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Homecoming

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“Every traveler has a home of his own, and he learns to appreciate it the more from his wandering.”      —Charles Dickens

An old black pickup pulls into the driveway every weekday afternoon and parks in front of the garage.  An old black dog inside the house who’s waiting and watching by the floor-length window gets a shot of adrenaline in anticipation.  The homecoming has begun!  Chris exits the pickup, gathers his small red cooler and extraneous sweatshirts, boots, and clothes that are mud-streaked, oil-stained, and grass-smelling and walks slowly toward the house.  If he’s dug holes, planted trees, or been on his hands and knees pulling weeds for too many hours of the day, it shows in the limp of his gait.  But pure happiness and joy meets him at the door in a rush and a dozen rubs against his legs.  There is a smile on Chris’ face as he sits on the bench, looks at his gray-faced friend, and rubs behind her ears as she wags her tail in contentment.  The three of us then take a walk down the road—Chris and I check in with one another about our day as Tamba checks out the new smells on the old pathway.

It was Homecoming at Saint John’s University last weekend.  Aaron and his friends met to eat breakfast in the Reef—the cafeteria on the basement floor of the thick stone walled Quad building.  After a short walk across campus, they entered the pine tree enveloped football stadium where the Johnnies whomped the Auggies in a no-surprise win.  Tailgating, catching up, reminiscing, and sharing a beer and a game of pool rounded out the day.  Chris and I joined Aaron for a hike at Saint John’s the next day—it was a beautiful, sunshiny day, and the Maple trees were in spectacular color.  Families, students, and alumni hiked the extensive network of trails, reveling in the magnificence of the place.

What does a place one wants to come home to offer?  What brings people back ‘home?’  Saint John’s emphasizes a sense of community and friendship that I witnessed during Aaron’s four years there and that has continued in the years since he graduated.  It is a place where you can fall, and there are people there to help you back up.

Home is a place of beauty, however you define that.  Saint John’s University is surrounded with hundreds of acres of natural beauty—lakes, streams, Maple forests, grasslands, and Oak savannas—and contains historical and modern architecture that awes and inspires.

Coming home should be a safe haven in the rough seas of life.  The heart-breaking reality is that many children don’t have a safe haven at home; they consider school and their teacher a place and person of safety where they can have food, kind words, and care and help with learning and being.  We never know when we are someone’s port in a storm.

Home lets us be who we are with no pretenses, embraces us no matter our size, color, mistakes, or shortcomings.

Home is a place to hang out, to get close, to have a conversation, to hold one another accountable, to soak up the good things in life and to deal with the bad.

Home is a place of encouragement when a task is daunting, when we wonder how the heck we’re going to climb this next hurdle, when the steps are right in front of our faces but we are unable to navigate them for whatever reason.

Home is a place of growth and learning where books and experiments, chores and hands-on doing, creativity, mistakes and solving problems of every kind are used daily.  We learn, we grow, we shed our old ways and constantly become new creatures.

Home is a place that helps us out of the muck, that throws us a rope when we’re stuck, that will wade into the mess we find ourselves in, pull our boot out of the mud, and help us back to shore.

Home is where all the paths of life lead back to—often we lose our way and wander through the trees.  We get confused about what direction we’re going and whether it’s the right way.  We get scared of what’s to come because of the dark nights that have come before.  But always, the Light of home is calling us forward through the shadows.

 

For Aaron, homecoming at Saint John’s was fun and nostalgic, satisfying and bittersweet (Jake, you were missed!)  For Tamba, Chris’ daily homecoming is a time to celebrate with joy and contentment.  So what does a place or person offer that one wants to come home to?  Safety in all realms, acceptance of who we are, beauty for the eyes and soul, responsibility of internal and external dynamics, help when we need it, a culture of learning and growth, and fun, happiness, contentment, and joy!  Home is the place we return to, it is the people we can count on, it is the God who sustains us, it is the path we travel on the journey back to ourselves.  Home is truly where our hearts are, where we know beyond a shadow of a doubt that we matter. 

