Green Tribe of Belonging

 This spring I was disappointed that the four clematis vines I planted a year ago were not blooming as much as I'd hoped. Two of them had a few short-lived purple flowers, but the other two seemed to be putting all their energy into vines. Until last week, the whole entrance area on the south side of my place was covered with lush vines. It was beautiful, but I kept telling them silently that I wished they'd made more blooms. Then suddenly everything was covered in white, and now there are thousands of blooms. I'd forgotten that two of the vines were fall-blooming! And they are doing themselves proud. It's made me think about timing. There are so many subtle influences in the world that nudge us one way or another. Why some clematis vines know to flower in the spring, and others in the fall is a mystery to me, though I'm sure scientists have an answer. We can assume that earthly influences like warmer temperatures spur perennial plants to begin growing again. The sa

  I was looking for an empty notebook this morning to use with the class Mary Ann and I are teaching at Prairie Hill School. And I found one on the bottom of a pile with only one page used. That page had a bunch of hastily scratched notes from something years ago. I almost threw it out, but decided I should read it first. And the following is what was there. I don't know if they are notes from a lecture, a book, a video, or what. And I'm almost certain they didn't come from my own head. But they are too good to throw away, and here they are: If we look at the history of our planet as the face of a clock, humans have been here only the last two seconds. Because of changes on a grand scale, like the sun gradually getting hotter, humans will probably eventually go extinct but the planet will remain. Human activity these days will hasten that timeline. But it is important to realize we are just a blip on the screen. It doesn't make sense to despair about the future. Instead

 Before I went to sleep last night, I thought about what I wanted to do today. I don't always think ahead, but I find that it helps me have a bit more purpose and organization if I go to sleep with the next day's opportunities in mind. One of the things on my list was a "still watch". I learned about this quiet activity years ago, and I associate it with native American practices of attunement to the immediate environment. I love the idea of leaving everything behind but myself and sitting somewhere for half an hour with my eyes, ears and mind open to whatever is there. It slows things down. And opens me up.  Today I went to the top of the hill here at Prairie Hill. There is a grove of walnuts on the south side of the path to the garden, and three hammocks hang in the center of the trees. I chose the most sturdy hammock and eased myself into it. Then I breathed deeply, shooed away thoughts about meetings or plans or conversations, and attended to what surrounded me. I

(Here's a poem I wrote almost exactly a year ago, on a hot day in August.) My breakfast entertainment this morning was a documentary about our solar system, how the planets formed, changed, moved; how the sun too changed through time. And as the sun changes, its planets change. It felt like stepping way way back, far detached from our current human mess, imagining a time millions of years ago when the earth was just forming, its future still unknown, unknowable. In present time, our planet is the lucky one, able to sustain water on the surface, able to support wondrous forms of life and maintain enough stability in our atmosphere for our biosphere to thrive, year after year. As the sun changes, gradually becoming warmer, heading toward a final hot explosion in the far future, what happened to Mercury and Venus will probably happen to us. The greenhouse effect will trap more and more heat, the water will evaporate, and life will depart. It takes my breath away, watching the rise and

 "The interconnectedness of being is who we are," says Paul Stamets in the mind-blowing movie Fantastic Fungi. I've just been on a trip to see family in the northeast, so I haven't posted for awhile. And while I was gone, I decided to start using the "tablet" that I bought several years ago. Since I had my laptop and phone for communication, the tablet had been forgotten or neglected under a pile of books. Then I realized I am paying a fee each month for it's use, just like my phone, and that spurred me even more to begin using it! I turned it on before I went to the airport for my flight back to Iowa, wondering if it could bring up Netflix. And sure enough, Netflix came up, along with a recommendation of a movie I might like: Fantastic Fungi. So I pushed the button just to see if it worked. And what I saw next completely sucked me in.  I have never been one to eat mushrooms much. My mother fixed casseroles when I was a kid, using cream of mushroom sou