nature Archives - Page 32 of 70 -

Ah-Ha Moment!

By Simone Lipscomb | June 1, 2016

Decades ago I had a vision of living alone in a cottage as an older woman. I can’t remember the exact circumstances but it was a very strong image.

Society has certain expectations. If you are single and choose to live alone, and have the audacity to be happy, it can make others uncomfortable. One of my long-time friends recently pointed out that living alone, choosing to be single, and being happy is a lifestyle. I had never thought of it that way before and it was quite eye-opening.

I love living alone. There. I said it. I find fulfillment and happiness by myself.

Los Islotes Shot — *New friends I met diving the Sea of Cortez last autumn.*

I have friends and I travel a bit and meet new friends. It would be awesome to have a traveling companion to enjoy nature with but if not, I’m still happy. I don’t really want a live-in relationship.

It seems the world is geared to people who are in relationship. I was listening to a playlist while cycling this morning and every song was about being in a relationship…with another person. What if I just want to be in a relationship with myself? Can someone please write a song about that? And make a fun one, a happy one…please.

Not to say I haven’t been in love or that I don’t still very much love a man. But who says love has to look a certain way? Can’t I love another person without wanting a romantic, rose and chocolates kind of experience? Not that there’s anything wrong with that. But are Cinderella and Snow White really the fairy tales we want to base our lives on? We never know what happened to their happy ‘ending’ after they became self-actualized. Maybe they discovered they really wanted to live in their own castles and find joy in solitude and just invite the prince when they wanted to take a fun journey.

Creatively I am my most-productive when alone. I ride my bicycle alone with rare exception because I enjoy being out in nature with no distractions. My friend wrote me the other day and reminded me that I can choose to be happy in my life, but I have to consciously take that step. Today it all made complete sense.

Yesterday was the craziest day I’ve ever experienced but it opened me to this realization: I am happy. I like living alone and having a relationship with nature and my four-legged companions. I love and appreciate my friends and love a man that still brings wisdom to me even though we have been apart over four years. And I’m not closed to a relationship but I envision more of a traveling companion. But if he doesn’t show up, I’m still happy.

I wrote to my friend last week: I am clear that cultivating relationships with trees, ocean, earth, animals and learning to love…period…is my path. Love to depths that clears way anything that keeps me from being open to bringing through unconditional love and light.

Sometimes we need a reminder that we are already happy with what we have.

Truth…Where Are You?

By Simone Lipscomb | May 31, 2016

Today I was reminded of how a lack of clarity can be brutal to a person’s psyche. It’s just been a strange day. I got an email that ripped the understanding of my world apart, saw a person dead, passed out or asleep in a ditch in front of a tavern, and pushed myself hard cycling for 25 miles hoping it would burn off the crazy. It didn’t work. I finished the ride and was just hot, sweaty and still crazy.

Another email supposedly clarifying the first one left me more confused and more crazy-feeling. Just speak plainly. Just tell me the truth. Thank you.

But truth is in short supply.

People are sorting through half-truths all over the planet. Who can tell a lie from the truth when words are coming from a politician’s mouth? Is the government lying about how much oil leaked from Shell’s pipes in the Gulf a few weeks ago. Do corporations lie to avoid fines or criminal charges? Shot a gorilla in a zoo because their tranquilizer gun was where? Pesticides are safe. GMO’s are safe. It’s okay to destroy the planetary ecosystems because….what is the ‘truth’ today? In your life? In mine? For our planet?

People seem to say anything that will get them what they want, regardless of the percentage of fact included. Why is honesty such a skittish commodity?

Telling the truth may create reactions in others that are scary. If we really knew how much harm we do to our bodies by ingesting pesticide-ridden food would we rise up and grow our own? Would we ditch medical practices that are more harmful than good? The atmosphere itself seems congested with lies that protect corporations, governments, the 1%….. and damn all other life on the planet.

What started as a simple question, early this morning, snowballed into this thesis–or rant–on half-truths and created a wave of crazy in me that longs for truth, even if it hurts, even if its scary. I want all things hidden to be exposed. I want the government, corporations, politicians and every single one of us to let go of the fear of speaking the truth. Or is the fear that we simply cannot handle the truth?

Photograph Summer 2010...Shell Oil — Photograph Summer 2010…Shell Oil

Let’s start with honesty and build on that. Shall we? I can handle the truth. Can you?

Mystical Predictions

By Simone Lipscomb | May 29, 2016

An email came from our team leaders this week about our schedule. I replied to everyone that we were going to have two sea turtle nests to process on Sunday. “Be ready,” I wrote.

Meanwhile it has been a very trying week topped off by one of my darling cat kids waking me at 2:30am this morning. Sleep never returned so I left the house at 4.30am and took my tripod and camera for some long exposure photography at the beach. Why not, I reasoned.

Conditions were near perfect. There was enough surf to give a very silky effect to the 30 second exposures. For half an hour, waiting for light, I stood on the beach and communed with the Ocean Mother while my camera perched on it’s carbon fiber legs soaking up the light and magic that was very present on the Gulf of Mexico this morning.

When it was light enough to see the beach clearly, I ran my tripod back to the car and began the mile and a half walk along the white sand. At 6.15am, 35 minutes after I began my walk, the most wondrous sight appeared.

A most-perfect V crawl and nest pit awaited discovery. I screamed in excitement, “YES!”I turned to the water and said with laughter, “THANK YOU!”Then I quickly fumbled with my phone to call our team leaders. As I was leaving them a message, a message from our All-Call system came in…we had another nest in the upper part of our section of beach. Immediately I remembered my prediction….be ready.

