Green Tribe of Belonging

  Listen to the Trees In our human world on the planet Earth it is a frightening time. Not only have we forgotten our roots, our place in the vast infrastructure upholding and surrounding us. Powerful leaders are also learning mind control, using their brains and influence to control their fellow humans. TV commercials, political ads, so much media: people wanting power and wealth, have lost the integrity of truth and conscience. It feels like we’re always needing to protect ourselves from those who want to manipulate us, in order to get what they want. Yesterday, amid all this scary chaos, I was handed a beautiful book about Trees, about their history and place here. It reminded me to look beyond my species, to see our predicament in the world with a wider perspective. We humans are brilliant in some ways, but are so susceptible to greed, power and competition, and we may well not survive much longer. But trees have learned over thousands of years to live in harmony with other for...

 It's been a busy time here. I started a blog post several days ago, but haven't had time to finish it. So I dug out a poem I wrote years ago. The Cubs are doing well this year (though I was too tired to stay up to see who won last night. Don't tell me! I'll watch it later.)  The other post will arrive as soon as I can get to it, but here's a filler in the meantime..... _________________________________________________________________________ Something Larger Evening dusk pulls me inside to settle into the recliner, the screen in front of me showing my favorite baseball team running the bases. The score is against us, and it is raining on the Chicago field, the other team so far ahead you’d think I’d turn off the TV. But loyalty is a powerful instinct. The players on my chosen team feel like family. With each one there is a bond as they do their best and I’m at their back as I sigh at a strike out, smile when the pitcher throws a good inning, shout with joy at a hom...

  Queen in the Woods The Mother Oak stands at the edge of the park, her wide-spread branches dominating the scene, decades of growth bringing her to her prime, entangled with millions of life forms around and below. Thousands of caterpillars feasting on the smooth dark leaves, and in their turn, birds snapping up the caterpillars for their own feast. Squirrels scampering through the strong leafy branches, and an owl quietly standing watch from a hole midway to the top. The unseen world below the oak’s base is crowded with webs of roots and microscopic life. Mycelium offering up its bounty in return for nourishment, each giving and receiving for their mutual benefit. Over the years, this mother tree has offered her progeny  to the world around her: acorns buried by squirrels, planted near and far, a crop of children still connected to her life force. And she will support them in the abundant mysterious ways of trees. When her life is over, her branches and trunk dying, her body...

  Thank Heavens for Weeds! Thank heavens they are not always mowing the roadsides anymore Or spraying to remove unwanted vegetation. The earth is too manicured as it is, Every hill and valley planted with crops. Lawns cultivated to grow only grass  Kept clipped so it can never mature. When I drive down the highway and Come across an area too steep for the big mowers, Or too damp, or too rough, I feel like shouting hallelujah!  Here the rightful residents are allowed to flourish, Shooting up tall in their natural life cycle, Flowering, seeding, and then sending sun energy Back to roots for another season. Free enterprise of the plant world!  What a smorgasbord of color, size, texture. Here creativity can get a toehold. A treasure chest of life and growth, And source of food for other lives: Seeds for birds, leaves for insects and animals,  Wonderful and vast root networks in which Microorganisms flourish underground. Nature set free, if only peripherally,  o...

  Tree Dream If truly we have a chance  for another life, my deep wish would be to come back as a tree. Standing tall at the edge of a forest, roots tangled with my neighbors’ roots. And as a small sapling, I’d be nourished by the wise mother tree above me. As I get older, I would join the stand of tall strong trees at the edge of our land, some my own kin, all taking our turn, holding up the whole, reaching out to others. When storms come through, we’d stand grounded, solid, bracing each other as the wind whips past, sending warnings to the trees across the valley by our roots. In summer, I would hold out my arms to welcome beings in different shapes: animals, insects, birds,  as I host a wide ecosystem of life, all thriving together in the small world around my body. Squirrels scampering up and down my branches, birds digging out homes in my trunk, insects nestled in my bark that feed the bigger life. Eggs and seeds buried in my leaf mast below. And maybe a little girl,...

  The high point of this past week for me was attending a Field Day at Cold Spring Pond and Cabin, a part of our family’s farm. The program featured things like pollinator strips, water buffers, and riparian zones along stream beds to filter out nitrates and other chemicals from the water running from the fields. My cousin Ken and his son Thomas talked about the evolution of this family farm as well as farming in general over the decades. And it has brought back to me the memories of my childhood growing up on a large Iowa farm. My grandmother Fawcett raised her two sons pretty much alone, her husband having died while both boys were very young. Although the boys' father had been a farmer, Grandma brought them up in a little house in the nearby town of West Branch, leaving the farm in other hands until her boys were old enough to take over. Both brothers went to Iowa State University, studying farming science. And then started working the land on our acreage. There were two homeste...