• fall season,  leaves,  musings,  Plants,  quotes,  seasons,  Thomas Berry,  writing/reading

    They’re gone

    November 3, 2022

    Any being can benefit only if the larger context of its existence benefits. This law can be seen in the honey bee and the flower. Both benefit when the bee comes to drink the nectar of the flower: the flower is fertilised, the bee obtains what it needs for making its honey.

    The tree is nourished by the soil; the tree nourishes the soil with its leaves.

    It is the ancient law of reciprocity. Whoever gives must also receive.

    Thomas Berry

    One of the most beautiful experiences of fall for me is watching all those leaves being scattered everywhere by the winds. I also know some of you feel the same way. Where they land and how they land provides colors and patterns that are my eye candy or even Leaf Creatures. Sadly, they’re now gone, or at least most of them. The landscapers came through yesterday and spent hours blowing leaves around, mowing them up or bagging them up. Leaves have a purpose in life and part of that purpose is to decay on the ground and provide nutrients for more life. The purpose for those leaves has been altered.

    According to the EPA, yard trimmings, which include leaves, created about 35.4 million tons of waste in 2018. This analysis resulted in an estimate of 22.3 million tons of yard trimmings composted or wood waste mulched in 2018 with a 63 percent composting rate. In 2018, landfills received about 10.5 million tons of yard trimmings, which comprised 7.2 percent of all material specific waste landfilled. That composting rate is a good number, much more than I expected. But, no matter how you look at it that is a lot of yard trimmings.

    Removing leaves in the fall is a task that many homeowners perform without question. Whether the leaves absolutely need to be cleaned up at this time is debatable. From an ecological standpoint, the answer to this question is no. However, if someone intends to have and maintain a healthy lawn beneath their trees, they really should try to remove them before the winter or mulch them. I will not enter into that the debate because my vote would be to remove the lawns. Let’s have some good old dirt to track in the house, some wildflowers, and beautiful gardens. Enough of my ranting!

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  • Annie Dillard,  fall season,  leaves,  Plants,  quotes,  seasons

    Concerning trees and leaves..

    October 27, 2022

    Concerning trees and leaves… there’s a real power here. It is amazing that trees can turn gravel and bitter salts into these soft-lipped lobes, as if I were to bite down on a granite slab and start to swell, bud and flower. Every year a given tree creates absolutely from scratch ninety-nine percent of its living parts. Water lifting up tree trunks can climb one hundred and fifty feet an hour; in full summer a tree can, and does, heave a ton of water every day. A big elm in a single season might make as many as six million leaves, wholly intricate, without budging an inch; I couldn’t make one. 

    Annie Dillard

    Annie Dillard’s quote caused me to rethink my perspective on the world of these trees around me. It’s that thing where I look at them, see their beauty, see them as a passive object, while failing to see the innate and active power within them. And, I couldn’t make a leaf either. However, I love to see them swirling in the wind, whether the leaf is clinging to a branch or free-falling to the ground, or lying peacefully on the ground. Always intrigued by their shapes, patterns, colors and how nature seemingly and randomly scatters them to and fro, making beautiful art, just for me. And, I love to photograph them. ❤️

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  • leaves,  musings,  Plants,  quotes,  writing/reading

    … free of hatred and despair

    October 25, 2022

    The mind does not find peace, nor does it enjoy pleasure and joy, nor does it find sleep or fortitude when the thorn of hatred dwells in the heart.

    A Guide to the Bodhisattva Way of Life, Chapter VI: 3

    As I walk around the yard I’m aware of how many different shapes, patterns, and colors of leaves there are. Cottonwoods, elms, locust, birch. What many people don’t realize is that scientists have determined that in all the world, no two leaves of any plants are identical. Each is one of a kind—unique.

    We can say the same with humans, no two are identical. We share our humanity through our various colors, shapes and sizes. Hatred is an unnecessary thorn of an ideology, a false belief, planted within us, that separates and destroys lives. Gandhi says, “No two leaves are alike, and yet there is no antagonism between them.” I pray today that the world be free of hatred and despair and fully embrace the uniqueness and beauty that each of us brings to the world.

    It began to seem that one would have to hold in the mind forever two ideas which seemed to be in opposition. The first idea was acceptance, the acceptance, totally without rancor, of life as it is, and men as they are: in the light of this idea, it goes without saying that injustice is a commonplace. But this did not mean that one could be complacent, for the second idea was of equal power: that one must never, in one’s own life, accept these injustices as commonplace but must fight them with all one’s strength. This fight begins, however, in the heart and it now had been laid to my charge to keep my own heart free of hatred and despair.

    James Baldwin
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  • clouds,  fall season,  landscape,  Plants,  seasons,  trees

    Healing Music to My Soul

    October 22, 2022

    I’ve been in a funk for 4-5 days. Realized I have not taken a photo in 4 days nor been to any of the Natural Areas to greet the sun in weeks. So unlike me. To solve that I made my way to Reservoir Ridge Natural Area for some writing and just sitting there listening. A robin began singing to me and the wind was blowing through the elm and cottonwood trees. It’s healing music to my soul. As I’ve mentioned before the fall colors are splendid this year.

    I have also talked to the nurse at the doctors office about the effects the blood pressure meds are having on me and the doctor is supposed to get back with me. I don’t like how I feel with this medication. I’m tired and lightheaded and even have some shortness of breath. My blood pressure numbers are good but we are expecting more than that.

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  • Avian,  fall season,  quotes,  seasons

    Enoughness

    October 18, 2022

    Someone used the word enoughness this past week and it has stayed with me. I am one of those people who always seem to want “more.” So, when she said enoughness, it struck something within me. After some research on it I found the most common definition was: “the state or condition of being enough; sufficiency; adequacy.” But maybe a better definition for me would require changing the word being to becoming, making it dynamic rather than passive. This makes enoughness a part of the journey in life, where I’m content with today, while trusting that tomorrow will also have its enoughness. Living in enoughness we can experience joy and true fulfillment with what we have. There is no need for more, just content in the very moment. Forgive me as I continue to play with words, what they mean to me at this time in life and how I can articulate them, or not.

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  • fall season,  leaves,  Mary Oliver,  Plants,  quotes,  seasons

    More

    October 17, 2022

    “I am one of those who has no trouble imagining the sentient lives of trees, of their leaves in some fashion communicating or of the massy trunks and heavy branches knowing it is I who have come, as I always come, each morning, to walk beneath them, glad to be alive and glad to be there.”

    Mary Oliver

    Good morning! It is a bright sunshiny morning. Awoke to frost on the car as winter draws closer. This image is from my walk yesterday afternoon and shows more of the colors nature is giving us this year in the city, which has been beautiful. However, it will not be long and these colors will be gone for this season. Winter will bring the greys and browns then followed by blankets of white. Already been to the coffee shop and indulged in a mocha and lemon cranberry scone. Happy Monday!

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