nature Archives - Page 45 of 70 -

The Pause Between Breaths

By Simone Lipscomb | July 11, 2013

As I was driving back from a photography session of family portraits on the Ft Morgan peninsula, I noticed the sky was looking especially inviting. Hopeful that the Shell Banks area of Mobile Bay would provide a nice vantage point, I excitedly nudged the accelerator until I saw the pull-off.

Sky conspired with water to offer a most pleasant and relaxing half hour of nature’s fine beauty. In times like these I find myself relaxing into the present moment, open to receiving the gifts nature offers and I lose myself to photography…to connecting with the essence of water and sky and light through my camera.

The magic hours of sunrise and sunset often have bountiful blessings and such sweetness. These gifts are found when I take the time to stop, breathe and open myself to the moment.

Present moment….sacred moment. Holy moment. Beautiful moment…found in the silence and stillness between breaths.

Light Along the Path

By Simone Lipscomb | June 18, 2013

Trying to define what I do for a new business card has been challenging. In my spiritual path I am constantly going deeper to discover more about myself and the path of service I have chosen…the path that has called me. But it doesn’t mean I know what the heck I’m doing. Not really.

Funny as it may sound it feels as if the past several years have been a game of Blindman’s Bluff. I ask for guidance, listen, clear out inner debris, listen more, have flashes of inspiration, get a little glimpse but continue walking with just glimmers of lights illuminating the way.

Determined to not only listen but to hear clearly, the steps taken are small. Sometimes its as if I’m treading water in a darkened ocean with starlight the only source of illumination. Support is there and I can float if I need to rest but there are times when I really want answers. Direction!

In my quest to find a name for my work I stumbled upon a website that made me light up with excitement and I found myself crying, “YES, YES, YES!” I shared links on Facebook and Twitter and emailed myself a copy of an article written by the author of a book and website. Finally I linked to the book because I knew it would be an awesome tool for the work in which I find myself immersed.

Spiritual Ecology….OH! The book I ordered before it was printed which just arrived last week! The book sitting on my bedside chest. When I discovered that this book was already in my home, awaiting my attention I laughed and knew that something big is clicking into place within me and others on the planet.

There has been a lot of hopelessness of late with endless lists of sins against the planet and even against those who protect it.But this treasure discovered today gives me hope. The light along my path just got brighter. I cherish these moments and for the reminder that support is present, the path is unfolding and all is not lost on our beautiful water planet.

NEEDED!!: More Time In Nature

By Simone Lipscomb | June 17, 2013

Last week began the transfer of my blog to self-hosting and my website to my blog so a marriage could take place between the two. It was time to merge my writing and Turtle Island Adventures and make one website that united it all.

Once the blog was transferred to my hosting company’s servers, I rebuilt the blog website and added in pages from my Turtle Island Adventures site. Over eight hours of merging information, updating, revising, changing the theme. It was a very mental day with my brain working overtime in an area that it really isn’t fond of lingering.

Then came the end of the day and I called my hosting company to ask about backing up my site. The nice guy said, sure but let’s look at your hosting. And then came a barrage of glitches with their hosting. He was trying to fix an issue another guy there had created and he couldn’t resolve it. We spent over…way over…an hour trying to resolve this so I could save money. We never got it worked out so I was left paying twice as much for hosting as I should be because of a mistake another guy at this particular hosting company made that couldn’t be resolved.

But never mind all that….the constant left-brain activity and 90 minutes on the phone dealing with files, codes, IP addresses…I felt fried. I had missed a photo shoot I wanted to do and felt like I needed to stick my head in a bucket of ice water. I was supposed to awaken at 4.30am, do my sea turtle nest patrol, clean up and drive to Atlanta for a gathering and an over-night visit with a friend. After a week out of the country and a four day trip to Michigan over the past two weeks I felt as if I was imploding.So I cleared everything off my weekend schedule except the sea turtle nest patrol and watched an old movie while eating popcorn.

