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Cultivated Nature–Olives and Beer

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As I’m writing this, it is ten below zero in Minnesota, and we are still cleaning up seven inches of snow from the past couple of days.  So, it is with a look to the past and a look towards the future that I bring you this post about a very warm, sunny December day in the Hill Country of Texas.  The word ‘cultivate’ is derived from a Latin word meaning ‘to care for.’  It means preparing the land to raise crops, promoting growth of a plant or crop by labor and attention, producing a product by culture, and developing or improving by education or training.  All of these definitions were incorporated into our day.  Twenty-six miles west of Austin is the Texas Hill Country Olive Company!  I didn’t know olives grew in Texas!  When we showed up for our morning tour (of which we were uncharacteristically the only ones!) we learned about the history of olives, the trees, the land, the processing, and of course, olive oil.  This family-owned business began in 2008 on seventeen acres of land with perfect conditions for growing olives: the land is sloped for good drainage, the soil is alkaline from the limestone rocks, the windy weather helps with pollinating, and the climate is warm.

We entered the Italian villa-style building to friendly greetings and the delicious smell of freshly-baked bread.  A small cafe occupied one side and a tasting room and gift shop the other.  The manufacturing and bottling of the olive oil happens in the back of the building—a much smaller area than I would have guessed for processing all the olives from this orchard and a much larger orchard in southern Texas.

Table olives and oil olives come from different varieties of Olive trees, and olive oil has different tastes and notes depending on the variety and the processing.  We were instructed to drink a small amount of five types of olive oil to discern the differences.  Each gave me a tickle in the back of my throat and some made me cough—which I found out was a good thing in the world of quality olive oil!  The most surprising one had an aftertaste of bananas!  They also had an amazing array of balsamic vinegars that we tasted on chunks of bread—so good!

Olive trees, called the tree of eternity, grow slowly and have been cultivated for over 6,000 years.  There are many sacred connotations of the Olive in the Bible, and victors of Olympic games in ancient Greece were awarded a crown of olive branches.  The Olive branch is a symbol of peace and an offer of reconciliation.

When the fruit is fully mature, nets are put under the tree, and the fruit is gently raked off the branches, then put into these crates.  The fruit is too bitter to be eaten off the tree.  Processing takes place quickly after harvest.  Olives for oil and black table olives are dark purplish-black when mature and harvested, but table olives can be picked when immature, while they are still green.  All have to be cured before eating.

Olive trees are evergreen with leathery gray-green leaves, silvery on the underside, and can live for several hundred years.  They bloom in late spring with small, white flower clusters.  A tree must be fifteen to twenty years old to produce a worthwhile crop, and some will produce for hundreds of years.

Peace puts forth her olive everywhere.  –William Shakespeare

After our Olive Company tour and tasting, we rested on the veranda in the warm sun and breeze, watching the wispy clouds and talked about the next stop of our day—the brewery.

Just down the road from the Olive Company is Jester King Brewery.  The limestone and tin buildings, the Live Oak trees, and the limestone walls and paths evoke a farmplace feel, and in fact, they call themselves a Farmhouse Brewery.  Their farmhouse ales are a ‘product of the land,’ unique to the time of year, the plants used, and even the people who work there.  They use foraged plants, local fruits and vegetables, native yeasts and bacteria, well water, and local grains.  The setting at the Brewery was like we were at a backyard gathering—picnic tables under the Oak trees, yard games, live music, wood-fired pizzas and beer, kids, dogs, and grandmas.  

The people of Jester King Brewery embody the word ‘cultivate.’  On their 165 acres, they are working the land to grow raspberries, grapes, hops (the tall poles below is where the hops will grow), and other crops to use for their beers.  They promote natural improvement of soil using cover crops and a fertilizer ‘tea’ made from old bones, aged molasses, goat manure, and beer.  They culture their sour beers with airborne yeast and bacteria or cultured wild yeast and bacteria from local plants.  They give brewery and farm tours to share their knowledge and passion for producing beer in an organic and unique way.  

 

We had such an interesting day learning about the cultivation of olives and beer-making crops and the process of making olive oil and farmhouse ales.  It was evident how both family-run businesses cared deeply for the land, the trees and crops, the process by which they produced their product, and the experience of the people who came to share in their livelihood.  It was a labor of love and love of the labor and attention to their craft.  Both places were peaceful, where we felt at home in their world, where time slowed and worries melted away.  An oasis of sorts, where we were away from the news of the day, the rancor of them vs us, and the ever-present, pervasive pull of the screen.  So what kind of place do we cultivate in our day-to-day lives?  What do we care for?  What do we give our labor and attention to?  How do we promote growth and development of ourselves and others?  What kind of culture is fermenting in our hearts?  How do we promote peace?  We each have the responsibility to cultivate our own lives and to be in community with those around us.  What does the farmplace of your life look and feel like?  

