful perspective.

So, I hope you’ll join me tonight in mindful meditation on the wonderful moon. Let’s sit in gratitude snacking on Milky Ways and Moon Pies.

(http://science.nasa.gov/sciencenews/scienceatnasa/2012/02may_supermoon)

Longing for the Light

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I made it! It’s Daylight Savings Time again and it’s really a saving time for me personally. It’s so important to me that this year I set my alarm so I could watch the clock on my cell phone change from 1:59 to 3:00am. It was a beautiful moment. I know the benefits of DST are debatable and that there are a lot of people who disagree with my point of view. A couple of years ago the Christian Science Monitor did a good piece on the debate (http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2010/0313/Daylight-Saving-Time-Remind-me-again-why-we-spring-forward) For me though, it’s a saving time because of how much I long for the light.

I’ve discussed in previous posts how hard winter is for me and that the lack of light is both a physical and spiritual hardship.  As is the case most of the time, I find connections between nature and my sensibilities. I guess this time of longer light, although really an illusion, corresponds with my need to turn my face toward the stronger sunlight and my soul toward the eternal light. I’m not alone either. After all, in this Lenten season don’t Christians contemplate the meaning and message of “the light of the world”?

I use my longer days during DST to sit in front of the door to my balcony and try to be still and absorb the light down to my cellular level, to receive the benefits of its warmth and glow. It feels so good and comforting, better than any blanket in winter. I love to close my eyes and see the orange shine on the inside of my eyelids.  It’s a wonder to me just how much light can penetrate my skin. I try to absorb and yet be absorbed by the light. I find it’s easier to meditate in it because its intensity outshines me and I can lose myself in it. And I try to concentrate on how I can be a reflection of the beautiful light.

Saving and relishing daylight is more than a practice or a metaphor; it’s a representation of a life force that’s essential to the preservation of all of us. It’s a lovely reminder of the power that sustains us.  So, at this time, I’ll sit in the sun everyday that I can for as long as I can in gratitude of the light.