Category: Eco-Spirituality
Project Dog Love

Project Dog Love

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In my muggle life, I coordinate a grant for 45 nursing homes. As part of the duties, I order ‘prizes’ for residents participating in the program. The number one requested item is some form of stuffed animals. Residents love to cuddle them, take care of them. It enriches their lives.

This kinda breaks my heart because I know how much dogs mean to me and millions of people. I know elders, in the care of nursing homes, miss their animal companions. A stuffed animal is a small comfort. But it is a comfort.

In an effort to enrich the monthly newsletter we send facility leaders, I was looking at August’s notable month markers: Honey Bee Awareness Day, World Photography Day, National Peace Month, National Dog Month. My supervisor started including fun month celebrations in the last newsletter to our facilities. When I looked and saw National Dog Month for August, I knew we could do something special.

On social media, I put out a request for photos of people’s dog’s faces we could include in a graphic that would go to nursing homes we work with as a way to bring joy and love and comfort to residents and staff. The response was overwhelming.

Photos started showing up in the comments, friends and family texted photos….Project Dog Love was launched for the elders of North Carolina.

At the end of a very busy day of grant work, I started my yoga practice and allowed the energy of asking, receiving, and creating this project to move through me and tears welled up. In a world so full of division and hate, somehow I found myself infused with love and care for animals and elders. I felt the love of every person that sent a photo of their beloved dog with the wish of joy and love for elders missing their companions and longing for connection. I felt the love of the dogs. It helped me see how easy it is to bring people together when the common goal is unconditional love–the essence of what dogs mean to us.

I’m grateful for a project director that allows me to be creative and who adds her creativity to our project. I’m grateful for the family of dog lovers who want to be a part of showing love and appreciation to our elders. And for my own canines who shower me with unconditional love and appreciation…deep gratitude.

I sent an email to all the facility leaders this morning sharing how this came to be and that people from California, Kentucky, Michigan, North Carolina, Colorado, Alabama…and many other states…wanted to send love to the residents by sharing their dog companions. I asked them to share the image and let their residents know that people all over are thinking of them and sharing dog love with them. Within minutes, I received this response: “What a great idea! The residents will love this. Thanks for sending.”

My wish is that we could have a poster printed and sent to each facility. Another wish is to print out a photo of each dog and let that dog be a guardian of love, a mascot, for each facility along with a story of who the dog is and how it came to their human companion. There are lots of rescue stories that are amazing…but the grant doesn’t cover those costs. Perhaps the momentum of this project will keep building and we can find a way to share more dog love.

Thank you dogs for reminding us of a common thread that weaves us together…LOVE.
I Wept This Morning

I Wept This Morning

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My feet were wet with dew and covered in dirt. I got out early, before the heat, to pick blueberries. The tufted titmouse fussed at me, but I promised to leave plenty for her family. 

As I contorted myself under the graceful, loaded branches, I whispered words of gratitude. Not just for the delicious berries, but for the hour spent among their branches, feet grounded, present with abundance and nutrition and beauty. I am in awe of how the bushes have ripened their berries in stages, providing non-stop giving for weeks now. 

After picking berries, I went inside. The kitchen counter held my hands as tears rolled down my face. How can this be our country? How can we be at risk of losing our freedoms….to love who we love, to have public lands for all life to en-joy, to have clean water and air, to have true freedom of religion/spirituality, to receive the money we paid into our government retirement accounts all our lives when we come of age, to make decisions about our own lives and bodies. I felt the weight of all of this and much more and felt a moment of panic. I thought: What if we, as a country, go down the dark road that is being offered?

I pondered the turning point at which we find ourselves as tears flowed. There is nothing to be gained from arguing or standing off against our neighbors who think differently than us. That only strengthens those who wish to divide us, as a means to receive votes, to gain more power, more money. The only way through this insanity is to lay down our weapons of hate, aggression, judgment, and cultivate love in our own hearts. Not forcing anyone else to do so, but traveling so deeply into our own hearts that we root out the very things we see in others and are against yet reside buried within ourselves.

And, of course, vote and support those who align most with our values. 

I want to explore my own heart and breathe into it to cleanse it, heal it of the negativity that I erect as a wall to protect against those that I think of as my enemy. It’s not easy when I feel threatened. When I feel fear. It’s what I can do in this moment, to support my personal journey through the collective experiences happening.

We have an opportunity for massive healing in our country by turning our attention to the wounds within that keep us stuck in fear: hate, anger, aggression, judgment. Not from pointing fingers at anyone who disagrees with us, but by journeying into our heart and cultivating love. 