Hope and Renewal After the Fire

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There have been more than a few times in my life when I felt like I was in a burning house—that feeling of helplessness, of betrayal, of feeling stuck in a room of flames.  And even more times when I felt like I was sleepwalking, wandering too close to the fire without even knowing the danger.  Perhaps that is life and what we are here to do—“to take what’s lost and broke and make it right.”*

It was shocking to see the devastation from the Bastrop Complex Fire of 2011 at Bastrop State Park in Texas—I can’t imagine what it was like just after the fire.  Yet, in the midst of the ruins from the fire were signs of resilience, new growth, and renewal.  Cheery red yaupon berries nestled among shiny green leaves contrasted with the burnt black bark of a Loblolly Pine tree.

In one fertile area of our hike, the new Pines were swiftly growing under the tall ghost trees that hadn’t survived the fire and one that had.  It was already looking ‘forest-like’ in this part of the park.

Along with the devastation was the hopeful new growth of Pines and Oaks.

The December day was warm and sunny, perfect for hikers and a little lizard crawling through the fallen leaves.

Replanting of the drought-hardy Loblolly Pines began in January 2013.  Volunteers and contractors have planted two million pine seedlings since that time and will continue to plant  in order to get a “mosaic of tree ages” as the forest re-grows.

This bright, tight growth of young pines probably originated from the fallen cones (seeds) of these survivors.  Often a threatened tree will produce an inordinate number of seeds to compensate for loss or potential loss of mature trees.

I admired these two survivors and wondered what had saved them from the mighty flames of the wildfire.  How were they spared?

Another tall survivor obviously sustained damage, but had a crown full of healthy needles and seed-laden cones.

A striking visual in the flooded valley (four years after the wildfire) was the color of the winter grasses.  One of the ongoing ways to curb erosion in the park after the fire was the application of a hydromulch—a slurry of straw, water, and native grass seed.  Normally these grasses would not grow in the shade of a forest, but they will stabilize the soil while the trees and native understory grow to repopulate the forest.

I caught a glimpse of a grasshopper in the grassy valley.

Even after the repeated devastation of fire and flood, pine seedlings were growing in the desolation.

One of the most interesting things we saw on our hike—that could easily have been missed if I wasn’t looking down—was a trail of ants carrying yaupon leaves.  The hiking trail was sandy and wide, so the line of green leaves, like sails on little red ships, readily stood out in the afternoon sun.  These are Texas Leaf-cutting ants, native to East Texas.  They collect plant material to bring back to their colony in order to build a fungi farm.  This fungi is their only known source of food.  Colonies house up to two million ants, so they can be extremely destructive to pine seedlings, citrus plants, agricultural crops, and landscape ornamentals.  They can strip a small to medium tree overnight!  The line of ants and leaves was as far as I could see on both sides of the trail.

We hiked through an section of the park that was not so intensively damaged by the fire—many scorched trees were still alive.  There were more Oak trees in this hillside area, and the path was strewn with acorns—food for the animals being re-established in the park and potential trees for the future.

Someone had built a rock cairn along the trail.  Many are used for ornamental purposes nowadays, but at one time, they were markers for navigation or memorial purposes.  Many remote hiking trails rely on cairns to mark which way the hiker should go, and many indigenous, sacred sites are marked with cairns.  Rock balancing art has its place, but many agree that it goes against the principle of Leave No Trace.

One of the loveliest signs of hope was a teeny tiny pine seedling growing in the debris of a fallen log.  Nature is the master of re-birth.

 

In the burning houses of our lives, how do we take the lost parts, the broken parts, the parts that keep us up at night and make them right?  How do we stop walking so close to the dangerous flames, even when it feels like the only thing we know how to do?  The aftermath can be devastating.  In the midst of the ruins, we are in shock, in disbelief.  How in God’s name did this happen?  In our disorientation, we may notice the survivors, the ones still standing.  The survivors sustained damage, too, but for some reason they are more resilient, and they are the beacons of hope.  It is the survivors and the empathetic helpers and the paid professionals who can work together to hold back the erosion of despair and plant the new seeds necessary for renewal.  We need a helping hand while we re-group and gather our wits and our strength.  We need cairns of caring people to honor what we have been through and show us the way to new growth and new life.  Nature (and Nature in us) is the master of re-birth, and we (and Mother Nature) need a helping hand in the aftermath of devastation—that’s how we make it right.

