Motivational

Take a Breath and Listen to the Bees

Take a Breath and Listen to the Bees

Even with everything occurring and abundant uncertainty, take a moment to drink some water, take a breath, and perhaps even hum a few bars like the bees do. It won’t create a vaccine, nor feed someone in need, nor even get your shopping done. However, it might just help you relieve the tension and other stresses you’re holding, at least for a time.

Lessons from the barrel cactus

Lessons from the barrel cactus

While the long, beautiful spines of a mature barrel cactus are truly a sight to behold, they are woven so tightly together, across the cactus' ribs that any environmental detritus that falls on or around the cactus, becomes entangled.

Martin Luther King Jr. Day and the World Peace Rose Garden

 Martin Luther King Jr. Day and the World Peace Rose Garden

Today is Martin Luther King Jr. Day.  In honor of his efforts toward peace and equality, today, we will be discussing elements of peaceful protest, being true to yourself, and the MLK Jr. World Peace Rose Garden in Georgia.

Seeds of Potential: Part 2 of Ancestors for All Seasons

Seeds of Potential: Part 2 of Ancestors for All Seasons

Be as the dormant seed, beginning to germinate in the desiccated trunk of its predecessor, full of potential and vibrant life.

Ancestors for All Seasons

Ancestors for All Seasons

It is important to remember the ancestors, dear friends, regardless of season.

The Wreath as a Herald of Fortune

The Wreath as a Herald of Fortune

Wreaths weren't always a thing to put on your door during the holidays.  In many places, they still aren't.  While door-hanging wreaths have now been adapted for any season, they used to be more akin to celebratory laurels or flower crowns. 

Humanity's Beautiful Diversity

Humanity's Beautiful Diversity

Human rights and diversity are important regardless of your background, dear reader, but are perhaps most spotlighted when concerning those members of society whose voices tend to be suppressed in some way.  Minority voices are important, brightening and enlivening the global human narrative, whether that be religion, ethnic background, sexual orientation, gender expression, relative ablebodiedness, or other aspects. 

Under the Harvest Moon

Under the Harvest Moon

This time of year is about reaping what was planted in the growing time.  Look to your Springtime goals, dear reader, and see what you have accomplished.  Do you still need to do more on certain projects?  Are there others that have fallen dormant but you still hold on to? 

Things I learned from plants (A Series): #3. You can heal from injury.

Things I learned from plants (A Series):  #3. You can heal from injury.

Whether it be physical, mental, emotional, or otherwise, dear reader, you can heal from injury.

Have you ever seen an old, decomposing tree stump in the depths of the forest, with a seedling sprouting from its ruin?  The decomposition and complete breakdown of the old makes way for an emergent new life form, providing the impetus for its growth and development.

Things I Learned from Plants (A Series): #2. Water is Life and Should Be Respected.

Things I Learned from Plants (A Series): #2. Water is Life and Should Be Respected.

Water is party to all things, dear reader.  While all Earth-dwelling embodied lifeforms have their own characteristics, goals, needs, and expectations of their environments, water is a common necessity they all share.  Without proper hydration, the brain's receptors stop interpreting and correlating information and general organ failure occurs, plants are unable to photosynthesize, and moisture continues to evaporate from the body at a rather high rate. 

Things I learned from Plants (a Series): #1. Strong roots let you grow tall.

Things I learned from Plants (a Series):                       #1. Strong roots let you grow tall.

Have you ever noticed, dear reader, how a an unbalanced, top-heavy thing is prone to collapsing?  Some things are balanced by having a flat base on which to build, brick structures forming in orderly fashion.  Some have a reasonably stable base and overall structure, but topple when the weather or environment changes. 

Breathe

Breathe

Sometimes, we all need to remember that.  Sometimes, whatever we're going through can seem so exciting, so daunting, so terrifying (not mutually exclusive, I've checked), that we have to take a moment and just breathe.

Decomposition and the Spring of Youth

Decomposition and the Spring of Youth

Death is a part of life, even in the Spring. There is new, budding growth on trees awakening from Winter's grasp. There are young lambs born and frolicking in the meadows. There is visible potential at nearly every turn. This is the same for death and decay.

The Power of Growing Things

The Power of Growing Things

Getting out in nature is therapy, a form of self-care.  People often say that they need to "go be in nature."  Where is this nature?  Is it the mountains, tall trees a sheltering canopy overhead?  Is it the violent waves crashing against a battered rocky shoreline?  Perhaps "nature" is the expansive park in your town square, home to childhood games and Sunday picknicks. 

The Turning Seasons: Plants, Death, and Rebirth

The Turning Seasons: Plants, Death, and Rebirth

Today is Easter, the time when in the Christian tradition, someone who was once presumed deceased is reborn into a new, but strikingly similar form.  Yesterday was World Transgender Awareness Day, celebrating a community so often misunderstood, harassed, or ignored--a community whose very nature calls out in an expression of change, ideally able to embrace the individual's truest self.  On the Spring Equinox, March 20, was Ostara, the transition between the hibernation and death of winter into the rebirth and new life of spring.  I find it apt that all three of these events occur during a liminal period, not entirely one or the other--the dusk of one season and dawn of the next.