The Things Our Eyes Can’t See

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When I was in graduate school, I could get lost for hours looking into a microscope—looking at things our eyes can’t see—red and white blood cells, chromosomes, uric acid crystals in urine, sperm cells, and so many other incredible structures.  It was a whole other fascinating world that we carry with us, that is us!

Our woodland Cooper’s Hawk flew to an Oak tree branch when I happened to be looking out the window.  I know he saw me looking at him—in other words, he watched me like a hawk.  He wasn’t too perturbed, as he sat there for quite a while, fluffed up his feathers, and continued watching.

Hawks and other raptors have excellent vision—they can see 4 to 5 times farther than humans, have superior color vision, and deeper foveas that allow their eyes to act like a telephoto lens.  They need this acute vision to focus in on their prey from a great distance, then accurately capture it.

With our much more limited eyesight, we get a bigger picture of the world by moving our eyes and heads.  We are capable of seeing the big picture and the details of things that are close by but often overlooked.  The big picture of Autumn is the changing colors of the landscape, but I thought I would focus in on a more detailed look at Fall through the camera’s telephoto lens.  The needle-like leaves of the Larch tree are changing to a golden yellow and will drop to the ground like a carpet.

Spiny seeds of Queen Anne’s Lace have begun their dispersal by wind or clinging to the fur, feather, or pantleg of a passerby.

Scarlet cones of Sumac berries top the equally beautiful crimson foliage and will remain as a food source for dozens of birds throughout the winter, long after the leaves have fallen.

Huge white puffs of ‘Annabelle’ Hydrangea flowers gradually dry to a rich, toasted brown color and can be brought indoors for a beautiful Fall decoration.

Individual seeds on the Purple Coneflower light up like pegs on a Lite-Brite screen.

Fast growing fungi popped up all over the yard after days of rain.  Isn’t it incredible that such a strange structure, complete with unique colors and shapes, can grow so quickly then melt away to nothing?

Like a huge bouquet of tiny rosebuds, each ‘Autumn Joy’ Sedum flower spreads its namesake to all who see them.

Behold the first leaf to change from green to wine on one of the many ‘Nannyberry’ Vibernums we have planted in the woods.

Dried Fern fronds remind me of the racks of drying tobacco I remember from my childhood, that hung in Pennsylvania barns.

The lace cap flowers of ‘Quick Fire’ Hydrangea bloom a pure white and gradually turn pink as Summer wanes and Fall arrives.

Joe Pye Weed seedheads look like pink sheaves of wheat blowing in the breeze.

A tangle of plumy seedheads from a Purple Smoke tree is rarely noticed at this time of year.

 

The landscape of Fall is beautiful; the details of Autumn are intriguing, just as the landscape and microscopic details of our bodies are amazing.  Though we don’t have the keen distance sight of a hawk, we do have the marvelous ability to see the big picture and the details, both literally and figuratively.  But what happens when we are only focused on one certain thing?  

The other objects in sight are rarely noticed or are distorted beyond reality.  At times like this, a person’s world and vision gets small—when the focus of his sight and mind is singular and obsessive.  It happens when a person is fighting for her life.  It happens when despair covers a person like a cloak, and she seems to melt away to nothing.  It happens when one is lost for hours, days, years in addiction.  It happens when suffering people are unimportant compared to money.  It happens every day.  It is rare that a person in this situation can correct his vision on his own, let alone have the inner and outer resources to change his world.  That’s where the rest of us come in, for if you think you live your life as an island, you are either a fool or delusional.  We are our brothers’ keepers.  Before that seems overwhelming or raises the hackles of defense, know that we are hard-wired as social creatures.  We are meant to look out for one another.  It starts with taking good care of ourselves, our partners and families, then our friends and community, our country, our Earth.  Like a hawk, we can watch for despair or addiction, for suffering and injustice, and though we cannot do the inner work for the people affected, we can stand by their side and do what we can to assist them.  We need to be able to help them see the big picture, yet work diligently with the details.  And then there are the things our eyes can’t see—love, faith, hope, resiliency—that sustain us even when the material world has dried up and fallen away or been washed away in a flood.  Behold!   