The eastern glow of the rising sun was just warming the night sky as I stepped barefoot onto the beach. As soon as I took my flip-flops off and felt the sand my entire body breathed a sigh of relief. It was in that moment that I realized I had Nature Deficit. The walk was a blissful reminder that I simply cannot be healthy and balanced without a daily connection to nature.

This morning found me sitting in my hammock chair on my back porch watching dawn arrive. My two cat companions were intently listening to songbirds and I was watching clouds move above the massive branches of the live oak tree that lives in the courtyard.

Then another morning of polishing the new web/blog site but I’m grooving. Patience for tedious adjustments has been with me and I remember to glance out the large window and observe the oak trees, sky and squirrels scurrying around brown branches.

It’s my guess that we can all use more time in nature….and less time in front of computer screens.

The Wild, Wild Heart

By Simone Lipscomb | June 5, 2013

I rented a truck in Bonaire and drove up by myself into the national park. It was the first time in a very long while I had been there. Hot desert, cactus, rocks, dust ringed by turquoise and indigo ocean with large waves crashing against the shore–these are elemental energies at their strongest.

Structures built by humans are very few. What was built now stands in ruins, reclaimed by the sky and salt. Destined to always be reduced to the basic elements from which they arose.

The wild energy of the place invoked my inner wildness with prayers whispered in winds whipping through my hair. It bestowed a blessing with the warm fingers of solar energy touching my skin. Jagged rocks cut through any pretense, any boundaries erected to survive the insanity of humanity and I was cut open, my heart beat once more in instinctual rhythm, that cadence that is slow and grounded yet dancing with power and passion.

As I stood on a craggy cliff over looking the ocean I cried out to the sky, “Our world needs more instinctual energy, more awareness of elemental energy! We have forgotten the dance!” The cactus stood as guardians listening at attention, their reply the high-pitched whistle of wind through their needled arms. The wild parrots darting in and out of cactus answered me with their songs and calls. But the iguanas…they simply stared and waited…….the long silent stare that makes me a bit uncomfortable in my skin. It was as if they were asking, what are you going to do about this knowing that you know? Hmmmm?

The disconnect we collectively have from nature is destroying the planet. It is destroying us. If we dare to feel the beat of our wild, wild hearts we will never think it is okay to abuse the planet or any of its creatures….ever again. To heal the disconnect doesn’t require fighting and arguing, it simply requires each of us to reconnect with the part of us that belongs to the Earth. Then, from that bodily connection–that visceral connection–we will know what to do. The Earth will speak through us. She will rise up within us and heal Herself through us.

Technology=Intelligence?

By Simone Lipscomb | May 17, 2013

Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence. We might be most familiar with this organization through the movie Contact starring Jody Foster. Looking for intelligent life on other planets, in other galaxies is SETI’s mission.

I heard an NPR interview with Jill Tarter on the program Science Friday/Talk of the Nation. She is the chair of SETI. In the interview she made a statement that made me guffaw. “Technology is our proxy for intelligence. Technological civilizations survive for a very long time. It may take 100,000 years for a signal to reach Earth but if they were there to send the signal, they’re probably still there.”

Since I was driving I had to carefully control my reaction but I did laugh, hysterically perhaps. While I understand the basis of her statement I question the logic of it.

Oiled beach from 2010 BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill

In the short time humans have been on this planet we have managed to destroy life forms, land masses, pollute waterways, over-populate and exploit resources to the point where future life is questionable. Was she suggesting that other life forms might be more intelligent and survived with their technology without destroying their planet? If that’s the case, I want to meet them…as long as they are friendly and helpful. Mean aliens need to stay away.

Maybe her ET’s could teach us how to care for our planet and use our technologies wisely instead of the highly destructive ways we use them now….drilling for oil miles below the surface of the ocean, injecting toxic chemicals into the Earth to eek out natural gas and pollute the water-table, strip mining, mountain-top removal mining….and on and on.

Does technology equal intelligence? I haven’t seen evidence of that on this planet.

(Please note: I did not take the photos of the ET’s).