A flower growing amidst the blueberry bushes also brings such joy

My choice is to turn the light on my heart, to heal and support myself. It will keep me from staying in panic mode or endlessly spiraling from a feeling of powerlessness. I have the power to heal my heart, to love and work very hard to let nothing and nobody cause me to create or cultivate hate or violence–of words, thoughts, actions.

Nobody can take away my ability or capacity to love. 

Amidst the insanity of fighting, finger-pointing, violence in our country, my time with the blueberry bushes continues to be a time of healing, of receiving. A time of cultivating love.
Through the Storm

Through the Storm

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We might have made light of the small ‘bald’

We just finished lunch in Silers Bald, a bald on the Appalachian Trail so small two of us couldn’t sit there as we rested from our 5 ½ mile hike from Clingmans Dome parking area. We were donning our packs to head back and heard thunder rumbling in the distance. As we got to an opening in the trees, we could see the storm in all of its purple-black cloud intensity. Nothing to do but keeping walking back toward Clingmans and the vehicle.

There is a backstory to my respect of lightning. As a kid, I had a phobia of it and remember freaking out as a three or four year old because it was lightning. My dad told me I was safe because we were inside, but I reasoned there was a metal zipper on my pants and that made me a target. I was no dummy. Hello! Metal-Lightning! He talked me through it and helped me calm down. 

Later in life, I had several very unpleasant encounters with lightning. Once I ignored my grandfather’s advice to wait to launch the boat because of an approaching storm and got caught in a thunderstorm from hell with pink zig-zags popping everywhere and the shelter I had, when I pulled off the river and ran for shore, was as dangerous as the boat since the long leaf pine tree was towering high in the sky. I ended up running across a swampy area to a home under construction to shelter there. I tried to out-scream the storm. It didn’t work. My grandfather knew I’d stop at his sister’s locked-up cabin and came to rescue me.

I was driving to my grandparent’s home as a teenager and lightning hit a tree beside the road that exploded. I was angry that day, but cannot remember why. What teenager isn’t angry about something? That tree exploding helped calm my anger.

Once I was on a phone call (it was a land line) with a realtor at my grandparent’s home. I knew the home wasn’t for me but kept trying to push the deal through. Lightning hit and tingled my hand and knocked the receiver out of my hand. It melted my grandparent’s neighbor’s phone to her bedside table. 

There was the time on a dive boat when the captain decided to head to the dive site through a storm. Another pink lighting experience in an open air, pontoon boat this time. My two dive students were terrified. I looked back and told them, “If it hits us, we’ll never even know it.”  I was trying to be funny, to ease their tension. It didn’t comfort them. And it did clear up and we had an amazing dive.

So, lightning and I have a past. 

Whenever I’m caught in a storm, I reflect on my intense yet close relationship with lightning. I’m not overly fond of calling lightning a close friend, but it seems to want to be an ally. I’m a little stand-offish though.

Yesterday, as we were hiking back up the trail, the storm grew closer. You cannot hurry up a trail like this with an elevation gain of over 2000 feet, most of it on the way out. We were hiking up the ridge. As the storm intensified and rain began pouring, we came to several open areas where the highest objects were turk’s cap lilies and briars….and then us. Not ideal.

We reviewed safety protocol: if we started to feel the static or electric tingle, throw our hiking poles away and crouch into a ball; we spaced ourselves out while crossing the open areas to create smaller objects; and yes, I admit I crouched down, lowering myself below the overgrowth on the trail. What else can you do?

Heavy rain made small rivers of the trail

There was thunder directly overhead. Thunder means lightning…I get that. All too well. We’d stop under cover of forest which we figured was a bit safer than the open areas. Before we put on the rain gear, we were completely soaked…which cooled us down and kept us from overheating, but we were soggy with water filling our boots as it cascaded down our legs.

At one point, we were catching our breath on a steep slope. I stopped and turned to my friend and said, “Let me tell you my story related to lightning.” I shared my phobia of lightning as a child and said I wanted to honor my inner child’s strength for over-coming her fear and healing from it. It was a powerful moment to share my truth and have a friend witness it. And hear me. 

I was anxious hiking out in the storm, but I also felt a deep sense of calm. We had to work hard, slogging through rivers of water flowing down the trail. But both of us are deeply reverent of Nature and the power of it. We openly acknowledged our smallness as we hiked through the storm and the Oneness of all life. 

By the time we reached the summit of Clingmans, the storm had passed and masses of people were walking up the paved trail to the starship dome. They were dry and looked fresh while we were completely soaked, perhaps reflecting a bit of the journey we experienced through the storm.
Feeling It

Feeling It

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I’m sitting in a rocking chair on the front porch. Clouds hug the mountains. The air is still. Sweet bird song, along with the occasional caw caw caw from the crow friend, is the soundtrack to the early Smoky Mountain morning. (The photo is from yesterday’s Smoky Mountain adventure).