Wielding the Power of Love

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There’s somebody out there wielding more power than they probably know they have.  Their power is not evident at the time of delivery; in fact, it will be evident days to weeks later.  The delivery, I’m sure, is taken lightly and seems relatively benign, and they may or may not see the consequences of their actions.  That being said, their mission is noble and just—to rid our city or township of the noxious Spiny Plumeless Thistle.

I don’t have anything against the intrinsic value of any plant in this creation of ours, but I have a strong dislike for Buckthorn and Thistles, two of the most tenacious invasive species of our area.  Come June, I am scanning the ditch along our road for the opening of a pretty-if-it-was-on-another-plant purple flower.  At that time, I get out Chris’ sharp digging spade and spend an hour or two doing my civic duty by walking up and down our road chopping every purple-flowered, prickly plant I see.

Seed dispersal by wind takes the opportunistic seeds to anywhere there is some degree of disturbance—an overgrazed pasture, vacant lots, field edges, or roadsides.  Luckily, the plant is biennial, and with persistence, it can be eradicated over a number of years, especially if all neighbors are on the same page.  As the summer wears on, my digging slips, and I notice a few spindly plants flowering across the road from our garden.  Here is where the wielder of power comes into the picture—with a wand and a tank of herbicide.  August is not a good time to spray weeds in a good management program.  I’m not an expert on herbicides, but I live with a man who has used them every year of his horticultural career, and I know about drift and volatility.  I first noticed a change in the color of a number of sumacs–they all turned orange while the others were green.  And then I noticed my tomatoes—the growing tips were burned back, the leaves got spotty, and the tomatoes I was so looking forward to started turning off colors.  Dang it!  The city public works director denied that they were the ones responsible, but I was a little worried when he said my garden was too far from the road to be affected (not true) and didn’t know what dicamba was.

The wielder of the wand did more damage in the neighborhood.  While spraying in a gravel parking lot down the road at a small park, the drift killed all but one branch on a 15-20 year old Accolade Elm, a hybrid tolerant of Dutch Elm disease.  Its survival seems unlikely.

And the hill at the end of the road that used to be all grass a number of years ago will probably be filled with thistles again next year, as the herbicide concoction killed the grass along with the thistles.

 

So disappointing that my tomatoes were wrecked.  Disgusting that a tree that took so many years to grow was wiped out.  Frustrating that the people responsible don’t have a better management plan than ‘go spray thistles’ in the humid hot middle of summer.  For some reason it all reminded me of the hate, injustice, and ignorance in the world that seems to be tenaciously invading all our lives.  The prickly spines of hate are often hidden under the beauty and righteousness of a pretty idea.  Seeds of discontent and harm are dispersed via the internet by opportunistic self-serving strangers looking for the grounds of unrest.  And what are the wielders of power doing to manage it all?

It’s overwhelming at times.  I find myself wondering in that ancient, yet 90’s sort of way—What Would Jesus Do?  It helps me stay strong.  I know that I will keep picking up my shovel to chop out hate and ignorance, and for all I am worth, I will wield the power of Love.

Shifting Gears

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We were still newlyweds when Chris taught me to drive a vehicle with a manual transmission.  We had just bought a used 1981 Chevy C-10 1/2 ton pick-up truck.  It was a bold red color—the only choice for a truck, according to Chris.  The single cab and long bed (the standard back then) looked sleek and utilitarian and housed a ‘three on the tree’—a manual three-speed shifter on the steering wheel column!  He drove us to a way-out-yonder gravel road north of Bates City where no extraneous traffic would interfere with my concentration, and then we switched places.  He was a patient, methodical teacher, and I tried to be the good student that had carried me through all my years of schooling.  But studying books and operating clutches are two different things!  I don’t care to remember how many times I killed the engine before I even got going.  There was gear grinding, bucking action, nervous laughter, and many “I’m sorrys” when I thought I was wrecking it.  Trying to get the hand-foot timing down—letting off the gas, pushing in the clutch, moving the gear shift to the right position, then letting out the clutch slowly and giving it gas—was hard and frustrating.  And how do you even get braking in there, too?

