Late Autumn 2020
This has been a difficult year for so many people with the pandemic. As a result of my husband's heart attack, I have also experienced a reactivation of the post-traumatic stress disorder I have lived with for nearly thirty years. I have drawn on everything I've learned to be able to walk through this year without flying apart and overburdening the other people in my household.
Nobody has experienced this type of year before, but one piece of the pandemic seems familiar to me. Whenever I experience the resurgence of mental illness, there is a sense of isolation. Even though I am lonely at times, it is actually awful for me to be around people. I have to self-quarantine because I am so sensitive to others' moods that I feel like a peeled grape in the middle of the floor of a busy train station. After forays into public, I often come home squashed and in need of healing.
I feel safest either in my garden or walking through a forest. I am never alone in Nature, plus all the plants and creatures with me are living their lives authentically. They expect nothing from me and so I am able to offer support in gentle ways, like creating nesting spaces, planting native food plants, or just appreciating their beauty. Everything I do for them comes back to me in the joy of seeing them thrive.
Nature also brings its own rhythm of integration to my life. Death is part of the whole cycle. It has its place. I didn't always feel that way. I saw my own death approach during a car accident when I was a teenager. It wasn't my time, but I was seriously injured and my sense of immortality was stripped away. It was very frightening at a young age to know how close death walks to us.
Yesterday morning, my son, husband, and I walked a river trail where the salmon run is winding to a close. All the eagles and gulls were well fed. The salmons' gift of new life is not only deposited at the bottom of the river in their fertilized eggs, but in the blessing of their nutrient-rich carcasses. Their return home from the ocean ensures the health of the entire ecosystem.
It took many years to return to myself and I'm still learning to stay present. Perhaps that is what this year is doing for everyone. We are no longer able to pretend as a species that we have a guaranteed life span. We can live fearlessly with that knowledge, but it is a strange new perspective. We really do need to reach out and learn from Nature, where everything lives in the moment.
The more we can support the life around us the more we will be supported by it. The process of healing the natural world really does heal us all. There are groups all around the world who are involved in restoring habitats, preserving wilderness, and lobbying for change in forestry and industrial practices. Everywhere there are doors into the wild world. If we step through with respect and humility, observing wilderness and resisting the desire to tame, there is the guarantee of a good life, whatever the duration.
Nobody has experienced this type of year before, but one piece of the pandemic seems familiar to me. Whenever I experience the resurgence of mental illness, there is a sense of isolation. Even though I am lonely at times, it is actually awful for me to be around people. I have to self-quarantine because I am so sensitive to others' moods that I feel like a peeled grape in the middle of the floor of a busy train station. After forays into public, I often come home squashed and in need of healing.
I feel safest either in my garden or walking through a forest. I am never alone in Nature, plus all the plants and creatures with me are living their lives authentically. They expect nothing from me and so I am able to offer support in gentle ways, like creating nesting spaces, planting native food plants, or just appreciating their beauty. Everything I do for them comes back to me in the joy of seeing them thrive.
Nature also brings its own rhythm of integration to my life. Death is part of the whole cycle. It has its place. I didn't always feel that way. I saw my own death approach during a car accident when I was a teenager. It wasn't my time, but I was seriously injured and my sense of immortality was stripped away. It was very frightening at a young age to know how close death walks to us.
Yesterday morning, my son, husband, and I walked a river trail where the salmon run is winding to a close. All the eagles and gulls were well fed. The salmons' gift of new life is not only deposited at the bottom of the river in their fertilized eggs, but in the blessing of their nutrient-rich carcasses. Their return home from the ocean ensures the health of the entire ecosystem.
It took many years to return to myself and I'm still learning to stay present. Perhaps that is what this year is doing for everyone. We are no longer able to pretend as a species that we have a guaranteed life span. We can live fearlessly with that knowledge, but it is a strange new perspective. We really do need to reach out and learn from Nature, where everything lives in the moment.
The more we can support the life around us the more we will be supported by it. The process of healing the natural world really does heal us all. There are groups all around the world who are involved in restoring habitats, preserving wilderness, and lobbying for change in forestry and industrial practices. Everywhere there are doors into the wild world. If we step through with respect and humility, observing wilderness and resisting the desire to tame, there is the guarantee of a good life, whatever the duration.
Summer 2020 Constellation
July 2020
May 2020
2020 -- The First Four Months
This year kicked off with some nice time together as a family. Then our daughter went back to university and we have been separated from her ever since due to the COVID-19 lockdown. Thankfully, though, we are all healthy.
I have been adding more food plants to the garden to combat uncertainty about the future. It is quite overgrown in places and although many insects love that, many vegetables do not. Thankfully, my asparagus patch is fairly established now and pushes its way up each year no matter how many plants are getting in the way. (For some reason my camera wanted to focus on the foxglove instead of these delicious asparagus spears.) I have a lot of work ahead of me to clear space for the seedlings I have started, but it has been a nicely paced spring, with rainy day rests in which to recover from the long bouts of weeding. In previous years, my parents often came over to help in the garden, but they are staying safe in their bubble right now. I have to say that I am humbled by the beauty in their garden. It is clear that much of what I have over here is thanks to my dad's building and composting skills and my mom's rock work, edging, design, and overall perseverance in the realm of space-making. I feel extremely fortunate to have a nature retreat right at home and it has carried me through the waves of emotion that many of us are experiencing throughout this time. May you be wrapped in gentle kindness as you each find the strength that will help us all move into the future safely together. |