Blog Action Day: What can I do from the center of my circle?

Today is Blog Action Day. Each year on October 15, bloggers around the world join forces to write on one topic. This year's topic: climate change.

As a follower of an earth-centered or nature-based spirituality, you would think the topic would be near and dear to my heart and show up frequently in this blog. You would be half right. Since you haven't seen a lot of posts about it, you probably know which half.

Yes, I care...deeply. And it's a big, big topic...too big for me to wrap my head around most of the time. I find it easier to talk about basic human rights and gratitude because those are things that I feel most empowered to do something about. My path of action isn't as clear about everything. Scientists and environmentalists argue; politicians rail about emminent doom or scream that it's all for progress and for the best. Both the science and politics confound me.

Since scientists haven't nailed it down completley yet, I don't feel too bad.  Amid the debate of what is and what isn't really happening, my favorite definition or explanation so far is this:

Anthropogenic factors are human activities that change the environment. In some cases the chain of causality of human influence on the climate is direct and unambiguous (for example, the effects of irrigation on local humidity), whilst in other instances it is less clear. Various hypotheses for human-induced climate change have been argued for many years. Presently the scientific consensus on climate change is that human activity is very likely the cause for the rapid increase in global average temperatures over the past several decades.[22] Consequently, the debate has largely shifted onto ways to reduce further human impact and to find ways to adapt to change that has already occurred.[23] (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change Retrieved 10-15-09)

Which brings me to the "action" part of Blog Action Day. What can we do about it? How can we "reduce human impact"... or at least make our impact positive?

Forget for a minute the political landscape, power struggles, oil companies, manufacturing...and focus on your personal environment. Picture yourself as the center of a circle with a radius of 100 feet. What is contained within your circle? Let's for a moment consider that circle your Sphere of Influence. What changes could you, personally, make within your Sphere?

I've been assessing my own Sphere of Influence, and I've come up with mixed results.

I'm at home this morning. Within my personal Sphere of Influence, the light is on the bathroom, though no one is in there. My refrigerator is stocked with food, much of which came from very far away. I have shoes in my closet that were made on another continent and had to be shipped here by a variety of coal and steam and fossil-fuel powered conveyences. My car is a mid-sized, gas-burning sedan that seats five, and it usually carries only me or, occasionally, my husband and me.

My Pagan-who-loves-the-earth score isn't very high, is it?

On the other hand, I'm working from home this morning rather than firing up the car for the 40 mile round trip to the office and back. We grew a garden this year, eating and sharing food that didn't have to be trucked or shipped from anywhere, fertilized with compost we made all year, and bearing not a trace of pesticide. That garden patch has already been replanted for fall with healthy turnip greens. My recycle bin, currently overflowing in the kitchen, is full of plastic, glass, and paper that won't end up in the landfill.

The saying comes to mind: "Just because I can't do everything, it doesn't mean I can't do something."

That saying is quickly followed by: "Just because I'm doing something, it doesn't mean I can't do more."

More garden next year means purchasing less food floated over oceans or trucked over road and rail. Moving to full-time work at home reduces emissions from car trips. Seeking out local vendors when possible reduces a little more. And it's all within my little Sphere of Influence.

Also within my Sphere of Influence this morning is my keyboard, reaching out to you to ask you to join me, to raise our awareness of what we can act on ourselves. It's admirable to understand the larger issues in climate change, to take political action and make a difference globally. It's equally admirable...and just as necessary...to take action within arm's reach.

I'm doing it now. I can still do much more. And I'd like to know what you're doing. Please share your ideas and the actions you're taking within your own Sphere of Influence. Together, we can all do more.

Illustration credit:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/notionscapital/ / CC BY 2.0

Remembering a Smile

A friend is crossing the veil today...and the Old Ones will welcome one of their own, a bright smile and beautiful spirit. 


Friend, father, husband, brother, son...Kelly will be remembered with love.

My eyes look to the west tonight...rest well, friend...well done.

Kelly's death is a stark reminder of just how thin and fragile is the line between death and life. We go about our lives each day as though tomorrow, next week, next year were a given. How could it not be so? To live, to participate fully in the world requires that we assume that our next breath will follow, that our heart will continue to beat steadily, that tomorrow will see us rise sleepily and start another day.

And yet we know that there are no guarantees. The next heart beat, the next second, is not a given. All that is sure is that our lives in this body will end.