Fall is a time for shifting gears—luckily Mother Nature has done it more times than we know and does it smoothly and seamlessly.  The growing, producing season is in decline; the fruits of that season are gathered or hanging heavily on the vine, ready for harvest.  Internal systems in trees take their cues from the external world—length of daylight and temperature—to stop production of chlorophyll, which unmasks the carotenoids and anthocyanins that give leaves their fall colors and eventually causes the leaves to drop off.

Fall flowers provide needed nectar to insects that may be migrating, hibernating, or laying eggs for the last cycle before winter.  One last hurrah of the repeat bloomer Stella D’Oro Lily entices a Monarch butterfly to linger and feed.

The beautiful ‘Fireworks’ Goldenrod attracts bees and wasps of all kinds.

Showy purple Asters bloom vibrantly as one of the late season stars of the perennial world.

A shift happens with the bird population.  The summer birds have mostly migrated away—we no longer see the graceful swoops of the bluebirds or hear the incessant chatter of the house wrens.  It is rather quiet on the bird front, though we heard a flock of geese just this morning.  A quiet little guy visited the bird bath recently and seemed to be wondering where everybody else was also!

Spring fawns are losing their spots to a winter coat and are almost as big as their mothers.  They are the reason we must be so diligent in guarding young trees and shrubs.

The male spotted fawn shifts to a ‘button buck’ as the pedicels form into small hair-covered bumps at 4-5 months of age that will grow into antlers next April or May.

 

With the patient tutelage of Chris and lots of practice, shifting gears with a manual transmission was soon second nature to me.  The old ’81 Chevy was a stalwart worker for us for many years.

 

Fall not only shifts gears for plants and animals, but for us also.  Some of us harvest and preserve food for winter.  We start craving hot soups, pumpkin anything, and apple pie.  We slowly and effortlessly morph from outside evening activities to reading or tv watching.  Daylight and temperature influence our internal systems and our external choices, showing that we are an integral part of Nature that is often overlooked.  Yet we also have a huge cortical brain that can override the more animal aspects of our existence.  We can choose to shift gears!  We can choose to migrate to a new place, choose to live in the way-out-yonder quietness or the busy bee metropolis.  We can choose to be bold, choose our schooling, linger in darkness or seamlessly let our Light shine. 

Checking Our (River) Bank Statements

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One of the greatest lessons children can teach us is to hold two very divergent ideas in our mind and hearts at the same time.  It may just be a matter of days after their birth before we are holding the most precious thing we have ever seen at arms length while contemplating the extreme mess of diaper, clothes, and blankets that needs to be cleaned up.  Or there is non-stop crying that wears on our sleep-weary ears and nerves from the perfectly beautiful baby we brought home.

This past week was hot and muggy with uncomfortable nights and air quality alerts that tightened my airways with ozone.  Summer’s bad qualities.  But it looked like Fall.  The Ash trees were mostly all yellow and dropping leaves.  The Sumac trees had turned showstopping crimson and scarlet.  The Linden trees were quickly turning lemon-colored with a circular blanket of leaves covering the green grass underneath them.  So is it Fall or Summer?

Our neighbor’s Buckeye trees glowed golden with leaves and spiny seed capsules that encase the ‘eyed’ dark brown seed.

Fall harvesting by the birds has begun.  A juvenile Cardinal plucked a seed from a nearby tree—unfortunately it was a seed from the dreadful Buckthorn!  Is Buckthorn good for food or a worthless tree?

