Tag: nature writing

appreciation of place.

Stephanie ULeave a comment

Wild Ones,

Trebbe Johnson wrote something so beautiful here that I want to share it with you. It was published in Orion Magazine in 2015 and is titled Uncommon Gratitude. This piece is something that resonates so deeply with me. It also hits home as she writes of Northeast Pennsylvania, where I am from.

Gratitude is huge in my book, especially when it comes to my own personal relationship with the natural world. It might seem like something so simple and yet, it is so powerful in its transformative ability – both within our own psyche and in building a deeper, more meaningful bond between human being and our wild counterparts.

There are so many emotions that come up when we witness the taking, the destroying, the exploitation, the devastation, the abuse, the violence, the purposeful and intentional harm – to wild places and spaces, to animals, to trees, to all who may have once called a place home. Or in the practices and methods that drive unecessary pain and abuse to living things while contributing to global warming and climate change. Attached are emotions of grief, sadness, frustration, heartbreak, and also an overwhelming feeling of helplessness.

Many times we believe there is nothing we can do. But there is. There is something so profound in the simple recognition of place, of animal, of an individual life or the collective, of what once was, what will never be, what could have been. To acknowledge, to honor, to respect, and to share with it or them, our joy as well as our pain.

I agree with Terre. There are so many gifts a place can give to us. And in return, we can offer our respect, our appreciation, our gratitude, our thanks if/as we take or the land provides, our expressions of wonder and joy, and even our recognition of sadness and grief. It is a way to honor place and be reciprocal in our relationship.

We have the opportunity and the ability to see and feel what others may not. To hold place as important and sacred, even if it never belonged to us, only to the wild. To hold all which is alive as sacred and worthy of respect and existence. To honor what gives its life so that we might live our own. This includes recognition of the forgotten, the lost, and the hurt as Terre so eloquently speaks of in her piece.

——————

To mirror Terre, here are some gifts that I receive from place:

  • morning birdsong
  • sunrise through the trees
  • friendship with an old pine
  • a pair of Ravens nesting nearby
  • Crow calls both distant and near
  • a boisterous and brave Red Squirrel
  • a male Downy Woodpecker who doesn’t mind my company
  • a forest floor full of Trilliums in spring
  • trees that offer privacy and protection
  • rich soil that brings abundance and sustenance
  • visits from an array of Dragonflies and Damselflies
  • Orb Weavers spinning amazing webs
  • a graceful fox darting through the woods
  • a Flying Squirrel only witnessed by hidden trail cam
  • a raft of Turkeys who gather for mid morning meetings
  • unobstructed views of starry nights
  • entertaining Moth watching nights
  • an orchestra of night sounds
  • lightning bug light shows
  • full moons like a backyard spotlight
  • nightly aerial shows at dusk from a local bat colony
  • some of the best and most cherished memories of my life so far
  • a place to finally call home

——————

everlasting.

Stephanie ULeave a comment

 I am here but I am gone. 

A soul released while a body remains. 

Reclaimed.

Recycled.

Reincarnated.

I am both finite and infinite. 

A life taken as life is returned.

Into another.

Back the earth.

Across the universe.

I am nothing and I am everything,

all at once. 

The carrion bird in the sky.

The soil spread across the forest floor.

The network of mycelium that connects all things. 

I am nowhere and I am everywhere.

A formless existence.

Where I lie and by way of the great expanse. 

One body that becomes many.

Insect.

Animal.

Earth.

Air.

You see death and decomposition.

Such permanence.

But I am an ageless energy. 

Ephemeral. 

But ever returning.

To this life and the next.

I die to be reborn again,

as life and death are a spiral. 

Animal, mineral, vegetable,

human body, soul energy,

weaving through, within, and among, the magical circle of wild things. 

Imprinted.

Everlasting.

the otter.

Stephanie ULeave a comment

It’s 1:00 AM when I step out from the cozy warmth of this tiny cabin I get to call home for the next few days. The chill is crisp and sharp, as is the darkness. The forest at night is reduced to shades of blue and black. Blue, the open space of air and sky. Black, the backdrop of tree silhouettes towering around you, the slightly sloping hills in the distance, the soft earth underneath your boots. The sky is full of wooly, expansive clouds that obscure a Waxing Gibbous moon which softly illuminates the thick floating puffs as if they were ambient lanterns, huddled densely in the celestial canopy. 

Our eyes only just begin to adjust once we reach the water, where the scene becomes a watercolor of indigo and onyx, a brand new way to take in my favorite view, my special place, beneath the pines by the lake. A divergence of earth, water, and sky. Home and habitat to wild things that thrive in all three. Most notable for its nesting Bald Eagles. A place so familiar in the daylight, so foreign in the witching hours. We simply become part of the night, blending in with the shadowscapes, silently taking in all the wonder and beauty under the camouflage of darkness. Inconspicuous are we, here in the wild wood, where time and space move differently.

A misty rain drizzles down and like a gentle sea mist as I look out over the water. I close my eyes and tilt my head back, letting the tiny droplets wash over me. Giant but gentle gusts of wind break the still surface of the lake, building waves that hungrily lap my feet where water meets the land. Billowy froth forms in clumps, swirling in the shallows. Their milky forms a stark contrast to the stone and pebble below. The wind carries with it my wonder – across the water, through the trees, and up into the cloud-laden skies above. If this isn’t magic, I don’t know what is.   

