Encountering Earth

  Haudenosaunee Thanksgiving Prayer: Gratitude Is Eternal. (adapted from https://indiancountrytoday.com) As this day of Thanksgiving dawns, the words of the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois)  Thanksgiving Prayer can echo deeply within us. Beginning with all people and progressing to the Earth Mother, Grandmother Moon and Big Brother Sun, the prayer pays homage to everything that sustains us. It reminds us to take care of these things and through that, ourselves and each other. The address is very long. It is used not only for Thanksgiving Day but at Native gatherings. When the people gather, they begin with gratitude. “Today we get together to remind ourselves that we were given a responsibility to live in balance and harmony with one another and with all the living things of Mother Earth,” the prayer begins. “We think of the people we met and the ones we haven’t met as yet. We remember that all of the people who live on every part of Mother Earth are all connected, related and b...

 This morning I took a walk in Central Park which is close to my home. It is a "poetry" morning - I can see Haikus everywhere in the lowering clouds and trees giving forth their last bit of color. The feel is soft- warm; Fall wants to be gentle today until the rain comes in later. I walked past a few Sycamore trees and my eye caught the underside of a  huge leaf. I walked by. But then the leaf called out to me, "Come back, pay attention, I want to tell you something!" It is a huge leaf (20" across!) and I thought of the story it could tell, so I picked it up. The first story it told was about what we share in common. The veins in the leaf were so distinctive, they bulged up and fanned out. I looked at the back of my hand- my veins too are bulging as they fan out. A sign of aging hands. The leaf told a story of color - green and yellow had given way to brown. There is blessing in this process of budding leaf, to summer bright green, to Fall yellow. There is bles...

 Last weekend a friend of mine and I went to the Adirondacks. I haven't been there for a while, but it always feels like a homecoming, like visiting the house of an old friend. No matter what is happening in the world, Giant Mountain guards the Keene Valley, the Ausable River runs from the Lake under Route 73 and Chapel Pond is more glorious than any cathedral I have ever visited. We decided to hike from South Meadow to the Marcy Dam, which actually was wiped out by Hurricane Irene, but will always mark that spot which is the gateway to many of the high peaks. It is a very modest hike, but my friend is very patient and I am ecstatic to be hiking in the Adirondacks.  The path is really along a road of sorts. I say of sorts because it is probably just enough road to accommodate emergency vehicles and trail crews. The path is lined with woods - deciduous trees that have given up their leaves and sturdy conifers who stand in green hope all year long. The road is crisscrossed with ...

 Today I took a Sunday walk through the Reist Preserve that is about five minutes from my home. It is the perfect Fall day. Gentle sunlight was filtering through the trees and touching the leaves making them shimmer in yellow, red, and orange. That light seemed to be the very fingers of Creator reaching down to remind me of the love and care that fills creation. Leaves carpeted the forest floor giving color and texture and the dear crunch that comes making music under my feet.  Then I saw one of my favorite trees - witch hazel. I usually make a pilgrimage to these woods in Autumn to see this flowering tree. Today, I had forgotten about it until I got on the trail. Last year I found a few trees and now I couldn't remember where I had spotted them. But now I was in awe before a whole stand of them right in front of me! The flowers are so delicate- they look like small yellow stars at the end of each branch and twig. To get under the limbs and look up at the flowers with the back...

 I can't believe it's been over a month since I posted! In the meantime, summer has slipped into Autumn, the moon has been full, birds are migrating and leaves are changing. Nature is always in flux, always working, always resting, always Being.  This Fall seems to have such vibrant colors! It seems that the cold snap we had set the sugars and is helping to really make the colors pop! I went for a hike in the Albany Pine Bush on Sunday and I was amazed that the understory was a blaze of reds, orange, copper and yellow. The sumacs are such a deep burgundy! Virginia creeper is a lovely red. The Asian bittersweet (a really terrible invasive) is awash in yellow and soon its berries will be a vibrant orange. The maples are beginning to turn- there are some striking ones that are tri-colored now! I will have to wait a while for my favorite - the copper oaks that hold their leaves til the very end of winter. Sumac is another favorite of mine. The leaves are so incredibly scarlet and ...

  Hiking in the Albany Pine Bush has been fascinating! There are so many species of plants. Yes, some are invasives and they need to be cut and weeded out. This is a terrible job considering that things like Asian bittersweet are choking out native plants and smothering bushes and even trees! But the battle to stop the invasives so that native plants can thrive continues and it is well worth it!  For example, we found Dotted Horsemint. Just a couple of plants by the side of the trial. I emailed the Albany Pine Bush Commission to find out what it was because I couldn't find it in my wildflower book. The woman who responded described it so well, she said,  "I really do love the pale purple color of the modified leaves around the flower whorls."   Yes, it was amazing! On another hike, we saw whole patches of the horsemint. The open fields were covered with so many varieties of plants and the horsemint stood out as it turned from purple to white in its "aging" proce...

Summer flowers are bursting out everywhere! The roadsides are lined with colors and textures of the many wildflowers: the periwinkle blue of chickory, the soft white of Queen Anne's Lace, the pearly pink of swamp milkweed, the sunshine yellow of bird's foot trefoil, the bouncy orange of tiger lilies. Summer flowers are boisterous! They shout their presence, unlike the fragile and quiet Spring wildflowers that must be pursued, like a hide and seek game, in the understory of the woods.  Many of the flowers of Summer are like flags waving me down: Joe-Pye weed that can be taller than I am, huge purple thistle and goldenrod. I need to pay more attention to these Summer flowers. In the Spring I often take out a magnifying lens and look deeply into the heart of fringed polygala or spring beauties. But now I give a cursory glance as I caught myself doing yesterday on a walk. Pause I say to myself, look deeply, see the color and texture, notice the bees rolling blissfully in the heart ...