 

 

*from ‘Burning House’ by Jeff Bhasker, Tyler Johnson, and Cameron Ochs

The Burning Houses of Our Lives

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I was mindlessly mowing on the John Deere a couple summers ago, listening to subpar country music on the headphones, when a song came on that instantly caught my attention.  It was haunting and beautiful, so unlike everything I had been listening to.  The song was ‘Burning House,’ and the singer was Camaron Ochs, known simply as Cam.  The song was written based on a dream she had had about a former boyfriend and how guilty she felt by the way she had treated him.

  “I had a dream about a burning house/ you were stuck inside/ I couldn’t get you out/ I lay beside you and pulled you close/ And the two of us went up in smoke”

During our December trip to Texas, we hiked through Bastrop State Park which had gone up in smoke on September 4, 2011, after months of drought and excessive heat.  It was the most destructive wildfire in state history, burning 32,400 acres, killing two people, and destroying 1,696 homes and businesses.  Ninety-six percent of Bastrop State Park was affected by the wildfire with thirty percent being intensely burned.

The Bastrop area is part of the Lost Pines ecosystem, the western most area of the United States where Loblolly Pines have grown for over 18,000 years.  Seven years after the fire, the destruction was still so evident—the missing trees, the standing ‘ghost’ trees, the charred wood, and the fallen logs.

Fire kills trees in two ways: by destroying the cambium or living tissue layer that is under the protective bark or by consuming or damaging the needles, leaves, or buds.  Ponderosa Pines and Western Larch are the most hardy trees when it comes to surviving a wildfire, which is dependent on the speed and intensity of the fire.

The 2011 Bastrop Complex Wildfire burned for 55 days.

This photo shows the various levels of damage, and the ridge gives us a visual of what the area previously looked like before the fire.

Another fire swept through the area in the fall of 2015—the Hidden Pines Fire.  We drove through that smoke-filled air when we went to Austin for our daughter’s wedding that October.  Eyeliner-black tree trunks define the destruction.

“I’ve been sleep walking/ Been wondering all night/ Trying to take what’s lost and broke/ And make it right”

To add insult to injury, on Memorial Day, 2015, after excessive rains, a dam on a 10-acre lake in the park failed and flooded this low-lying area.

We saw burnt trees that had acted like a snow fence, causing the roaring flood waters to dump the rocks on the downside of the tree.  (Erosion is an ongoing problem in the park as it tries to reestablish the lost forest.)

“Wish that we could go back in time/ I’d be the one you thought you’d find”

 

The Bastrop Fire of 2011 and the preceding drought was devastating for the park and surrounding community.  Trees that had taken multiple decades to grow were gone in a flash of fire.  Homes and businesses—gone.  Like the wildfires in California and other places around the world.  Hiking through the park on that warm December day was a bit haunting—the evidence of what once was stood stark against the blue sky, and the loss was a reality hard to grasp.  Even after seven years.  Just like the burning houses of our lives.  We find ourselves, or put ourselves, in a place that is going up in flames—guilt licks at our ankles, confusion fuels the fire, indifference smothers the air from our lungs.  “I’ve been sleepwalking/ Too close to the fire”  Our protective bark is breached, and the fire gets to our living tissue and causes us pain and death of what once was.  We wish we could go back in time, but everything has changed.

On Friday, sixteen-year-old Greta Thunberg spoke at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland about Climate Change.  She said, “But I don’t want your hope….I want you to act as you would in a crisis.  I want you to act as if the house is on fire, because it is.”

We’ve been sleepwalking—in the living emotional areas of our lives, in the political and financial arenas of the world, and in the very real existential crisis that we face with climate change.  How do we take what’s lost and broke and make it right?

 

 

‘Burning House’ lyrics written by Jeff Bhasker, Tyler Johnson, and Camaron Ochs

The Influencer and Her Dreams

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My special cause, the one that alerts my interest and quickens the pace of my life, is to preserve the wildflowers and native plants that define the regions of our land—to encourage and promote their use in appropriate areas, and thus help pass on to generations in waiting the quiet joys and satisfactions I have known since my childhood.  –Lady Bird Johnson

Lady Bird Johnson, wife of our 36th President Lyndon B. Johnson, along with actress Helen Hayes founded the National Wildflower Research Center in 1982 on 60 acres of land in East Austin, Texas.  It moved to its present location in southwest Austin in 1995 and now includes 284 acres of native trees and plants, Texas architecture, a family garden dedicated to nature play for children, and thousands of species of insects, butterflies, birds, and mammals.  It also has numerous art installations like this rock and glass sculpture glowing in the sunlight in front of luminous grasses.