When I awoke, I looked at the time…I’d been on the trail 45 minutes yesterday the same time. Heading up to Mt LeConte in the muggy warmth, already having walked through the pre-dawn shadows of the night before and welcoming the light. 

Reflecting on the experience, rocking amid clouds, appreciating the extra sleep, I consider this well-loved trail. It’s a demanding trail due to elevation gain and technical challenges, but it’s a most beautiful trail with a clear mountain creek escorting hikers for the first mile or so before it enters a rock arch. It then begins to climb toward the beauty of Alum Cave, the destination of most hikers. After the ‘cave,’ the elevation gain begins to get serious, and it only stops just before arriving at LeConte Lodge…but begins again as the summit and Cliff Tops is visited. It’s a 12+ mile hike up and down Alum Cave trail if you visit the summit and Cliff Tops. And it is hard. 

So, I sit rocking, appreciating the singing birds and the clouds drifting through the trees. Reflecting. Remembering. Feeling it. Not in the physical body so much. Sure my feet are a little tired but they are after any longer hike. Not that kind of feeling it. But…feeling it.

I took my GoPro camera and videoed parts of the hike with the intention of putting a little video together for those curious about the trail or those who will never be able to hike it but want a glimpse of it. As I processed the video, I smiled as I heard myself, in the video, comment about the views or laugh at a steep drop-off beside the trail. I realized how open my heart was with the mountains, clouds, trees…the pack llamas, the deer mouse. My true self shines as I open to the beauty. Not just with this trail, but with Nature all the time. I just inadvertently documented it yesterday with the videos. 

For many, many years I’ve been hearing to deepen with Nature, and I’ve done that with diving, off-road cycling, fly fishing, hiking, photographing Nature…many outdoor experiences over several decades. The deepening continues as I recognize the opening of my heart to feel, to connect with a tiny deer mouse in the trail, or a pack llama, or a tree, a passing cloud, or my dogs as they push against me, the hound resting his big head on my keyboard and gazing into my eyes with longing, with love. 

When I spent a year documenting the BP Oil Spill, something closed within me. It was nearly unbearable to witness the carelessness of humans, disguised as crude oil, spread across beaches, floating in water, dispersed to hide it, which made it even more deadly…yes, my heart was challenged to feel much of anything then. Those scars are still there, but immersing myself in beauty creates openings that allow my heart to soar again, to embrace Nature with such deep love. 

I feel the Oneness with Nature. Always have. That’s why witnessing the darkness of human behaviors with the crude oil disaster was overwhelming and I had to shut down a bit to survive mentally, emotionally, spiritually. But now….14 years later…I understand more about what it means to connect deeply with Nature and because we are part of Nature, how we are harmed when Nature is harmed. When Nature flourishes, we flourish.

More crows call now. A hummingbird just flitted by. Clouds still tickle treetops. My thoughts briefly turn to breakfast…blueberries from my garden…as I sit in communion with the forest around me, grateful to be feeling it. 

Here’s the video:
In Clouds

In Clouds

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High elevation hiking to beat the heat gave the perfect Smoky Mountain experience early this morning. Thick clouds blanketed the mountains. White mist blew across the road as I drove to the trailhead. 

It felt strange to start a hike going downhill, but to get to Andrews Bald, that’s how it goes. It stands at 5860 feet and the trail head is at 6350 feet.  The cloud base was far below that elevation. And it was magnificent.

Wet rocks, lush ferns, water hugging my face as the clouds blew across the trail…perfect. Bird song so sweet my smile never faded. The forest feels close, so close, at these higher altitudes. Trails are carved from rocks and meander between fraser fir and red spruce trees. The smell of the firs intoxicates me every time I’m with them. It’s as if that fragrance calms me, steadies me.

When the trail isn’t cluttered with hyper, human energy and chatter, I’m able to connect deeper with my friends–rocks, ferns, trees, birds, flowers–and hear their voice so much clearer. The same can be said when I am able to stop my internal chatter. 

Clouds act as my guide to inner stillness, inner quiet. They open me to experience the forest from their perspective: moist blankets that wrap everything in their beauty.

The flame azaleas were a sharp contrast to the grays and whites of the clouds.

After enjoying the colorful, fiery beauty of the azaleas, I hiked the Bypass Trail up to the top of Clingman’s Dome and enjoyed being above the forest in the clouds.

I feel at peace, joyful, and grateful to connect deeply with the spirits of the forest. Go outside…find your inner quiet and listen to the wonders of Nature.