We talk about the sanctity of life and take vast measures to preserve life while, all the while, our bodies are surely preparing for that life to end. As Pagans, we embrace the physical as part and parcel of the spiritual; there is no difference. We don't view our life on Earth as a trial to be endured until we reach heaven. Life is full and rich and complete right here. But it seems to me that we fall short of fully embracing this physical experience because we still haven't come to terms with death and dying.

As I wrote that last sentence, I caught myself thinking, "Who can possibly hope to come to terms with death? Dying isn't natural."  I recognize that thought as a carryover from my Christian background. In the Christian mythos, death entered the world through sin and disobedience. Before the first man and woman disobeyed Jehovah, they were destined to live forever. From that perspective, death is not a natural part of living and accepting it as such makes no sense.

But I don't subscribe to that mythos. When I look around me, everything in nature tells me that death is, indeed, a part of life...that we enter the world, grow, spread seed and set fruit, and finally slow down and die. And in all the natural world, we seem to be the only ones who treat death and the process of dying as we do. We rarely even speak the words...die, died, dead. We say "passed away," "crossed over," "left this earthly plane." We celebrate birth, idolize youth, make heroes of our adults, hide or hide from our elders, and shun death.

There is a gap in our studies, in our liturgy, our literature, and our world view. To embrace the physical life we need to embrace all of that life, including how it will end. Death has been shortchanged in our culture and in our teaching. We need to learn to look sickness, aging, and death in the eye, to meet it as squarely and with as much acceptance as meet conception and birth, to sit comfortably in the presence of our own mortality.

There are few books written from a Pagan perspective that deal directly with death and dying. I know one, The Pagan Book of Living and Dying by Starhawk, and I highly recommend it. I'd be very interested in any other recommendations you might make. ADDED 10/6/09: I neglected to mention another book, More than Meets the Eye by Yvonne Perry.  Yvonne's book is filled with stories of contact with those who have died, both from her own experience and that of others.

I'm going to buy a copy of the Starhawk book and donate it to our local Hospice library, and I'm going to make a point to do more writing and work on my relationship with life from beginning all the way to and through the end. I invite you to join me.

Be Amazed and Delighted!

What fascinates you? Captures your attention, fires your imagination, drives you to learn more, and creates in you a sense of mystery and wonder?

I was playing around in my photo editor this morning, working with a photo I'd snapped of a Gerbera Daisy in my garden after a rain shower a few days ago. I dropped out all the background and adjusted the colors for more or less pure primary hues - blue, yellow, and red.

While not exactly high art, the result made me smile. It reminded me of the fascination I had as a child learning the color wheel. The idea that all the beautiful colors in the world can be traced back to just three primary colors was extraordinary knowledge for me. I had the keys to the kingdom! I could make colors...glorious, unlimited, vibrant, rich, joyous colors...from just three little pots of paint! Oh, the messes I made with that little bit of knowledge!

My fascination with the properties of color never went away. While most of the other kids were worried about whether to sharpen their crayons or peel and color sideways, I was happily exploring opposites - green and red, blue and orange, purple and yellow - and finally figuring out the difference between red-violet and violet-red.

As I reminesced about my joy, I wondered: When did I last feel that way? As adults, we seem to lose much of the sense of wonder we had when we were children, and I don't know why. We certainly haven't learned everything! There's a world of knowledge, a universe full of miracles and wonders that, like the mystery of color, can capture and fire our imaginations. How do we let ourselves miss that?

So here's my wish for today: Let's be fascinated with something. Find a mystery and delve into it with enthusiasm and wonder. Let's close our eyes for a moment, and open them as the eyes of a child, amazed and delighted.

"Let the fascination come on and rain all over me..." - Melissa Etheridge

Photo by Linda Davenport 2009

Come September (Love Lives On)

You’re leaving, aren’t you?

Yes.

Why?

How many times must we go through this? I’m tired. I’m done. There is nothing more I can do here.

But I love you! How can you just leave like this? What we have is so…so…intense.

Intense…that’s a good word for it. Too intense. All on, all the time…nobody can sustain that forever. It’s too demanding, too draining, too…

Too what? Too much for you? Fine…go! And I don’t ever want to see you again!