The Wildflower Center has a rain collection system that is capable of storing 68,500 gallons of water!  Rock pillars have an aqueduct on top to bring rainwater to the round cistern at the entrance.

We climbed the Observation Tower, a brown sandstone landmark that offers spectacular views from the top, a seating area midway up with green roof, and is itself a 5,000-gallon rainwater cistern.

The Woodland Garden—and many other areas of the Center—was lined with luminaries for their winter light festival.

As we followed the stream, Emily noticed a snake slithering alongside of us.  He crossed the stream to the other side, and then I noticed the name of the tree he crawled under: Eve’s Necklace, a small tree with compound leaves, clusters of pink pea-like flowers, and fruits of a slender string of shiny, black beads that contain the seeds.

The environment is where we all meet; where we all have a mutual interest; it is the one thing all of us share. It is not only a mirror of ourselves, but a focusing lens on what we can become.  –Lady Bird Johnson

We marveled at all the structures and fences that were made from cedar posts and poles and at the trees and plants that were so unfamiliar to us.  We came across some Texas versions of familiar species—Bushy Bluestem and Mexican Buckeye.

As we entered the Woodland Trail, we heard chimes long before we saw where the sound was coming from.  It was a windy day, so the music in the woods was loud and boisterous!  Three or four trees along the trail had the large wind chimes dangling from their bare branches.

Sculptures of woodland creatures lined the trail, almost as surprising as if we had met a live one.

My heart found its home long ago in the beauty, mystery, order and disorder of the flowering earth.  –Lady Bird Johnson

Lady Bird Johnson grew up in East Texas but was captivated by the fields of Bluebonnets she saw when she flew to Austin in 1930—and by the tall Texan named Lyndon Johnson.  Seedling Bluebonnets grew all along the trail—what a spectacular sight they must be in the spring!

Prickly Pear cactus is everywhere in and around Austin—the wild, spiny kind with bulbous red fruits and the spineless, landscape varieties.

Hello, Armadillo!  (Would love to see one ‘in person.’)

I loved the Century Plants!

Dinosaur Creek flowed from a waterfall and pond to these tributaries.

Children are likely to live up to what you believe of them.  –Lady Bird Johnson

The children’s nature play area was fun and adventurous—we didn’t see many children since it was a school day, so we explored by our adult selves.

I first heard the word stumpery just this year when we watched a British garden show—apparently they are popular and originated in England.  This stumpery at the Wildflower Center is for children to climb on.

A line of Arizona Cypress trees were covered with colorful Christmas balls with a tree skirt of yuccas.

A rendezvous-like fort area was missing just one thing—the kids!

Beautification is far more than a matter of cosmetics.  For me, it describes the whole effort to bring the natural world and the man-made world into harmony; to bring order, usefulness — delight — to our whole environment, and that of course only begins with trees and flowers and landscaping.  –Lady Bird Johnson

This beautiful little tree is called Huisache or Sweet Acacia.  It’s often multi-stemmed, has feather-like leaves, fragrant bright orange flowers in spherical clusters, and small, brown seedpods.  They categorize it as semi-evergreen, which is new to me.  It was strange to come to Austin in December and see some of the trees still holding on to their green leaves while others had dropped their leaves.

Two seasonally festive trees and shrubs with red berries dotted the landscape of the gardens—one, the Possumhaw tree and the other, Yaupon, shown below.  Both are types of holly.  The Yaupon shrub is evergreen, and the leaves were used by Native Americans as a drink in purging rituals, thus its name Ilex vomitoria.  It is now known that the tea made from the leaves does not cause vomiting.  Good thing!  I have some in my cupboard!  It is the only native North American plant that contains caffeine, and it is rich in polyphenols just like tea and coffee.

For the bounty of nature is also one of the deep needs of man.  –Lady Bird Johnson

 

Long before Instagram there was a shy, young Texas girl who became a powerful influencer.  Her dream and intention of conservation and beautification took her from Karnack, Texas, to Austin, to the White House, and back to Austin.  She was the major influence for the 1965 Highway Beautification Act and many other environmental bills during her husband’s administration.  She joined the President’s War on Poverty by founding Head Start with Sargent Shriver.  She was the business owner of an Austin broadcasting company.  She was a major influencer in the development of the Town Lake Trail in Austin, and urged The Nature Conservancy to buy Enchanted Rock so it would be preserved for all to see.  She dreamed of a research center for conservation, native plants, and wildflowers and made it happen!  The environment—the land, the people we surround ourselves with, the things we say and do—is where we all meet and greatly influences who and what we become.  As Lady Bird said of children, so it is with all people—we are likely to live up (or down) to what is believed of us by leaders, influencers, authorities, and loved ones.  Lady Bird Johnson’s website says of her:  She was bold.  She was compassionate.  She was visionary.  She was an adventurer.  She was generous.  She believed in the power of healthy landscapes to transform lives.  #BELIKELADYBIRD  

