nature

Nature

 

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Keep close to Nature’s heart… and break clear away, once in awhile, and climb a mountain or spend a week in the woods. Wash your spirit clean.
John Muir

I live in a sprawling suburb outside of Phoenix. We need to get in the car in order to go shopping. I wish I could walk to a farmer’s market, but suburbs weren’t made for walking.

Once in awhile, my family goes out to the protected county park adjacent to our neighborhood. We hike the trails and talk and laugh. The outing is relaxing and refreshing both physically and mentally.

My favorite places to be out:

 

Where do you go?

 

 

 

 

The Genius of Genus

butterfly

The butterfly’s head was buried in the rocks, her beautiful wings were chevrons trembling in the wind.

Gingerly, I lifted her out. Half of one wing was gone – eaten?

She was shaking. Or was it just the wind? Was she already dead? I brought her into the house and laid her on a small plate. She shivered, and then she was still.  I want to keep her, selfishly, to admire her beauty.

vulture
Terrible picture – my phone camera is s-l-o-w.  Vulture walked away from the carcass here.

Today, we saw four turkey vultures preying on something. They were on the sidewalk! We drove right up to them. A small rabbit had been dismembered and disemboweled. Body parts all over the pavement. We drove away and were gone for three hours. When we returned, everything was gone: the rabbit, the vultures…Nature is efficient. She wastes nothing.

 

 

Tiebacks

cactus with tiebacks
Our Ocotillo

We’re growing various plants in our backyard, including an herb garden and, of course, cactus. My favorite desert plant is the ocotillo. I see them growing magnificently in Usery Park (where they grow wildly and without irrigation) but in my own backyard, it’s taking its time. We don’t want the branches to grow out into the pathway, so we placed tiebacks on the branches to “encourage” and “redirect” growth in our desired formation.

Tiebacks work when the plant is still supple and maturing, and the tiebacks are gentle in their support. It wouldn’t work to have harsh restraints which could harm or kill parts of the plant.

Humans have tiebacks, too. They’re called habits. As with plant tiebacks, they’re most effective when we’re receptive and “supple” and when the habits are firm, but not too harsh.

 

 

 

 

Rituals

 

This morning, my husband and I woke up, started making coffee and wondered out loud, “Should we make coffee and THEN walk, or walk and come back to coffee?”  Since the Arizona weather has cooled, we’ve started a new weekend ritual: while our daughters sleep in, we go for a walk with Opal, our pitbull rescue. We have been going to a new park next to the elementary school in our community. The design includes a winding walkway, a water pump, simple signs describing wild life and cacti and of course, quail, jackrabbits, ground squirrels, roadrunners, gila woodpeckers, mourning doves, cactus wren and various cacti.

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We’re out for an hour or so. Yesterday, we went to the new park. This morning, we walked in Usery Park. We walk down several blocks from our home and cross a wash and voila! Usery. It’s protected and the plants there survive without any irrigation, it’s xeriscape at it’s best. Opal darts in and out and inevitably catches cholla on her paws. But she’s in heaven and so are we.

Walking in nature, one feels a sense of peace unmatched in one’s daily life. The open, blue sky above….the vast landscape of untouched nature ahead….the utter joy of one’s dog leaping and chasing jackrabbits and then limping back to us, asking us to remove thorns from her paw. It’s times like these, where you feel you’re really looking at the Big Picture and you realize what is truly important: love and presence.