[raised eyebrow] Careful…

I just can’t stand to see you go! Gods, we were hot! Sizzling days…steamy nights…fertile and lush and…

Yes…yes, we were all that and more. But don’t you see? It can’t last. It never does. Haven’t you felt the cooling? Our nights aren’t quite so steamy these days. Let’s face it…things change…I’m losing my luster and I know what’s coming for me…and for you. If we kept going like we have been, we’d burn ourselves up completely. No one can take that kind of passion, that heat, forever.

You’ll be back, you know. You always come back.

[smile] I will be back. And when I see you next, you’ll be rested, refreshed. You’ll have slept through the cold nights and walked quietly through the short days. Ahh, but that’s when I can’t stay away from you! Your heart will be young once more, your blood singing in your veins, open and aching for me. And I’ll come to you, young and fiery, unable to get my fill of you. I’ll take you over and over and…

Enough! Stop! If you keep talking like that, I'll burn up right now!

Ohhh...I know you have to go. Don’t think I haven’t noticed the changes in me, too…how tired I look, my color…I know you’re going. Just don’t forget…don’t get lost in the cold, dark nights when the wind howls.

I'll think of you every morning when I see the sun rise over the fields. I'll walk outside and see my breath…and I'll dream of the days when you’ll take my breath away. I know you’ll be back…I have to believe you’ll be back.

I’ve always returned and I always will. Love lives on. Rest well, Beloved…you won’t get much sleep when I come back. [grin]

I’ll be here, my Love…waiting…with a crocus in my hair and a daffodil in my hand. Just don’t be late, ok?

I never am. Look for me as the days lengthen again. You’ll feel me before you see me, in the sudden softness of the morning, the song of the stream bed. Your scent will change as I grow closer, and I’ll know you’re ready to receive me again. We’ll make love and babies and grow full and abundant together again.

Go…go before I beg you to stay. Go, my love…and hurry home.


All photos by Linda Davenport except top (valley overlook) by Elisabeth Hon.

Take a Walk With Me...

My day started with a walk in the woods behind our home. Nothing spectacular happened...unless you count just being in the woods as the sun climbs over the ridge...and I do.

Come with me...

Spider webs abound. I didn't have the heart to damage this one. She'd already taken a hit (near the top) and her tasty breakfast was trapped in the center. I changed my entire route to avoid tearing up her web...

...and because I changed routes, I met this little guy on the path. We always talk about turtles being slow, but his one was right spritely! He slowed down a bit when he figured out I wasn't going to grab him, but not before he covered some ground.

Sometimes the simplest things are really pretty. I don't even know what this plant is, but the gracefullness of the slender stems and tiny leaves just caught my eye.

Another gift...a tiny trumpet vine blossom...very small but the bight orange color jumped out at me.

And I got to indulge my fascination with leaves. There is something just so damned beautiful in the lines and patterns. Blackberry leaves, I believe, and don't you love those sawtooth edges?

Finally, my favorite sight of the morning...a dead branch hosting a lively bunch of lichen and moss. There are at least three different types on this one branch, and they're so pretty. (click on the photo to get a better view) The branch is "dead"...or is it? It's supporting all that life. Who's to say?

Thanks for letting me take you along. If you get a chance, go take a walk outside and see what you can see. It's an amazing world.

Photos by Linda Davenport, August 2009

Red Tailed Hawk

I work downtown, and we have some of the most interesting wildlife here.  Yesterday, a red tailed hawk who frequents the area perched and posed for me just outside my office building. What a treat! Click on the pictures for a larger view. 

Click here to learn more about these beautiful birds.  Red Tailed Hawks are also powerful totem animals.

These hawks are exceptional hunters, and falconers prize them.  Experienced falconers prefer to acquire a red tailed hawk in the first year (it may actually be illegal to take them for falconry after the first year). Beyond that first year, the hawks have picked up "uncooperative adult habits." 

Isn't it the same with us? We have such potential, yet often our "uncooperative adult habits" prevent us from taking our talents and gifts as far as they can go. It's harder to unlearn behavior in later years; paying attention to wisdom and shaping our talents early in life is easier than overcoming years of thought patterns and behaviors that don't serve. We have such power if only we can shed our uncooperative habits!

Thank goodness it's never too late!  An adult Red Tailed Hawk may never become a falconer's bird, but I can keep working on me to the end of this life and beyond. That's good...I'll need all the time I can get.

