Green Tribe of Belonging

 I'm about to fly to Asheville today, and before I go, I'll copy a piece I just wrote for our Prairie Hill Newsletter about the frog and toad survey that I've been doing this spring. Here it is: (Woops, the first time I pasted this in, the formatting was crazy. Now it's better! Sorry. __________________________________________________________________________________ In response to alarm about the declining numbers of amphibians in the Iowa landscape, the Iowa Dept. of Natural Resources organized a yearly frog and toad survey in 1991. Data has been collected from 516 different sites around the state, and 15 frog and toad species have been identified. More volunteers were solicited this year, and two of our Prairie Hill women answered the call. Mary Ann and Nan went through an evening of training, including learning the calls of all 15 species. Fortunately, perfection was not required, just a willingness to go out once a month on nightly surveys to a fixed number of sites...

 Fifteen years ago, I went on a wonderful tour of England's sacred sites. We were a group of about 10, all women. Each day we went to a different place like Stonehenge and Avebury. Then we discovered that crop circles were appearing almost daily in our vicinity, and we found that the Crop Circle Cafe acted like an information center on the circles. Each morning we'd call to see if another one had appeared, and get directions. It was exciting to seek out these new circles before farmers mowed them down. The first time we visited one, we found ourselves wanting to lie down in it, though that seemed a little weird. Then our leader told us that everyone felt that way. So we did it, spread out over these massive designs, soaking in the (what? energy? atmosphere?). We found that it didn't work to take delicate electrical gadgets into the circles, for they got zapped or malfunctioned. Proof, I guess, that something unusual was happening there. These crop circles appeared in second...

 Now that culture is opening up a bit and we're all experiencing that change, our psyches are needing to adjust. Not only is it wonderful to be getting a little back to normal, but many of us are finding that it is also somewhat unnerving. This has happened to me more than once in the last couple of weeks. Something as positive and enjoyable as a family in-person get-together can leave me frazzled and disoriented. Psychologists predicted this, though it was hard for most of us to imagine it would be true of us. No matter what our conscious minds may be saying (i.e. Can't wait to see my friends!), the psyche has been in a situation for the past many months of isolating us from contact with others.  It was like there was a danger sign on everyone who was not someone in your household. Beware! Don't touch! Or even get close! My bodywork practice has been closed for more than a year, except for a few sessions I've given through Zoom. But this week I decided that it was time...

 After that discouraging drought, it did rain! And although it washed away some of the plants I'd just set in that morning, the main effect was a glad reception from plants and people alike. The world was moist again, and wilted leaves stiffened and brightened up, seeds that had been lying in the ground for weeks finally had a chance to germinate, and the air was fresh and vibrant. One inch can make a big difference. And now, just a few days later, it wouldn't hurt if it rained again. We'll be ready! I love storms. It must be an energy thing. If I were a few years younger, I could well be a storm chaser following tornadoes. A tornado hit our farm when I was 10 or 11. It blew down buildings all around the house, as well as huge trees., though the house itself was hardly touched. We were in the center of the storm, the eye, and we in the house were spared. Our big red historic cow barn was twisted to rubble as the 5 of us in the family were huddled in the basement, the wind r...