Seemingly out of nowhere, a slender-sleek silhouette glides effortlessly through the rippling lake to my left. She’s a few shades darker than the water so I can just make out her form. The splash of a talented swimmer propelling forward, more graceful and nondescript than the break of tiny waves formed from the wind cutting into the water’s surface. We see her before she sees us. An eager husband pushes the soft button of a headlamp to catch a quick glimpse before she’s gone. Just as eager to put a name to form, I too can’t help myself, whispering out loud when the light finally catches her body, “Oh my goodness, an otter! Hello there!” The artificial light beams straight at her like a tiny lighthouse. Coupled with my non-natural sound of escaped excitement, it cautions the otter to dip below the surface, disappearing beneath the blue-black surface, re-emerging a few feet away. We watch in awe as she makes her way around the curvaceous bend of the shoreline, fading into the darker shades of the night, sailing towards the swamp lands. 

———-

If you want to talk of enchantment for a moment, I shall tell you of the card I pulled the evening before as I sat at the small wooden table of Cabin #5, its wood worn and weathered smooth from decades of use, like a weary tumbled stone. I always bring my oracle cards with me on camping adventures. I tend to receive affirmations and messages with much more clarity out there than at home, especially when seeking wisdom from the wild world – as I listen closely to what the flora and fauna of the spiritual sense have to say. I chose to consult with the Woodland Wardens that night – as they always seem to convey a timely message, especially when I feel a bit shaky on my present course. The card revealed Otter and Cattail – a card representative of peace, calm, and tranquility. 

Was the otter just doing her otter thing out there during her stealthy late night voyage? Surely. She didn’t expect me to be wandering around in the dark after midnight, pulled over and idling in the shallow shoulder of her lake water interstate. Nor did I expect to see her in that moment, even when knowing that otters are more nocturnal and crepuscular than they are daytime hustlers. I’ve seen the signs, empty snail shells in abundance along the swampy water’s edge. But for as many times as I have visited this same place, Otter herself was nowhere to be found. Only remnants left, of a meal fit for a Queen, cracked shells popping and crunching beneath my feet.

Enchantment can come about in the form of a happenstance encounter, one that might not be so serendipitously coincidental for a wild woman who needs Otter energy at this time. Peace is the word best described for this wild place I have loved since childhood. It’s what I can’t help but feel every time I am there. I breathe it in. I fill my lungs with it – all damp earth and fresh pine. And there she happened to be, this symbolic representation of joy, of tranquility, gliding flawlessly towards a cluster of cattails, just around the bend.

inclement weather.

Stephanie ULeave a comment

Hiking in the rain is akin to hiking after a powdery snowfall. Much like its frozen counterpart, the rain shrouds a forest in stillness, something rarely found in the buzzing heat of a summer day. Precipitation brings about a special kind of peace and solitude, something that can only accompany inclement weather.

The fallen leaves, soaked through to the soil below, glisten their reds, yellows, and oranges amidst the patches of once green ferns, now lemon and rust, that sway in a gentle breeze which sweeps the forest floor, almost as silent as you. A woman can move without a sound amid the dank and decomposing deciduous confetti beneath her boots.

The moss, at the water’s edge, swollen with the last two days of rainfall, becomes a lush and loamy tapestry beneath her feet, flattening underfoot, and then slowly rising once again to resume its luxuriant form as the boot lifts away. The Sphagnaceae reminiscent of Lewis Carroll’s Mome Raths.

The scent of damp, dark earth surrounds her. If only, she thinks to herself, there was a way to bottle it and keep it, breathing in its elemental magic, infused with the kind of healing properties she will find nowhere else but here, in this moment. Under the trees, the scent of pine rises up to greet her from the fallen needles below.

The birds flit and flutter at ground level. Are you a warbler, little friend? She sees you there, peeking through the thick bramble of the low lying shrubs, with your white underbelly, dusty gray body, and bright splash of lemon. Little bird who is quick-footed and fast to fly, always outwitting the curious observer longing for a proper identification of her allusive feathered forest companion.

White-breasted Nuthatches dance on the thick trunks and bare branches of the mighty Eastern White Pine. A crow calls in the distance overhead, obscured by the overcast sky – a body-less caw on the wind.

Around the bend, where the stream flows to greet the lake, the swamp smells of fish, so intrusive in the misty air, it’s as if she is holding a fresh catch right there in her own two hands.

All the autumnal browns of the lake and swamp vegetation that are making their transition into death are heightened by the muted gray backdrop of a sunless, fog-laden sky. The perfect contrast.

It’s as if she and this wild place have been plucked straight from the vastness of the world and gently tucked inside a water globe. The dense fog is the frost-covered glass of the dome, the gods giving it a shake so that a gentle rain falls all around her, dampening the intrusive sounds of an outside world she can no longer see.

Tiny droplets pool at the sharp edge of a pine needle, pulling and drooping the bundles down towards the ground. The fallen bundle together in pockets and coves to create a golden mosaic that floats and swirls atop a calm, reflective canvas. There is the pitter patter drum beat of droplets as they hit the water’s surface, creating ripples and waves that draw her into a state of soothing meditation.

She, and this swath of forest, lake, and swamp, are encased in a fog-laden wonderland of a grand and wild design.