 

The Partnership of Art Between Kelly and Nature

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The true work of art is but a shadow of the divine perfection.  –Michelangelo

From Kansas City we flew to Austin, Texas, home to our first-born and her husband.  It had been three years since we were there for their wedding, and we were all excited to do more exploring of this city and landscape that had captured their hearts.  One bright, sunny morning we drove to the University of Texas campus where the Blanton Museum of Art stands in grand Texas style.  Our destination was the recently completed standing work of art and architecture by Ellsworth Kelly, appropriately entitled ‘Austin.’  The artist gifted the design concept to the Blanton in 2015 before his death, and it was completed in 2018.  Kelly was enamored by the architecture of cathedrals in Paris when stationed there in World War II.  The structure is shaped like a cross, igloo-like with curved roof lines and brilliant white exterior.

The south, east, and west sides of the building are adorned with colored glass windows—the ‘color grid’ at the entrance, ‘tumbling squares’ on the east face…

…and ‘starburst’ on the west.

The shining white exterior is covered in 1,569 limestone panels from Alicante, Spain—each block a story and work of art in and of itself.

The entrance door is made from native Texas Live Oak, repurposed from some other life.  I like how the metal handle is burnished from expectant hands reaching for entry.

Once inside, I was shocked by how empty it was, though I don’t really know what I was expecting.  Straight ahead was the fourth, north-facing arm of the cross, and nestled in the curve of that arm rose a totem made of Redwood logged in the nineteenth century and reclaimed from the bottom of a riverbed.  New life and rich patina from a century-old, forgotten log of a beautiful Redwood tree!

The colored glass windows were made from handblown glass by Franz Mayer of Munich.  The ‘color grid’ was a theme used by Ellsworth Kelly in much of his other art…

…as was the spectrum of colors used in the east and west windows, reminiscent of refracted light through a glass prism or millions of drops of water that creates a rainbow.  The outside light directed the colors onto the interior ceiling and walls…

…and even reached over to its opposite window to reflect yellow on purple, blue on red, and pink on blue.

The ‘starburst’ was my favorite, here along with two of my favorite people.

The real partnership of art between Kelly and Nature morphed into being when the sun shone directly through the ‘color grid’ windows onto the walls, onto the floor, and onto the black and white relief panels that line the walls.  The panels are made from marble—the white marble sourced from Carrara, Italy where Michelangelo chose his stone and the black from a quarry in Belgium.  Kelly, a life-long atheist, conceived the fourteen panels as abstract versions of the Catholic Stations of the Cross.

The black and white non-colors represent something basic and elemental and often oppositional, such as light and dark or good and evil.

The floor of ‘Austin’ is black granite from the state of Georgia.  The sun-shining colors illuminate the dark stone with a rich, almost neon effect.  Whatever the time of day, the art, the picture of color on granite or marble, changes, morphs, and becomes new again.

 

Artists and Nature have been partnering for eons—from cave dwellers with pigments made from minerals, charcoal, and limestone mixed with spit or animal fats to Native people with dyes made from barks, leaves, and flowers to Michelangelo with his huge blocks of marble. (“I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.”)  Nature has been the inspiration, the means, or the medium for practically every artist.  Ellsworth Kelly’s ‘Austin’ displays the rocks, wood, and rainbow colors in a simple, naturally elegant, and compelling way.  He envisioned his work of art as a site for joy and contemplation—the same qualities that Nature or a chapel offers to all of us.  What happens to us when we immerse ourselves in art of some form or in Nature?  What parts of ourselves do we consciously disown yet display in full sight through our art?  I think art offers us a reflection of the rich patina of our lives, complete with the building blocks that have pieced us together—each a story and work of art, in and of itself.  Each one of us is a refracted ray of light from divine perfection that shatters into some unique color, and together we partner to create a true work of art.