Gracious Goddess, help me to say yes to this day and the lessons it brings, to pay attention, and to turn around the less-than-productive behaviors I've stockpiled through the years. If I can get rid of the years of accumulated crap, I should have room for just about anything you want to send me...but I'm going to need help clearing out the space.

"For all that has been - thanks. For all that will be - yes." (Dag Hammerskold)

Photos by Linda Davenport, August 2009.

Do You Speak 'Mater?

Do you ever have those moments when something you don't even know you know comes gently into your mind, into your set of knowledge, as if it had always been there? Comfortable, old knowledge...something you know in your skin, in your breath...know without effort.

I am not a knowledgeable gardner. My beloved is far more knowledgeable than I am about these things, and even he will quickly tell you he's still learning.  But once in a while, I feel so intimately connected to and aware of the plants, the soil, the blossoms and the ripening fruit. It feels like knowing a person, someone you're so intimate with, even if you can't articulate what you know about them, you just know. Ya' know?

Yeah, sounds a bit woo-woo...but it's a real feeling just the same. It's like a language I think I've forgotten that floats back into my conciousness from time to time. My father spoke that language. He loved growing things...loved the dirt, the green, and the beautiful harvest that fed his family and his soul.

I feel him sometimes...like the other day when I placed the umpteenth tomato in the kitchen windowsill to ripen. The window was full and I swear I heard him chuckle, "Whatcha' gonna do with the rest of them 'maters in the garden, gal? You need a couple more windows!"

Dad, I've only got one kitchen window, but I have lots of friends who are enjoying these tomatoes, just like your friends did. Briana and Sarah both love 'em warm, fresh off the vine. We eat 'em with breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and I even made spaghetti sauce with my own fresh tomatoes last week.

Ah, but what am I telling you all this for. I'm sure you already know.

Photos: Linda Davenport 2009

Garden Goodness

Just sharing some joy from the garden. We've started harvesting vegetables regularly now, but we've been havesting beauty for weeks. Enjoy!

Blackberries for Breakfast

I had blackberries for breakfast this morning

grown on a nearby mountain by a couple

no longer young but still in their prime.

I tasted their youth,

felt the grit between my teeth
of a too-tight budget and a too-small house,

smelled their dreams of acreage, farmland, a life made rich and full

by sweat and soil and a solid work ethic.

I mashed up my berries

and watched the juice run in the bowl,

saw blood from blistered hands

and heard the curses muttered under the breath

when another machine went down

and there was no money to fix it.

I lifted my spoon to my mouth and

tasted a first good harvest on land long saved for,

good years and lean years,

pungent, fertile ground and dust,

sun, rain, wind, drought, and storm,

sweet and tart together,

still gritty from time to time

but full and juicy and rich,

a breakfast so full of life

I could taste it.

Earth Day - More Than Just Recycling

I'm enjoying the flurry of messages bounding around my workplace, each encouraging us to recycle, plant trees, grow flowers, drive less, walk more...all the good, green practices that Earth Day brings to top of mind.

Along with all those active, Earth-friendly practices, I'd like to suggest that we add a mindfulness component to our Earth Day:

• When you eat a meal, take a moment to be mindful of every aspect of that meal - where it was grown, how it got here, how it was prepared, wrapped, served. Who touched it along the way to bring it to you? Savor it all, not just the food but all the energy that went into bringing you nourishment.
• When you work, take a moment to be mindful of all the tools you work with - the paper, the equipment, the power that runs them. Think about everything that went into bringing those things to your hand at this moment. What are they made of? Where did they come from? Who made them? Under what conditions? How did they get here?
• When you walk outside, take a moment to be mindful of everything you see - the natural elements and the manmade. How do they work together? What impact does each have on the other? Are they thriving side-by-side? What do you see-hear-feel-smell? Sense the energy of the space; is it calm, peaceful, harmonious...or is it chaotic, agitated, discordant? Why?
• When you walk inside, take a moment to feel the floor below you, to breathe the air, to notice the light. Try tracing all the elements of your indoor environment all the way back to their origins. Do you know what they're made of, how they're made, how they get here?
• Notice the people you see, those you speak to and those you don't. Earth is not just grass and trees, clean air and water. WE are Earth, too. What can you do to promote health, harmony, happiness among the human natural resources in your life?

