Green Tribe of Belonging

 Living in this world can make you wonder where it's all going. Some days it seems just too depressing to watch the news. Our problems can feel overwhelming, and it's tempting to just hide your head in the sand and ignore the red flags waving on so many fronts. On those days, it helps for me to pull away from the planet, imagine I'm floating around among the stars and then look down on the earth. What I see from up there is such a beautiful place, so intricate and lush and amazing in its multitude of landscapes, its living creatures, its climate that supports millions of life forms. In all our known universe, this is unique. Our home has evolved over millions of years into a world friendly to life. And we get to live here! That's what I view from high above the surface. But I also view the struggles of our species. We have come a long way since those early ancestors. In this age of technology, we have become proficient in an incredible variety of things. And yet we flou...

 We've probably all noticed lichen when we're out in Nature, or even right outside our homes. They're humble things, not demanding much of our attention. But we often see them on the trunks of trees or on smooth rock faces. The fascinating thing to me about lichens is that they are a perfect example of two entirely different beings coming together to make one organism. And there are over 13,000 species of lichen! When they found each other, they didn't stop, but expanded into so many, many forms. Fungi are the dominant partner of this duo. About 80% of the lichen body is made up of the fungus. But fungus have a hard time  making food without help. So they often join with a green algae or cyanobacteria, both of whom use photosynthesis to translate sun energy into nourishment. These different organisms join together in a symbiotic relationship that benefits both parties. There are three main forms of lichen: Crustase (like crust), Foliose (like leaves), and Friticose (tub...

 Women's roles are in the news these days. We are seeing a high-profile group doing what it can to push women back into subservience. Of course, being a woman, I don't like this much! In fact, it is hard for me to imagine that anyone could gain traction with that kind of philosophy today. But contrary to my opinion, it would seem that there is a large contingent of our society that is now embracing male domination, shuttling women back into their previous low-profile places as homebodies. Besides being angry about this development, I decided to step back a bit and get some perspective. Our species has only been around a few thousand years, and our modern selves for much less. I wanted to find out the history of patriarchy, not only for humans, but for other life forms as well. Where did this come from, I wondered? On the surface, women are fully as intelligent as men. So why have we tended to put men on top? I learned a lot. For instance, most prehistoric societies of our speci...

Some folks have dogs. Some have cats, or birds or fish or turtles. But my non-human friends are plants: big, small, old, young. Some have been with me for years. Some came as gifts or are divided from other plants. In the place of honor is my Grandmother’s wedding present: a 120-year-old Boston fern. Beside it sprawls the night-blooming cereus, which inspires bloom parties every summer. Moses-in-the-bulrushes comes next with its little boats of flowers. And high above hangs a lush green vine beside little offspring from the spider plant. The spindly geraniums dug up from outside have bloomed their hearts out all winter, while the 3 hearty-looking ones from the store stubbornly refuse to bloom. These are just a few of the green and growing friends  who share my home all winter long. I can’t imagine being without them. They feel essential to my sanity and my connection to the world. Both they and I have learned to live safe inside while we wait for spring to set us free.

 We know that in many ways, patterns in later adult life are shaped by the environment we had as children. Even though we might decide to rebel against our upbringing when we grow up, we may notice many years later that some fundamental things stay with us. What I've been realizing about my own early years is that they shaped me into being most at home in the outdoors. I grew up on a big Iowa farm, and all my free time was spent exploring and playing in the many landscapes a farm provides. When I was not in school, I was with my cousin John, who lived just across a couple fields from our big farmhouse. We climbed trees, rafted down the Wapsinonac Creek, rode on the hay wagon as the crop was coming into the barn. We made hideouts in the "haymow", skated on the pond, sledded down the hills. I quietly crept into the chicken house to gather eggs and watched little pigs being born in the pig barn. In the mornings, I heard my dad getting up early, whistling, buckets clanking as...

It's been a busy couple of weeks here at Prairie Hill. Yet I'm told that a blog needs to post at least every two weeks. So here's something I wrote awhile back but never posted. Nice to have something like this as a back-up!   On this January Sunday morning, I had the pleasure of waiting at the front of my home for a ride to Friends Meeting. There was a thick fog, the temperature was mild, and it had not decided to start raining yet. The trees around our community stood out exquisitely from the fog. They had beautiful, intricate forms, all different shapes set against the horizon. I could have stood there for far longer, marveling at the beauty. And then when I got to Friends Meeting, the tree theme continued. As I was settling into the silence, I looked around me and found that there was wood everywhere. The benches we were sitting on were made of wood, old fashioned plain sturdy benches with wooden pegs to hold them together. And the floor under my feet was made of wooden...

 Another day in our frozen world. The temperature has gotten clear up to 5 above zero this morning, but it is supposed to fall back to 15 below zero tonight. It's a time for quiet, for inside activities, for contemplation. Fortunately, my family of plants keep me company. Many of them have been with me for ten or fifteen years, some much longer. When it gets so cold outside, my first concern is for the plants. I want to make sure that it doesn't freeze inside! I can put on warm clothes but my plants can't. So far, though, our electricity has not gone out during this long frozen spell and the temperature has stayed well above freezing inside.  This morning as I was doing my yoga routine, I felt a companionable closeness to the tall plants that surrounded my exercise mat. There is the 120-year-old fern that was first given to my grandmother at her wedding, thriving green fronds curving over to grace the wooden table it lives on. Beside it, a huge night-blooming cereus is reac...