Art in Nature

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There are two people in my life that know Art (with a capital A) in a way that my ignorant and scientific mind will never be able to fathom.  I don’t ‘know’ it or ‘get’ it, but I try, by association, to appreciate it at some level.  One of those people is my sister-in-law Julie.  She has worked as a docent at the Nelson Art Museum in Kansas City for decades, and her home is full of amazing art that is strange and foreign to my untraveled, untrained mind and eye.  But there is something that links me to her taste and ability in the arts—Nature.  She is also a skillful gardener, talented designer, and Nature-lover.  Her whole backyard is a garden of delights with unique plant material, beautiful design, interesting sculptures and urns, and unprecedented plant pairings, yet looks natural and artfully wild all at the same time.  We were fortunate to spend a couple of days with Chris’ brother and Julie, and they took us to the Overland Park Arboretum and Botanical Gardens on the western outskirts of Kansas City.  The day was warm with a crisp breeze—warm compared to the snow we had left in Minnesota, and crisp enough to need a jacket and hat.

The first wonder that greeted us was the strange, unique protuberances under a Bald Cypress tree.  Thanks to Chris, our intrepid tree man, we learned these were cypress knees.  The knees grow up from the roots of the Bald Cypress tree and have been the wonder of botanists for centuries.  Bald Cypress trees are deciduous conifers (like our Northern Larch or Tamarack) that typically grow in swamps where the roots are waterlogged for at least part of the year.  Some have theorized the knees provide the roots with air for gas exchange; others proclaim them to be structural to keep the shallow root system strong, and the tree upright.  They are one of Nature’s wondrous mysteries!

Our next surprise was Monet painting at the edge of the pond!  The French Impressionist painter Claude Monet was an advocate for plein air painting—in the open air—in order to capture the lighting at different times of the day and the colors during different seasons of the year.

We encountered a trio of Lacebarks as we strolled along the winter paths—Lacebark Elm, Lacebark Oak, and Lacebark Pine—all with interesting, exfoliating works-of-art bark.

Alight and rest for a moment on a dragonfly bench!

High in a Sycamore tree sat a hawk who seemed unconcerned with the passersby below.  The American Sycamore grows stately and tall and holds its seed clusters most of the winter, like tiny balls decorating the bare tree for the holidays.

We walked through a tall, metal gate that fenced the deer out of the Gardens and entered the dry, wooded swales, a low-lying area by Wolf Creek where Cottonwood and Sycamore trees grew into giants.  Flooded creek waters had washed the soil away from the roots of nearby trees creating tangled works of art.

One common workhorse of a tree in the mid-plains is the Osage Orange or Hedge Apple tree.  The Osage Indians made superior bows from the tough, flexible wood.  The yellow wood resists rot, burns hot, and is used for fence posts and railroad ties.  The trees themselves were used for living fences before barbed wire was widely available and less expensive—the low branching trees with strong, sharp thorns grew ‘horse-high, bull-strong, and pig-tight’ as a hedge.  The yellow wood extends into the roots…

…and the large yellow-green hedge ball or fruit ball contains a messy, milky sap that is supposed to repel insects and spiders.

We returned to the Gardens through another high gate after our hike through the woods and found ourselves on the Sculpture Garden trail.  Elaborately pieced fairy houses—miniature natural architecture with colorful trinkets and stones—were placed at intervals along the trail.

Beautiful sculptures were tucked into the trees along the paved path, a melding of Art and Nature.

 

Like Monet, I appreciated the colors of the winter season at the Arboretum and Botanical Gardens—the muted green grass, the rusty oak leaves, the ice-blue sky and water, and the honey-colored hydrangea blooms.  A painting in the making.  I love how Mother Nature is the ultimate artist—the color and form in the feathers of a bird, the patterns and designs in the bark of a tree, the making and dispersal of seeds, and the color and contour of the inner characteristics of a tree.  I liked the juxtaposition of whimsical, woodsy fairy houses made from the materials that surrounded them with the bold concrete and metal sculptures that had found their new homes among the trees.  I am thankful for the time we had with family and friends on our trip south.  There is something sacred and life-giving in sharing space, time, food, laughter, perspective, ideas, and talents.  It’s what links us together on the wondrous, mysterious journey of Life.

New Year’s Day—Not in Texas Anymore

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As I awoke on this New Year’s Day, it was very apparent that we weren’t in Texas anymore!  The temperature was six degrees below zero, and snow, beautiful snow, covered the ground with a nice, thick blanket!  We had been gone for seventeen days visiting family and friends in Kansas City and Austin.  Seventeen days of real social time—no digital social media needed or wanted.  You know, just like the ‘old days.’

In the upcoming weeks, I will write about some of our outdoor adventures in the warmth of Kansas and Texas—so many amazing things to see, even in winter!  Until then, I want to wish you beautiful mornings and beginnings…

…abundance in all areas of your lives…

…and time with friends and loved ones around the campfire, around the dinner table, and out in Nature!  Happy New Year!

