Green Tribe of Belonging

 It is still winter here, though we had a week or two of unseasonably warm temperatures that felt like spring. Now the temperature is down into the teens again, and probably that is good for all the trees and shrubs, at least the ones who weren't fooled into blooming or leafing out too early. If the past is any indicator, it can still frost here in Iowa in May. Who knows what surprises the climate will bring this year, but here, the landscape is still brown. I have a wonderful south-facing window in my office/massage room, and I get lovely views of sunsets, wild geese flying over, clouds crossing the horizon. However, the view from lower down is just the straight lines of buildings and our paved Prairie Hill Lane.  It is during the winter months that I sometimes suddenly notice that we are surrounded by straight lines. Driving down a city street, without the lovely fluffy green of trees and lawns or the colorful flower beds, everything under the clouds is straight: homes built...

  Our small round planet of Earth, a perfect distance from the nearest star, slowly evolving through the ages, with shifting land, volcanic eruptions, drought and floods, as water moves through lakes, rivers and oceans. After millions of years, just recently, tiny life emerged. First in water, and hundreds of years later, crawling out onto the land, breathing the air, basking in the sun. Some were plants, pushing roots underground. Some were animals, finding homes in the forest, or alongside the flowing streams. And life changed to suit the changing climates, evolving with the evolving world, wonderful new life developing. In the measure of time, only an eyeblink ago, our own species appeared, part of the whole, living in harmony with the life surrounding them, a new creature with new abilities. And as we became more abundant, our communities more gathered, our communications broadened to words and paintings on the walls of caves. Our minds needed to have connection and understandi...

Our February Earthcare Working Group meeting is coming up this Saturday, February 7th, at Prairie Hill Cohousing, 140 Prairie Hill Lane, at 2:00 in the common house living room. All are welcome to attend! This time we are bringing reports on inspiring or helpful books we've read lately on the general topic of earthcare. By the end of this meeting, we will have chosen one of the books for us all to read, to be discussed together in a few months. It is not too late to finish (or start!) reading something that you've been postponing, and you can tell us about it on Saturday. We'll start the meeting with our usual go-round of uplifting reports from previous weeks about things in nature we've experienced. Then we'll have a time to share timely political things we can do or participate in, then a song we'll sing together, and then to the sharing of book reports. And as usual, there'll be snacks. If you're near enough to Prairie Hill (in Iowa City), I hope you...

  A Bench of Living Wood Coming into Quaker meeting on Sunday, sitting on the beautiful old wooden bench, sliding aside the cushion so I am on the wood, connecting with the spirit of that former tree, I sit asking for an easing of my unrestive thoughts.  Let my criticism drift away, stop seeing in black and white. This climate of chaos and violence pulls me smaller, reactive, into harsh judgement. Trust seems a long-ago thing, lies have become the norm out there on the political scene. We can no longer count on honesty. And yet I need to remember a wider reality. Like imagining myself as part of the original tree of this bench. My branches are blowing around in the wind. I’m surrounded by a whole forest of trees connected to each other, communicating, functioning as a network of life, a living web. It is wide and beautiful in this reality, beyond human chaos, beyond greed and violence. It reminds me that no matter where our species is headed the earth that holds us and nurture...

  Technology and the Living World I was checking my phone this morning, wondering how cold it had gotten last night (below zero!) and what the forecast is for the next few days. When I went outside, I looked at the thermometer on my porch to see if it agreed with the weather report. And I bundled up when I went to the common house to get the mail and up to the trash shed to take up my garbage. Brrr! My body knew the truth of the temperature better than any machine, little or big. We are so accustomed to let our technology take care of these things, guiding us to think ahead, to bundle up, to know exactly what someone’s superior measurement equipment can tell us about things like temperature, wind, clouds, rain or snow. And it is very convenient to have these sources of information! If you let your mind explore this, there are so many things in our cultures that keep us on track: calendars, clocks, phones….. As I was walking outside, looking at the ice on the sidewalks, the snow on ...

  Looking for Good Standing on the streets of the Ped Mall, among hundreds of others whose anger matches my own, in commemoration of a good woman whose last name was Good, I feel surrounded by others looking for expression during these times of chaos and violence. It is so easy to read the headlines, and explore the depravity of national officials. In defense, I try to guide my senses to widen and expand, wider than politics, wider than war and greed, wider than our own species. It is with relief that I bring into focus the trees, the skies, the seasons, and two fluffy young kitties, curled up at my feet, innocent and joyful, tumbling around in their world, caring for each other, purring their contentment. They are reminders that not everything is corrupted. It is true that we are probably on the edge of some sort of collapse. The quickening of climate change, the abandonment of morality, the divisiveness of our fellow humans…. It may be too late to save our hospitable earth home. ...