Virginia Creeper vines are turning red, going from camouflage to conspicuous.

Also conspicuous in the morning dew was a funnel weaver spider’s sheet web.  Most likely a grass spider, she hid herself in the entrance of the funnel to wait for a tasty insect to stumble upon her web.  Are spiders terrible pests or architectural geniuses?

Drying seeds of Queen Anne’s Lace leaned over against the background of fall-colored Sumac.

The smallest Hostas are just now blooming, fresh and summer-like…

…while the sun-kissed Maple trees are beginning to show their colors.

 

We are a society based on labeling.  The calendar says it is still Summer and will be Fall on Friday; the meteorologists say it was Fall on September 1st.  If we had no way of orderly keeping track of days, what would it be called?  Perhaps it would not be named at all.  Often labeling comes with black and white thinking, with opposite and extreme judgments—good or bad, right or wrong, all or nothing.  We run into a web of tangled trouble when we try to determine who has the ‘right’ to decide what is right or wrong.  Does the person who is deathly afraid of spiders get to determine a spider’s worth or does an entomologist?  Does a person who is trying to eradicate Buckthorn from his property have the right to determine its value or does the person who loves it for a privacy hedge?  I believe black and white thinking are like two banks of a river, and the river is the gray area.  We can be the sturdy boats with thick ropes and strong oars and sails that navigate the River of Life.  At times it is imperative for us to tie up to one of the two banks—for order in a society or for taking care of our personal space.  But most of the time we are moving through life on the gray River, and we must hold two very divergent ideas in our thoughts and hearts with compassion.  Our child who just made a huge mess is our beloved.  The dreadful Buckthorn provides food for the birds.  The scary spider or bat eats many destructive insects, and on and on it goes.  Many people live on one of the two banks, like I used to—it is familiar and safe there, but Life passes by.  We call out with disdain or hope to the people on the River—“We know the answer!”  And while the River at times can be dangerous and fast-moving or stagnant and stale, most of the time it is life-giving, refreshing, cleansing, and invigorating.  Through rough waters and smooth sailing, may we navigate well, anticipate the rocks and snags, learn what we need to learn, look to both horizons, and enjoy the unexpected treasures around the bend.

 

Butterfly Wings and Cowgirl Dreams

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I have a printed meme on my refrigerator that says, ” Your time as a caterpillar has expired.  Your wings are ready.”  It has a photo of a horse on it with wise-looking eyes, a star on her forehead, and alert ears.  I want to wrap my arms around her neck and smell the sweet goodness that only a horse lover so deeply appreciates.  The quote is referenced to Unknown; the meme was posted by Cowgirl Dreams and was passed on to me by my sister.  I look at it every day.

Last weekend when we were picnicking at Big Stone Lake State Park to celebrate my Mom’s birthday, Painted Lady butterflies filled the air and lit on wildflowers of all kinds to gather nectar.  When I stood still, they landed on me.  Painted Lady butterflies migrate in large numbers, so this ‘gathering up’ time occurs in late August into September.  They migrate to southwestern United States and northern Mexico, traveling 100 miles a day and continuing to reproduce throughout their migration.

The Painted Lady is the most widely distributed butterfly in the world.  They lay their eggs on asters, thistles, burdock, and legumes.  (Vanessa cardui means ‘butterfly of thistle.’)  The eggs are pale green and the size of a pin head.

In 3-5 days, the tiny caterpillar hatches from the egg, constantly eats the host plant, and grows quickly.  The caterpillar literally grows out of its skin four times before being fully grown (each phase between molts is called an instar.)  The yellowish-green and black caterpillar makes a silk nest on the host plant to protect itself from predators.

When fully grown, in 5-10 days, the caterpillar attaches itself with a silk button to the underside of a leaf.  Its skin splits open to reveal a dull, brown case and becomes a pupa or chrysalis, and metamorphosis begins.