Dodging Cars and Bullets

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Have you ever woken in the morning and even before you open your eyes or move from your last position of sleep you feel weight pressing in on your mind and body?  That’s how I woke on Friday.  Sometimes it’s a low barometric pressure squeezing in on me; sometimes it’s from the energy-draining not-enough-sleep for a couple of nights; other times it’s a worry, a fight, or an anniversary of something only your body remembers that your mind does not want to recall.  It’s when you drag your body out of bed and hope that breakfast and caffeine will boost your energy and dissipate the pressure.

Do animals ever feel that way?  How do deer wake and show up for their day?  They sleep in the snow and cold, have to forage for their daily food, and at times have to dodge cars and bullets.  Sounds like a recipe for having a horrible, no good, very bad day.  But I don’t think they do.

I think I could turn and live with animals, they are so placid and self-contain’d.  I stand and look at them long and long.  They do not sweat and whine about their condition.  They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins.  They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God.  Not one is dissatisfied, not one is demented with the mania of owning things.  Not one kneels to another, nor to his kind that lived thousands of years ago.  Not one is respectable or unhappy over the whole earth.  –excerpt from Song of Myself by Walt Whitman

When I was young, I thought animals were easier to understand than humans, so I wanted to be a veterinarian.  I loved this poem by Walt Whitman, even in its irreverent way.  I argued with Walt’s line that ‘not one is respectable,’ for I had great respect for animals, especially my horses.  Before we were married, Chris made me a present of a framed picture of this poem in calligraphy with a drawing of a horse.  I recite the first lines often in my head when I feel the pressure of living in our human world.   

Chris, in his wisdom of knowing me for thirty-eight years, suggested on Friday that we go to the pine forest in the snow, to where the animals live, to where I could get out of my head and out of my funk, to where the old pines whisper their secrets.  I begrudgingly agreed, even as my body wanted to just splay itself on the floor with a blanket.  So in the late afternoon, we drove the short distance to Warner Lake County Park to bathe in the solitude of the pine forest.

The little creek that runs into the lake wasn’t frozen, and the trail had been ‘groomed’ for cross-country skiing.

Walking was relatively easy on the groomed trail (not on the ski tracks, of course), but hard work in the short areas where we blazed a trail.  Energy returned to my body as we ventured deeper into the woods.

The forest was a constellation of light and shadow, with outlines and crowns of snow.

The late day sun cast long shadows of the long trees.  Animal tracks cut across the trails—their footprints leaving the history of their day.

In a small clearing, we saw a shining young pine, enveloped and radiant in the Winter sunshine, as the old, wise guardians surrounded it.

It was peaceful and quiet in the snowy forest—a silky balm for my out-of-sorts mind and body.  I was a welcome visitor in the animals’ house, with no host needed.  They were willing to share their majestic home with seekers of beauty and peace.

 

Our lives are a constellation of light and shadow.  Some days we live in the darkness, and often we don’t even know what is casting the shadow.  It feels like we are dodging the flu, or the axe, or the bullet.  The recipe is written, and it seems to spell disaster.  But what if the recipe for your day is written in pencil?  What if sitting in prayer or meditation erases worry?  What if ten minutes of exercise erases pain?  And talking to your friend takes away the blues?  We are each a shining star, like the radiant young pine tree in the forest.  Dissatisfaction melts away to gratitude.  The mania of owning things morphs into a willingness to share.  Anxiety and worry transform into placid self-containment.  The whispered secrets of the ancient guardians begin to work their way into the tracks of our days.  And we live like the animals and are happy.

Snow, Ice, and Water–These Three are One

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“Water, in all its forms, is what carries the knowledge of life throughout the universe.”     –Anthony T. Hincks

When a person lives where water is always liquid and falling as rain or flowing like a river, I think there is a tendency to not think about it much, to perhaps take it for granted.  But when something is ‘too much’ or ‘not enough’—flooding or drought—or something unusual or rare—snow in Texas—we tend to pay attention.  We haven’t had much snow here in Central Minnesota for most of this winter—until the week before last, that is, when we had over a foot of it.  I looked out the front door at the big pile of white stuff and thought, “Isn’t snow funny and amazing and beautiful?”  I mean, it’s just water, frozen water!  Beautiful crystals of frozen water falling from the sky!  Frozen water that is shoveled and piled, rolled and patted into balls to form snowmen and forts by kids at recess.  Amazing!