I hurriedly finished the rest of my walk and met up with gathering team members at the first nest. It was called in last night around 9.30pm and was already marked. This was incredibly good because human footprints completely covered the tracks. We would never have discovered it had the tourists not called it in.

We processed the nest, which had to be moved due to close proximity to the water. (Our federal permit gives us permission if the nest is too close to the tide line). But we couldn’t linger as we had nest number two of the day to process.

‘My’ nest had to be moved as well as it was too close to the water’s edge and high tide mark. Several of us dug (scraped carefully) to find the eggs. I found them!! Magic! Pure magic!

It had been a very rough week emotionally and as I stood at the water’s edge photographing at 5am I spoke with the Ocean Mother and shared my heart. I felt a reply…We all make mistakes. Look…I had something to do with the birthing of __________ (politician). I laughed out loud at the thought. “Yes, I guess none of us are perfect,” I said out loud.

The Ocean Mother gifted me with the delight of her daughter turtle’s nest. At least that’s how I experienced it. When I arrived at the crawl it looked as if the sand had just been turned by her beautiful flippers. The eggs still had the beautiful mother turtle’s fluids fresh and stringy on them as we gently transferred them to their new incubation location, just above the high tide line.

The lesson for me this week has been to face all of who I am…the good, the bad and the ugly. There is a surrender that comes with that choice and in it are little gifts and treasures. Super-grateful for the photographs of the silky sea….which is how I see the energy of the sea…and for the mother loggerhead who gifted me with a perfect crawl and nest…and for the other turtle mother who made my mystical prediction a reality.

*Psychic Simone predicts a nap in her very near future.*

Here’s another prediction….I see myself taking a nap very soon. And I’m contemplating opening a psychic hotline very soon. Details to follow.

Bless the Space

By Simone Lipscomb | May 26, 2016

A new book has just begun the process of being birthed. For a few weeks I’ve been organizing my mind and now the task of actually organizing the writing has begun. And of course my mind is searching for distractions.

Part of the creative process involves searching through journals and other writing I’ve done in the past so naturally there are many wonderful storylines to chase. I wasn’t looking for them and they aren’t related to the book I’m writing….but gee, it was fun to chase those rabbits.

Until I realized I was distracted. (Sigh).

One of the threads I chased, however, was actually one I was searching for and who can help getting a bit carried away with John O’Donohue?

I was looking for a journal entry on a manatee trip but couldn’t remember the date. Never found the journal but did find the blog post. So then I wanted to find the passage I was listening to on the trip that I was writing about and found the audio file, listened and then found myself following little threads of John’s teachings. Teachings that have blessed and assisted so many of us.

Here’s a few of the threads:

From an interview with Diane Covington in 2006: “Everyone of us dreams and a dream is a most sophisticated artistic document. When you were a child you lived in an imagined world and the child-like side of the self never dies. There is a relentless pulse of creativity within us.”

From Bless the Space Between Us: “To Come Home to Yourself–May all that is unforgiven in you be released. May your fears yield their deepest tranquilities. May all that is unlived in you blossom into a future graced with love.”

John said that fear blinds us and we see only one door, one possibility, when there might be seven or eight doors. Every person is the holder of incredible possibilities. Deep down, he said, we know exactly what is going on and we have to give that truth a chance. If we can drop into stillness, silence and solitude everything that needs to happen will happen. The key is recognizing the seeds planted by others, that we have watered and tended with attention, that overshadow the truth.

He tells of sitting at people’s bedsides while they are dying and finding that regret is one of the loneliest places humans can ever find themselves. What is it that your heart truly wants to do but you are too afraid to do, he asks? What seeds have others planted that have made you doubt your own heart’s voice? How does fear keep you from living your life the way you want to?

“Each day is the field of brightness where the invitation of our life unfolds. The writer goes to his desk each morning to meet the empty white page. As he settles himself, he is preparing for visitation and voyage. His memory, longing, and craft set the frame for what might emerge. He has no idea what will come. Yet despite his limitations, his creative work will find its own direction to form. Each of us is an artist of our days; the greater our integrity and awareness, the more original and creative our time will become.”

So I chased a few rabbits, followed a few threads, and wrote a few paragraphs. All of which is sacred space, creative space. And now this space between us, may it be blessed. Thank you John O’Donohue for the teachings you shared with us.

Whale Sharks

By Simone Lipscomb | May 21, 2016

One of the most beautiful creatures on the planet, in my opinion, is the whale shark. The patterns of each varies and are infinitely interesting.

Last year I had the opportunity to photograph them on two trips to the Sea of Cortez. The second trip, to the La Paz area, offered more experiences, better water clarity and more animals. But it’s not easy work photographing them.

Snorkeling, not scuba, encounters are allowed to protect the animals. The no flash photography rule is great because pushing a big underwater camera housing is tough enough without strobes. The added drag of two large strobes would make it more challenging when swimming fast.

These big guys and gals don’t appear to move fast but when y0u drop into the water ahead of them you have to swim hard to catch up and stay with them. Those massive tail fins propel them swiftly through the water. It’s hard swimming in long bursts.

Connecting with whale sharks was interesting as well. Their small eyes on the sides of their large heads don’t really make eye contact or connection like whales, manatees and dolphins, who seem to want to connect and make deep eye contact. It was like swimming beside a very aloof person who ignores you and goes about their business. Only once did a whale shark react to me and it’s when I was quite close and moved my arm suddenly. The animal flinched but kept on with his or her travel.

Photographing these spotted wonders was great fun and yielded some nice images but the soul connection I have with whales, dolphins and manatees was simply not there. It doesn’t make them any less amazing, beautiful and wondrous to behold…and treasure.