Tag: Deep Creek
What is Your Message to the Earth?

What is Your Message to the Earth?

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I love to walk at a very beautiful place in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. I go there regularly and have started picking up trash there because the first mile of trail is used by tubers on the creek and they are really being litter bugs this year. It’s been horrible to see the trash they leave behind.

Yesterday I picked up five bags of litter in that mile and today I thought there wouldn’t be as much. There wasn’t until I got to a popular viewing area. There I found a mound of trash…but it was from someone taking it out of the creek. And they had other piles created from their efforts along the creek.

While I was so happy that others are taking an interest in keeping our beautiful creek/trail clean, I wondered if humans would ever wake up. Can they not see the beauty they are trashing? And it led to this question: What is your message to the Earth? What do your actions say? And I put it to a favorite song in this little video.
The Magic of Memories

The Magic of Memories

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The other day a friend of mine commented how a video on the Fontana Lake Cleanup brought back such good, childhood memories for him. As my canine companion, Buddy, and I walked at Deep Creek today I reflected on my happiest childhood memory.

My immediate family, mom’s sister and her family, grandparents, aunt and uncle and another extended family went to the Smokies together…14 of us in total. One day in particular was amazing. My cousins, brother and I went tubing on Deep Creek. The water was so cold yet I couldn’t bring myself to get out. Our parents were watching from the picnic tables and we were having a big time.

Before my dad got sick and before all of the adulting there was this magical time in the mountains that became my most treasured memory of family.

When I was feeling the pull back to the mountains, I was trying to find a place around Asheville, where I had lived before, or Black Mountain and there was absolutely nothing that worked. My house in Alabama was getting attention but nothing was working out for a sale. For over 18 months I looked and looked and couldn’t believe the dumps with high prices for sale around Asheville. 

So I finally got a contract on my home and had to find a place. As I drove past the sign for Dillsboro, Sylva and Cherokee on my way to Asheville, I heard a question: Where did you always want to live as a child? But I was worried that living an hour away from Asheville would be difficult and too scary to start over…again…far from everyone I knew. But as it happened, a cousin saw my social media post about looking once again in the Asheville area for a home and he said, You gotta meet our cousin in Sylva. And in the end, it was that question I heard that opened my mind to hearing what my Sylva cousin had to say about the area.

Yesterday I sat at the dining table in my little cabin and gazed out at the mountain ridge of the Great Smoky Mountain National Park. I live here, I said aloud. My childhood dream realized. Eight miles via the back way into the Deep Creek area from my door…that’s how close I live to my happiest childhood memory.

It’s hard to always know what calls us to certain places. But this time around, I felt I owed it to myself to align with the happiest place I remembered. My love for the area grows as I celebrate my one year anniversary here in five days. There are other reasons I’m here and I’ll share those in another blog, but for today I’m smiling at those treasured, magical memories. 
Peaceful Waters

Peaceful Waters

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As soon as I stepped out of the car I felt it….deep peace. Tourists either gone or not up so early. It’s like the entire area was in a different vibe. I was immediately drawn to the water…the flowing, flowing water. Ahhhhh…..and everything within me melted into this same peace.

Gratitude for the beauty filled my walk on trails I have come to cherish since moving back to the mountains. It wasn’t peaceful during the 18 months of looking for homes, having mine for sale….but I was looking in the wrong place, a place that had been awesome for me many years ago but has grown into a busy city without the Nature energy that called me. So finally….I surrendered and asked…Where?!?  And on that visit I heard to go where I always wanted to live as a kid…the Smoky Mountains. Once I got clear on where, my home sold and the rest came together beautifully.

When the national park was closed due to Covid 19, I walked the gravel road that is my driveway every day. And that was a fantastic way to get to know the forest here. And when the park re-opened, I allowed everyone to flock there and waited patiently. Then started visiting early in the morning to avoid crowds. And I fell madly in love with this section of the park…the quieter side, less hectic, less loved-to-death.

There’s so much challenging happening now….readers, you know this. So how nice to have a place to go that calls me to the profound peace of the deep, inner waters. Thank you flowing waters…thank you trees and rocks and flowers. Thank you Great Spirit for helping me hear the voice of my heart calling me home.