Green Tribe of Belonging

  For the last few days, I’ve been entertaining a mild case of covid. Not a choice I would have made, if I’d really had a choice. But it has slowed me down, which actually has some good effects.  I had to cancel all my in-person meetings and appointments, and just sit or lie around in my comfortable home, wondering when I would be well again. But also it gave me time to think about my life, my priorities, and how I fit into the current world. This morning I decided I would go out my door, wearing a mask in case I ended up talking to someone. And I went down to my garden to see what’s happened in the last six days. I sat on the bench right by a huge patch of marigolds buzzing with bees and butterflies, and I marveled at the insect life in that one patch, and thought about how all of us living beings on earth have our own protocols, our own instincts. Probably no one told those bees and butterflies that they were supposed to seek out flowers. No one taught them how to fly, or an...

  Mother Heroes Mother Bear eats her fill and builds her strength, then finds a safe cave for the winter. In the dark and cold, she bears her cubs, born blind, hairless and tiny, but mother is there to feed them with her rich milk for months.  She continues there without eating until Spring sets them free. The wolf pack is led by a mother wolf. She carefully chooses the den for the pack, then bears her cubs in its safety, staying close while others in her tribe bring her food. Then, when the little ones are ready, she leads daily survival classes for them, preparing them for freedom. If you see a bird flying by with a stick in her mouth, she is preparing to be a mother with a nest high in a tree, safe from interlopers. And then it’s her time to lay a clutch of eggs, which she incubates until they hatch, and if she’s lucky her mate helps bring food for the little ones until they can fly. The mother elephant grows her child in her body for 22 months. And then keeps the newborn f...

  There is something beautiful about a group of people sitting quietly together for an hour on Sunday mornings, not hustling around, not competing for air time, just sitting still and letting mind, body and spirit come together. It is different than sitting quietly by yourself. There is a togetherness, a commonality that stretches in the air between us. And when someone is moved to break that silence with a message, you listen. There is an atmosphere of humbleness. An assumption that none of us knows everything. And some things are not known by facts and figures. Instead, we need to look inside for deep truths. Today I was remembering how we humans live in a world full of non-human life. We’re surrounded by plants, other animals, birds, insects, tiny microscopic life above and below ground. And if we’re smart, we respect all of this other life and do our best to fit in, to not upset the balance of living things in our world. And then I thought of my favorite earth-dwellers: plants....

 I meant to post this earlier, but things got too busy here! For those of you who live within traveling distance of Iowa City, you might be interested in coming to learn about and harvest healing herbs on Saturday. We'll start at 2:00 in the Prairie Hill Common House. And then later we'll go out to my medicinal herb garden, and you can harvest anything that you'd like. You'll get directions about how to make tinctures and how to make salves. So if you're interested, you can go home and use herbs from this garden to fill your own winter medicine cabinet.  I'm pasting a list of most of the herbs growing here right now, though there are some others that didn't make it onto the list. No charge for this. I love to share my garden and the information about how plants can help make us more resilient and healthy.  Here's a partial list of what's here now: Anise Hyssop Black Cohosh Borage Burdock Root Common Sage Dandelion Root Echinacea Elecampane Goldenrod ...

  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...