Consider grass, the perfectly rounded tips of new blades, the translucent greenness as the light shines through. Consider the unseen numbers of tiny cellular factories actively converting the sun’s energy into growth. This far surpasses any technology we call “awesome”. Whoever is behind the idea of grass is the real “awesome”. Just sayin’…
Tag: natural world
A Small Gift
It’s Monday morning. I’m dressed and sitting at my desk thinking about the day ahead. Last week I repotted a houseplant and brought it to live on my desk in front of the glass doors where it would get a lot of southern exposure. I noticed a large drop of water at the tip of a leaf. And then I saw that every leaf that was turned in the same orientation had a large crystal clear drop of water – the whole plant was decorated at the tips of these leaves only. The rest of the plant was dry. Such a beautiful thing… just sayin’.
Lessons from The Natural World
The Natural World
I could feel the blisters coming up, but I couldn’t stop.
We have a beautiful tree in our yard, a somewhat rare tropical Kapok tree. It’s very tall, having grown up in a grove of oak trees – it had to go up to get the sun. Most of the year we don’t pay much attention to it, other than to admire the trunk.
But in the spring it flowers, and for two to three weeks the ground below is showered with the red blooms. These are not like the delicate white dogwood flower but the type that will put a dent in your car should it happen to land there. We put a parking area under this tree. What were we thinking?!
The mat of squishy, slippery rotting vegetation is hard to walk on or drive on and it creates a brown, moldy looking paste that is death to a car’s paint job.
I was considering all this while raking the debris into heavy piles of “stuff” and my usual outdoor thought surfaced. What is nature teaching me? Could it be that we are all parked in places in our lives where “stuff” is falling on us that is damaging us? I had no trouble connecting that to some relationally toxic environments that I’ve been in lately. And I had just read a blog post about dealing with self-absorbed people who drop words and thoughts on others without awareness of the effects.
I’m not exactly proud that this was my first evaluation of the nature flower bomb situation, because the next place my thinking went proved more valuable. What if I am the tree? What’s happening to the people who are parked in my vicinity during the hours and days of my life? What kind of clean-up chores are necessary after I’ve been around? Now there was food for thought. It gave me a whole new perspective on spending an afternoon doing crafts with a child, or taking time to shop for my quadriplegic client, or the contacts with people in my study group. There are a lot of people “parked” under my tree of influence and I can make decisions on how I affect them, for good or bad.
Yes, the blisters are there. On other days, it’s a sore back, or a sunburn or just being dog-tired. Is it worth it? I say yes, as I look at the results – a clean drive and parking area and new incentive to interact in a better way with my friends and neighbors on planet earth . Surrounded by trees, plants, sky, dirt and fresh air we open ourselves to hear some really valuable messages. I’m just sayin’, whoever created the natural world had a really good idea and today I get it.
Get Out!
I’ve been out in the oneacrewoods, which is what I call my yard because… well, you know why. It’s the time of year in Florida when outdoors is like a very, very big room with perfect air conditioning and perfect lighting and pretty much perfect everything else. On days like this I just want to live out there.
I was out weeding the strawberry beds before the husband left for work this morning. I got it all done. And in preparation for possible colder weather in December and January, I re-positioned my greenhouse supports to better fit my square foot garden boxes. I took down all the shade cloth since we now have the opposite problem of not enough sun. I raked, hoed, got dirt under my fingernails. I smelled the arugula and the citronella. I watched the squirrels (population explosion there). I tried to figure out where all the bees were coming from (still don’t know…) I counted how many different sounds I could hear – 10, counting the far away traffic. It was a sensual workout.
As lovely as it can be inside our houses, I think we were meant to be outside a good deal of the time. In practically every part of our world, life of some kind thrives outside where there’s sunlight and water and nutrients. Quite remarkable really, that everything we need is here. After a couple hours of fresh air and sunshine I feel like I’ve had an attitude adjustment as well – there’s something freeing about all that’s going on out there without my having to be in control of it, or even give it a thought. I’m just sayin’, I wish everyone could be here this morning (although it would possibly get a little crowded). I think I’ll quit writing and get out.
I Just Have to Say... 