In the 7-10 days of metamorphosis, the caterpillar breaks down and becomes liquid and re-forms into a butterfly.  The chrysalis splits open, and the Painted Lady butterfly emerges with crumpled wings that take a few hours to dry and straighten out.  Then she/he flies away to drink nectar and mate to begin the cycle all over again.

 

And what does that have to do with horses and cowgirls and all of us?  Well, I think everyone wants to be a butterfly.  Their bright colors attract attention, their delicate, velvety wings are marvels of flight and design, and they make even the most beautiful flowers more beautiful by their presence.  But nobody gets to be a butterfly without the other steps.  The tiny egg of an idea—the ‘imagineering’ of becoming a barrel racer, a nurse, or a composer—begins the process.  Then comes the ingesting of information and the growth of practice—again and again and again.  When maturation occurs, there is a period of stillness, a breaking down of the old to rebuild the new, the metamorphosis.  Like Chris always says, “You can only get ready for so long; pretty soon you have to leave.”  Your time as a caterpillar has expired.  Your wings are ready.  But in our all or nothing thinking, we believe we, as a whole person, are either a caterpillar or a butterfly, and if we’re not yet a butterfly, then we are somehow lacking, not good enough.  I propose that we are all—at any given time—a compilation of all the stages in different areas of our lives.  I am an aging tattered-winged butterfly of a Mom; I am a voracious student caterpillar in learning about trauma and attachment; I am a pupa in my spiritual life—breaking down old ideas and rebuilding new ones, and I have some tiny green eggs of ideas that I want to hatch out and grow.  Cowgirl dreams…anybody dreams…dreams we can wrap our arms around.  We are marvels of design, bright with the colors of creativity, and we can each make the world a more beautiful place by our presence.

My Mom, the Adventurer

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My Mom is an adventurer.  I’m not sure when I realized it.  It was not when we were kids and she skirted around a barricade on a highway because she knew she wanted to get over to that other side.  It wasn’t when she drove half way across the country by herself with three kids or when she and my Dad literally built our house and barn.  I didn’t think it was out of the ordinary that she raised cattle by herself after the divorce.  I did start to get an inkling when she went to India for a month, and I thought to myself that I would never do that!  The older I got, the more adventurous my young Mom seemed to be!  She went to France, drove to Montana, visited the Northwest, vacationed with us on a houseboat in Canada, hiked with her newlywed granddaughter in the Texas Hill country, and picked wild blueberries with us in the Northwoods even after we saw evidence of a bear.  In just the last six months she has visited Minnesota three times, tent-camped for a week-long trip to Wyoming, and oh, did I mention she’s refurbishing an old camper?

My Mom met us at Big Stone Lake State Park yesterday, where South Dakota meets Minnesota—at the Big Stone and the Big Lake.

We met to celebrate my Mom and her eight decades of life.  We picnicked, ate cake, hiked a little, drove through Big Stone National Wildlife Refuge, and took photos.  It was a good day.  My Mom and I share a love for Nature, and I am ever so grateful for that.  I don’t think I’ll ever be as adventurous as my Mom—I think I’m too cautious and worry too much (that long plane ride over the ocean makes me shudder.)  But I also realize that we can all be adventurous in our own way—my friend Lynda is a spiritual adventurer, graduate school is an intellectual adventure for our daughter Anna, climbing mountains and moving to a new state are two kinds of adventures for my friend Michaela, and so on down the list of family and friends.  So here’s to my Mom, the adventurer, and to all you other adventurers out there, no matter what your horizons!  

A Total Eclipse of the Eclipse

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I had high expectations of Monday’s eclipse.  The media had prepared us well with scientific information, beautiful illustrations and photos of previous celestial wonders, and Amazon had plenty of viewing glasses to purchase.  The Great American Eclipse was to make its way across the heart of our country in its totality.  Minnesota wouldn’t see complete darkness, but an almost total eclipse is exciting, nonetheless.  The sun was shining on my Monday morning walk…then the clouds rolled in.  As E-time approached, thunder rolled and rumbled, and rain fell, along with my high hopes.