  “There is a beauty about winter that no other season can touch.”  –Hailey DeRoo Haugen

“Kindness is like snow—It beautifies everything it covers.”  –Kahlil Gibran

Another beautiful frozen water phenomenon is frost—frozen water vapor on the surface of objects.

Sun-warmed and melted snow dripped and re-froze into icicles—Mother Nature’s decorating of the evergreen Spruce trees.

“Snow is water, and ice is water, and water is water; these three are one.”  –Joseph Dare

And then there’s ice.  Ice that’s strong enough to drive a truck on.  Ice that captures and immobilizes tree branches, leaves, aquatic plants and roots.  Ice that holds a village of ice shacks and fishermen.

“The water hears and understands.  The ice does not forgive.”  –Leigh Bardugo

Ice as art.  Ice as frozen Rorschach tests.  What do you see?

“You’re gonna catch a cold from the ice inside your soul.”  –Christina Perri

 

If water, in all its forms, carries the knowledge of life, we have a lot to learn in Winter.  I respect the idea that winter, in all its starkness, can radiate a beauty like no other.  I love the idea of beautifying the world with kindness.  I like how water and situations and people can be transformed, change states, be honed in the process of warming, melting, and re-freezing to flowing, understanding, and forgiving.  Goodness and Grace can thaw an icy soul.  I also honor the toughness of ice, how it builds up inch by inch during the harshness of Winter’s cold in order to support the things we drive and those that drive us.  How it supports a village of people who want the same basic things in life, in spite of how the harshness can capture and immobilize us at times.  I appreciate that frozen water (oh, the chemistry and physics of it all!) is art.  How we can stare into the depths of it or notice the light or marvel at the structure, and at the same time, learn something about ourselves.  There is a great deal of hope in every snowflake that falls, in every frost pattern that forms, in every layer of ice that is laid down, and in every process of melting.  Life is funny, amazing, and beautiful—all three in one.

Island Ice Walkers

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“In a sense, each of us is an island.  In another sense, however, we are all one.  For though islands appear separate, and may even be situated at great distances from one another, they are only extrusions of the same planet, Earth.”  –J. Donald Walters

Last weekend, I got away to an island.  It was sunny and warm—so warm that the snow was melting!  Down the hill from our house is the Sauk River which winds its way through the Horseshoe Chain of Lakes—thirteen connected lakes with convoluted shorelines, jutting peninsulas, and a multitude of islands.  We parked at a boat ramp at Horseshoe Lake as a group of ATVs raced around on the ice.  Cars and trucks crept through the rushes on an ice road to the little village of fish shacks.

But we were going a different way by a different mode of transportation.  We followed the snowmobile tracks to the island.

Most of the ice was snow-covered, which made walking easier, but there were places of clear ice where I peered into the depths of it, wondering how thick it was.

We weren’t the only creatures walking the ice to check out the island.

The island was like an incline rising from the water (ice) with the highest point facing the northwest, from which we came.

Oak, Basswood, Box Elder and Ironwood trees populated the island, and I was surprised as one of the fluffy-tailed inhabitants ran past me while I was gazing at the jet trail in the azure blue sky.

Most of the snow had melted from the island, and it was rather startling to see the vivid green moss at the base of the trees and crawling up the trunks.

Just as vivid was a scattering of Red-twigged Dogwoods along the shore, reaching out to the sunlight.

Downed trees had fallen into the water after years of erosion had loosened the roots from their moorings.

The branches gathered seaweed and algae from high-water summers…

and were polished to sculptural driftwood by summer waves.

We dubbed the island ‘Lone Squirrel Island’ as we walked back over the ice.

 

Islands are sort of mysterious.  They lend themselves to exploration, enticing the boater, the squirrel, and the ice walkers to come see what lies within these shores.  I was impressed with the quality of the woodland ecosystem on Lone Squirrel Island—the acorn-bearing Oaks and the beautiful Ironwood trees.  It’s not as easy to get to know an island when a watery moat surrounds it as it is when thick ice supports cars, trucks, snowmobiles, or walkers.  What if each of us is an island?  We appear separate.  Some of us are situated at great distances from one another.  What is the quality of our ecosystem?  Has anything loosened our roots from their secure moorings?  Yet, like the underlying Earth of the islands, we are all connected.  “Love is the binding force of the Universe.  It holds us together.  It makes us One.” –J. Donald Walters  The thick ice was our bridge to the island.  What bridges us together?  Listening.  Understanding.  Empathy.  Patience.  Kindness.  Let’s all be ice walkers.  As we peer into the depths of Love, can we even fathom how deep and wide it is?