Mindfulness is a step toward gratitude...and those who know me, know I'm all about gratitude. When we view the world through grateful eyes, it changes the way we see everything, and the way we live.

Happy Earth Day, my Earthly friends (those I know, and those I don't)!

3,000 Beautiful Words

Sharing some beautiful things that have captured my eye, my lens, my heart of late...

Heraclitus said (loosely paraphrased) that a man cannot stand in the same stream twice because it is never the same stream and he is not the same man. We are constantly in flux, dynamic, evolving, works of art and works in progress.  The stream is always moving.
 

I love sunrise, expecially in winter. As the days grow short and cold, the daily affirmation that the wheel is always turning warms me and renews my spirit. From light to dark to light again, from strength to weakness and back to strength...take no great pride in days of light...feel no great despair in days of darkness...turn, turn, turn...

Beautiful things are everywhere..like this gentle gift from a farmer's market awhile back. I'm grateful that glowing slivers of July can be saved through the lens to light the shadowy corners of January.

Photos by Autumn Heartsong; Stream in Cosby, Tennessee, USA; Sunrise in my back yard, Harrison, Tennessee, USA; Sunflower and Grapes, informal farmer's market, Chattanooga, Tennessee, USA.

Wise Old Owl

I was running through some photo archives this morning and ran across this one. I took it almost exactly one year ago when the owl made a rare daylight visit to a tree just outside the building where I work, right in the heart of downtown.

Owls are associated with wisdom in many cultures, and with death and dying in some. Greek, Native American, and Celtic mythology are filled with references to owls. What is it about the bird that creates such powerful connections?

Owls appear to be silent watchers. With eyes focused straight ahead and 360 degree field of vision, they observe without speaking. With faces that don't show expression (at least not that the majority of us would recognize), they appear detached, remote, just watching, waiting for the right moment to snag a meal or move along to avoid danger.

I supposed we all recognize on some level that observation is one of the keys to wisdom and that talking all the time doesn't leave much room for observing. It's possible we even recognize that, no matter how much you observe, much of it doesn't require comment. There have been many times in my life where I would have been wiser to remain silent!

Maybe our younger self knows, too, the wisdom of detachment. We are all connected, all made of the same stuff, and yet we all move and live and operate separately. We have an enormous amount of influence and very little control over all but ourselves. Maybe the owl teaches us to know the difference.

To not use our influence where we can is cowardice; to attempt to control what is not ours to control is madness. Wisdom is in knowing one from the other, acting with skill and courage where we can, and gently detaching from those things that are not ours to change. I think Owl might have been influencing the original author of an old Mother Goose rhyme:

For every ailment under the sun
There is a remedy, or there is none;
If there be one, try to find it;
If there be none, never mind it.

May we all have the courage to exert whatever influence we have for the good of all, and the wisdom to let go of what is not ours to control.

7,000 beautiful words...

...pictures from recent weekend jaunts. Nature saves her finest garments each year for the next to-last-dance...then does the last one naked and unashamed. Enjoy these photos from her all-dressed-up dance!









Photos by Autumn Heartsong; 1 - 6, Little River Canyon, Alabama, USA; 7, Cloudland Canyon State Park, Georgia, USA

A View of the Mountain - Autumn in my Life

Looking out my kitchen window this afternoon, I caught the first glimpse of White Oak Mountain in the distance that I've seen since late March, maybe early April. In spring and summer, the trees completely block the mountain view, so much so that you wouldn't know the mountain was there if you didn't know the area.

Not exactly earth-shatterng news, is it? Trees shed their leaves every fall, graceful branches standing naked and unashamed, revealing sky and views hidden when they're all decked out in foliage. What struck me as I was looking out that window was how the trees and the mountain view were mirroring my own life right now.

I'm 52. My birth daughter is days away from 28, and my two step-daughters will soon be 20 and 18. The nature of my role as Mom has changed dramatically in the last few years. My baby girls are now beautiful young women, quite self-sufficient most of the time, and are actively pursuing their own interests. There are spaces in my life now that used to be crowded, spaces that reveal views I've missed for a long time.

I've reached the early autumn of my life and the leaves are falling. As those leaves drop away, the me that I used to know when I was a child is coming back into view.

I like her. She's creative, thoughtful, a writer and a photographer with an eye for beautiful things and a desire to share them with others. She's smart and she has a sense of humor She loves to cook and likes to eat, sometimes too much (some things never change). And she's learned a lot of things through her life's spring and summer, stories and lessons and memories that beg to be told, so she writes daily and loves it.