One of our Bluebirds of happiness flew to the Maple just outside the window, perching on the side of the tree, reminding me that blue skies would come again.  (Tuesday’s sky was blue and cloudless.)

Even in the midst of my dashed eclipse expectations, there was tropical beauty right outside my door in the rain—a banana tree and the pretty pink flowers of Mandevilla.

Beyond the hype and excitement of the eclipse this week was the reality of the waning days of summer.  First day of school pictures filled my Facebook feed.  Cooler than normal temperatures necessitated bringing out the fleeces and sweatshirts.  The tomatoes are finally ready to eat!  The apples are turning red.  Sumac leaves are beginning to turn crimson.  Wild plums are ripening.

 

And our first ever hazel nuts are forming under the curved leaves and inside the fringed husks!

I never say summer is sweet on the humid, hot days (I mean, what do I expect?!), but as August winds down and Summer Sweet blooms and releases its fragrant scent, I am reminded that summer is indeed a sweet time of year.

On the other side of dashed expectations and humid-drenched disappointments is surprise and possibility.  What is eating our Milkweed?  Monarch caterpillars, of course.  Not this time!  The hungry, similar-colored caterpillars are the larval stage of the Milkweed Tiger Moth (a very drab, gray-colored moth.)

And look at this delicate web of water droplets I found in the grass below the milkweed!

At the junction of old and new soil and grass around our patio, a fungus grew that looked like a worn, well-oiled leather catcher’s mitt.  Where did that come from?

Then there is the delicate surprise of a common object seen in a different light—the bird’s nest bundle of seeds of Queen Anne’s lace and a pincushion center of Black-eyed Susan.

 

There’s a book titled Expectation Hangover by Christine Hassler.  I haven’t read it, but she defines Expectation Hangover as “the myriad of undesirable feelings or thoughts present when one or a combination of the following things occur: a desired outcome does not occur; a desired outcome does occur but does not produce the feelings or results we expected; our personal and/or professional expectations are unmet by ourselves or another; an undesired, unexpected event occurs that is in conflict with what we want or planned.”  I’ve had a few of those in my lifetime and know very well the toll it takes on time, energy, and self-worth.  My high hopes of experiencing the eclipse were tempered by the meteorological predictions that didn’t favor clear skies on that day.  It’s important to keep our expectations grounded in reality—what’s the science behind this or what does the history of this person show us or what can we really afford?  I’m not sure it’s our expectations per se that get us into trouble, but our attachment to them.  Those attachments can run deep and profound to the very soul of who we think we are.  But Nature teaches us that even in the certainty of summer morphing into fall, we can discover new surprises and see things in a different light—like we’ve never seen them before.  Expectations and possibilities with a grounding of reality—it’s a recipe for an awe-inspiring eclipse (or not), a sweet summer, and an authentic life.

Lead Into Gold

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“Every human being has gone through a tragedy of sorts.  And the idea is that you have two paths you can take.  You can find that alchemy that turns lead into gold, find that magic where you can see the loss as an entry point for learning and grow from it and become wiser and stronger.”  —Jillian Michaels

A small meadow that I walk by every day had been mowed a while ago.  The grass was not growing back very fast as we had had dry weather until recently.  But something caught my attention earlier this week—a Milkweed plant had grown knee-high above the shorn grass and stood out in stark relief from the dry, brown grass.

I was curious whether a plant had been cut down or if this was a new plant.  When I looked closely, I saw that one stem of the Milkweed had been mowed off, and in its place, three new stems had grown.

As I looked around the meadow, I saw other plants that had been mowed down that were now tall and blooming!  Red Clover, Daisy Fleabane, the tough, persistent Canadian Thistle, and others.

