Green Tribe of Belonging

  Compassion for Weeds My heart goes out to the plants we call weeds. How would we feel if we were treated as unwelcome even though we were beautifully growing somewhere? How do these strong and resilient unwanted plants feel when they are hated, eradicated, and labeled as undesirable? In truth, they are the strongest plants in our ecosystems, growing without human assistance, filling their own needs. Don’t we owe them our admiration? At least a nod of congratulation? I think of them as brave explorers, journeying through the world, finding just the right place to grow, to mature and spread seeds. These plants have evolved over time into their own unique forms, all different, all with special qualities that help them survive. Some have developed root systems that spread underground. Some  grow winged seeds that are carried by the wind. Some stretch tall enough to catch the sun even in a crowded field. Some attract the perfect foragers who plant for future generations. When I p...

 These are challenging days we're all living through on this earth. Yes, there have been hard times before, but what we know now is that environmentally, these hard times are directly threatening our home. Our home is the friendly and supportive planet we've been nourished and held by all our lives. When we have the courage to look at the statistics, to look at the projections into the future, it can be so scary that things feel hopeless. It might feel like we should just bury our heads in the sand, stay home and wait for the end! Even when I'm getting joy out of watching nature documentaries, always now at the end there is a warning: this wonderful natural world will not last unless we do something to halt the progress of climate change. Now. So though I am left filled with beautiful images from the films, I end up being reminded that we are in a crisis of huge proportions. All of us.  When we're alone in our homes, being reminded of the climate crisis and asked to do ...

  Pulled into Wildness Late afternoon on a hot and humid day. As I walk home, I sense a change in the air, A pause around me as birds stop their singing, A heaviness in the atmosphere, a quietness   that is the beginning of something coming. A panorama of clouds fills the wide open sky, Hazy and dull in the east, dark and looming in the west, And in the sky’s center, storm clouds moving fast toward me, Changing shape as they travel,  hovering nearer the ground. Lightning streaks from high to low as thunder rumbles in the distance. I stand still, waiting, watching, my breath coming slowly. A solitary raindrop falls at my feet, and then another. And suddenly a torrent of rain comes down around me   as I rush to the shelter of my front porch. Loud sounds of raindrops fill the air, steady and hard. And then comes the wind, whipping tree limbs,  Whirling the garden of flowers and ferns nearby. And piercing through the storm blares the siren from City’s cent...

 When I was a girl, I wanted to be a doctor. That was after I wanted to be an explorer in deepest Africa, and then a mail carrier bringing all those precious letters to people. There were so many professions to choose from! But by the time I got to high school, my dream of being a doctor was firmly established. And fortunately I grew up in a local culture where women were not excluded from important roles. I subscribed to Scientific American, read up on medical discoveries, and was really psyched about my future. Then I went to college. You would think that in college they would have encouraged even young women to follow their dreams. But time and again, my advisor discouraged me from pursuing that dream. He finally said that this kind of education would be wasted on me, for I would just get married and have children. And I was so deflated by that opinion that indeed I ultimately dropped out of college, got married, and had children. I doubt that my advisor's attitude would be as c...

I wish I'd thought to post this on the blog before now (just one day before this event)! But I guess it's better now than not at all. If you're in the Iowa City area and are interested in coming to harvest medicinal herbs Saturday morning at 10, you're welcome to do so!   I remember last year when I did an herb-harvesting day, some folks were wishing that we could do that earlier in the season. Good idea! Some herbs, whose roots are the main part we use, are probably best harvested in the fall when the energy has gone back to the roots. But we use the above-ground parts of many medicinals, and now is a great time to harvest them. I'm proposing that if any of you are interested, this coming Saturday morning (6/29) at 10 would work for me to be out in the garden to help anyone find and harvest the following plants (see below). I'm including a little description with each plant, telling you what we've found that they're good for in human health. If you'...

 When I was a kid on the farm, one of my little household jobs was to take the strainer full of scraps to the garbage pile out back by the burnpile. These were vegetable shavings and pieces from food prep as well as leftovers from the table. That was my first experience with a "compost pile." Later when I was an adult gardener, I began to understand how decomposing vegetation played an important role in fertilizing the earth's soil, and I made a more deliberate compost pile. Now, living at Prairie Hill Cohousing where my personal garden space is convenient to members for dumping grass clippings and pulled weeds, I have what is definitely the biggest compost pile of my life. I always knew there were processes taking place below the surface, and that if our pile heated up, it was a good sign that something important was happening. But now that I have done some research on composting, I am amazed that I have been such a total novice on this subject! Why did I never learn mor...

 My next blog post was to be about compost, composting, the miraculous process that happens without us even noticing. But I still need to do some research, so I'll share a poem I wrote tonight instead. Sometimes at a end of a long day, I like to sit quietly and intentionally think about the good things. And this is what came out tonight. I recommend this evening process, just a few minutes to forget about all the things we have to do, the schedules and responsibilities and challenges. Let the things you love shine through.... Things I’m Thankful for A brisk breeze on a hot day. An exchanged glance with a chipmunk   peeking out from my garden box. The understanding and acceptance of a friend. The broad wings of a hawk    that sweep it high above the pasture. Enough water for me and my plants. The technology that allows me to   talk to someone far away. The resilience that lets us    grow wiser from hard times.  The love that alw...