My friend and fellow writer Sitara says, “Give me an eight-spoked Wheel and I’ll show you the wisdom of the world.” She's so right. I can feel the Wheel turning, through the day, through the year, and throughout my life. The wisdom is found in paying attention, listening, and staying in synch with the Wheel.

I'm paying attention as the leaves fall and the views are revealed, some familiar, some new. Unlike the seasons, my own life is not infinite. My wheel will eventually stop turning. Time is short and I'm going to enjoy every vista along the way.

To everything a season...

Mists on the lake, originally uploaded by Heartsong Images.

(Photographed on my way to work early last week)

It was so cold this morning...and for a moment I thought, "I miss summer." But as I drove to work, this sight greated me when I crossed the lake. Every season has its beauty. I don't have summer's warmth in October; but I don't see this in August. I'll take them all, please...everything Nature has to offer...and pray that I can stay in the moment enough to enjoy them.

The color returns...

My mom and I took an afternoon drive today to check out the fall colors. What an amazing sight! We drove up Lookout Mountain to Cloudland Canyon, part of Georgia's excellent state park system. It was a beautiful day with the setting sun playing golden light games all over the canyon.

All the way up the mountain, Mom was squealing...yes, literally squealing...with delight. Mom hasn't had a lot of delight in her life since my dad died almost six years ago. When my oldest brother crossed the veil early this year, the small recovery she had made was yanked out from under her and she fell hard into the dark again. She also suffers from memory loss and has a lot of difficulty with word recall. There are times when loneliness and frustration over her mental confusion combine forces to all but paralyze her.

But today she was happy. She loved the trip up the mountain and enjoyed walking along the canyon rim. For all of her mental struggles, she's strong and moves well for eighty-one. She clambored up and down steps like a pro! She also had company - friends from her church - earlier this weekend, and we dropped in on old friends today before we drove to the park. I don't know if it was the company or the drive or both, but Mom had a good day today. She even wanted to sing together on the way home..."Red River Valley," "Birmingham Jail,", "Summertime,"...she even added a nice harmony to "You Are My Sunshine."

The colors of the seasons are beautiful gifts. Fall leaves always make me smile, but seeing a little color return to my mom's life may just be the best gift yet.

Time to pay the piper...

...and it's a bill I'm more than happy to pay!

Thanks to everyone who took me up on my money-for-comments challenge. I've gotten about 15 new comments (some of which were my own replies but I'm counting them anyway!) and will be making a donation to the food pantry of at least $15. Thank you for participating with me!

If you liked anything you read, please come back often. If you didn't like something, come back and tell me about it. The best conversations have a nice balance of, "Yes!" and, "Yes, but...", with a dash of, "You've got to be kidding!" and a sprinkle of, "What? Are you nuts?" Bring it on!

Finally, I leave you today with something beautiful. From Maine to Tennessee, Autumn's showing her colors beautifully. Thanks to my friend Cathy Wardwell for the photo from Maine; the Tennessee shot is from my back yard yesterday morning.

Blessings to all!

Autumn Reflections in Maine


Autumn Morning in Tennessee

Fertility Engineer? Maybe...

...or maybe it's just Nature's way of getting things done.

This guy was in the garden this morning, busily moving from flower to flower. By the time I spotted him, he was so laden with pollen it's a wonder he could still fly!

Thanks, little buddy, for getting the work done. Hope you enjoyed your feast. We sure do appreciate the results.

After the rain...

...the sun comes shining through.

We watched a summer storm from the front porch a few days ago. What a beautiful thing! It was one of those delicious summer rains - big, fat rain drops falling straight down, thunder rumbling in the distance, trees dancing freestyle in the wind. As the rain began winding down, the sun broke through and streamed down through the rain.


After the rain ended, the whole yard lit up with twinkling lights - the sun glinting off the droplets of rain on every tree.
Isn't that the way of it? It rains sometimes...but even in troubled times, the light is still there if you look for it. When the rain stops, everything is washed clean...new...and just enough rain clings to the surfaces to catch the sun and reflect it back.

Attitude is everything.

More wisdom from Mom and good stewardship...