It was not the first time the meadow had been mowed, and I knew for sure the Milkweed had not had its chance to bloom yet.  The Red Clover, like Alfalfa, grows fast and had probably bloomed before each mowing.  The grass had already gone to seed before it was mowed the second time—its life cycle for the season was complete.  But the Milkweed had still not bloomed or produced pods full of fluffy seeds.  It seemed to have accelerated growth to compensate for the set-back of being mowed down.

In 1995, Lawrence Calhoun, PhD, along with Richard Tedeschi, PhD, coined the term post-traumatic growth (PTG)—when our biggest life challenges can offer opportunities for meaning and growth.  While the term ‘post-traumatic growth’ is relatively new, the theme of suffering, meaning, and growth has been prominent in ancient spiritual and religious traditions, literature, and philosophy for eons.  Resilience is bouncing back to ‘normal’ after a tragedy or challenge, whereas with PTG, we bounce back higher, so to speak.  We learn to make meaning of our suffering.  We learn a new way of being.  We grow, bloom, produce seeds and fruit, and complete our life cycle.  We turn lead into gold.

Intentional Grounding

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Do you remember how often you were on the ground when you were a kid?  Our babies spent hours on blankets spread out on the grass while I worked in the garden or their older siblings played in the sandbox.  There was usually a Black Lab dog named Licorice in the grass or on the blanket near them, taking seriously her self-proclaimed job as baby-sitter.  When older, the kids played with kittens, watched the chickens, rolled down hills, caught frogs in the mud of the corral, made forts in the lilac bush, made snow angels and snow forts, and so many other things—all while sitting, crawling, or lying on the ground!  When they entered teenage years, their ground time was reduced to sports, laying out in the sun to get a tan, or an occasional picnic on a blanket.  All three had summers of their young adult years when they returned to living close to the earth at summer camps and outdoor jobs, when their bodies and spirits felt strong and empowered.  And then, what happens to us when we become adults?  How often are we in a building, in a car, in air conditioning, in good clothes, in a hurry?

My Mom recently returned from a week-long camping trip to Wyoming.  She remarked about how well she slept each night on her cot in a tent—much better than her nights at home in her own bed!  I told her about a quote from the Touch the Earth Trail pamphlet from Mille Lacs Kathio State Park that we had visited.

“The Dakota was a true naturist, a lover of nature.  He loved the earth and all things of the earth, the attachment growing with age.  The old people came literally to love the soil and they sat or reclined on the ground with a feeling of being close to a mothering power.  It was good for the skin to touch the Earth and the old people liked to remove their moccasins and walk with bare feet on the sacred earth.  The soil was soothing, strengthening, cleansing, and healing.  That is why the old Indian still sits upon the earth instead of propping himself up and away from its life-giving forces.  For him, to sit or lie upon the ground is to be able to think more deeply and feel more keenly; he can see more clearly into the mysteries of life and come closer in kinship to other lives about him.”     —Luther Standing Bear, Lakota leader and author, 1868-1939

Looking back at thousands of years of human history, most humans had almost continuous contact with the Earth each day.  This direct contact with the Earth is now called grounding or earthing; (also terms in electrical engineering to ensure safety of equipment and humans.)  There have been studies that indicate grounding’s positive effect on blood viscosity, heart rate variability, cortisol levels, inflammation, sleep, and autonomic nervous system balance. 

If a person has pets or kids, it’s easy to spend time on the ground with them and get a different perspective of the world.

 

When do you feel grounded?  How does one get to that ‘down-to-earth’ feeling?  Luther Standing Bear, young kids, animals, well-being researchers, and yoga instructors know that you can literally just drop down to the earth.  When I feel tired, achy and beat-up, like the weight of the world is on my shoulders, I like to lie down in the grass on my stomach, usually with a Black Lab dog named Tamba by my side.  I am never too much or not enough for Mother Earth.  I am just another one of her precious creatures.  My body feels supported; I feel the warmth of the sun and the cool of the shade.  My heartbeat becomes the heartbeat of the Earth, and with that awareness comes a calming, a grounding, and an appreciation for the life-giving forces inherent in Mother Earth and in each of us.