(from a personal email sent to ChattanoogaPagansATyahoogroupsDOTcom, June 2, 2008:

When I was growing up, I thought my mother was the cheapest, stingiest woman on the planet! She reused EVERYTHING!

My dad carried sandwiches for lunch every day for years so we went through a lot of sliced bread. She carefully shook the crumbs out of the empty bread bags, folded them, and put them inside another saved bread bag in the drawer. Those bags got used for everything. We wrapped left over biscuits after dinner in them (which were, in turn, resued as biscuit toast for breakfast the next morning). We saved receipts in them. We split them down the seam and used them to cover a bowl that didn't have a lid (secured with a rubber band saved from something else).

Wax paper was the absolute gold standard for wrapping sandwhiches, and if Dad remembered to bring it home, it was sometimes resued, too. There was no plastic cutlery in our house. If Dad needed a spoon or fork, Mom took one out of the drawer and Dad brought it home to be washed. By the way, my Mom STILL uses much of the same set of stainless tableware we had back then, so I know that process worked!

Empty mayonnaise jars were used as canning jars, nail containers, bean canisters, etc. When Mom bought things like Zip-Lock bags, they were reused, too. In fact, she still saves them and has so many empty, washed clean, and carefully saved bags that she probably won't have to buy another for years! Popcorn came in just one bag, not a box with six bags inside it, each one wrapped individually in plastic. Cheese had one wrapper on it instead of an outer wrap and a wrapper around each slide. Things that grew out of style or didn't look quite as shiny and new as before were still used as long as they retained usefullness; Mom still has the same Charles Chips can she had when I was a child and still stores flour in it, and it works just fine.

She made new clothing out of old clothing and out of cloth flour sacks (not seen much anymore, but they do still make them), dust cloths out of old tee shirts, biscuit/cookie cutters from empty vegetable cans. We picked up hickory nuts and made hickory nut pies instead of pecan, made the best pear preserves in the world from knotty old Keiffer pears we picked up from old trees in the pasture, and ate persimmons, blackberries, dewberries, and mucadines we found wild in the woods. She and Dad grew much of what we ate, saving seed from one harvest to start the next. Dad kept a few cattle almost all the time, selling a few and using a couple a year to stock the freezer. The beef we ate was wrapped in a single piece of butcher paper with the contents written right on the paper, not in a stryofoam tray with an absorbant pad and a plastic overwrap with a paper label. Found objects and windfalls were put to good and lasting use; when my aunt was given l arge commercial spools of sewing thread, Mom and my grandmother carefully selected multiple strands of complimentary colors and wound them into balls of "yarn," crocheting clothing from it, some of which I still have and wear.

After that wonderful example of good stewardship, all I could do when I grew up was run madly from it and try to become much more sophisticated. I learned how to buy plastic bags and only use them once...how to through away empty glass jars because I didn't can my own food (why, when it was so eash to buy it at the grocery?), ignore healthful, readily available food because it was too much effort to pick it, and to just chuck my old tee shirts and buy nice, neatly trimmed wash cloths new and use them for dusting and cleaning. Food scraps were just trash. I never reused bread bags because when I did, my friends said, "Ewwwwwwwww! That's not sanitary!" Somehow it didn't occur to me that A) the bread came wrapped in it and we didn't say, "Ewwww!" and B) I was over 20 years old and hadn't died from it in all that time.

So here I am, many years later, looking at Mom (right next door) and finally thinking, "You were one smart woman!" She was a much better steward of the land we have chosen to call home than I ever was. I'm learning all over again what it means to keep the promises Three Crows and I made when we moved up here. There are so many things that I can do that not only reduce my impact on the environment but save resources that my family can use for other things.

What has helped more than anything is awareness. From the moment we stood in what is now our back yard and promised to be good stewards and partners with this land, we have been more aware. By stating and sharing our intention out loud, we moved it from a nice thought to an act of will. As simple as that sounds, I believe it has been key to moving us more and more in the right direction. And conversations like this one have the same effect. As we raise our awareness, more opportunities will present themselves.

Is our family "there" yet? Heck, no! But we're closer...much closer...and like all journeys, this one starts with a single step. With the way we work now, I'm not sure returning to my Mom's way of life is entirely possible, but many of her tricks are already serving us...both our family and the big us...well...and we're enjoying the process as well as the product.

I guess it's like the rest of life - doing the right thing feels good.

Love in abundance,

Heartsong