Archive for Learning from the Earth/Nature
Update On A Backyard Fox
Posted by: | CommentsSometime ago I wrote about the foxes I have been seeing and my delight at the direct example of wildlife adaptation to an urban setting. Back then foxes were jumping up on the fence under my kitchen window and easily leaping onto the roof next door. As I may also have mentioned the squirrels in this part of North Denver had been having a field day with anything I grew: tomatoes, eggplants, peppers, and plums. What really pissed me off was the waste. I don’t mind sharing my bounty with the four legged, the winged ones, and other two legged as well. I just get mad when one bite is taken, the veggie or fruit is thrown down, and then another is taken with the same outcome. Waste not; want not. So in a fit of desperation, I called on a fox to come stay in my yard and help me keep these marauding squirrels under control!
When I looked out the window a few days later and saw a fox sleeping in the backyard, I was both surprised and elated. “Oh my Gosh! It worked!” I said under my breath to keep from disturbing his slumber. As the days went by, this fox grew accustomed to me and I to he. Even when sleeping right across from the back door, he would just raise his head when I came in or out, see that it was me, then go back to sleep. The other favorite sleeping spots were on the top of the straw bales I have for mulching, and on top of the sheet compost project in the NW corner of the yard. However, I was still seeing the squirrels running all around and wondered if Foxy was just using the yard as a rest stop.
Soon after having this thought I was at home, spending the day working around the house getting ready for winter. There was Foxy sleeping in the sun as usual. I continued on my own schedule and a short time later glanced out the back windows once more. This time Foxy was sitting in the middle of the back yard munching on a squirrel! I got the point! Unlike cats, foxes do not leave any remains behind, by the way!
As the winter moves along, so is the relationship between the fox and I and the fox and my grandchildren. One morning I was bringing my four year old grandson in through the back gate and the fox simply looked at him, sniffed, and went back to sleep. Foxy was directly opposite the back door and only five feet away at the most. Then a week later my two and a half year old granddaughter saw the fox sleeping on the straw bales when she came home with me. Being curious, she walked slowly over toward Foxy, who got up and stretched lazily as she approached. I told her to just stand there and go no closer (again about five feet) or Mr Foxy would run away. She stopped, chattered away at him, then turned to come back to the porch. Immediately Foxy stepped forward and sniffed the air and the ground where she had been standing a few moments ago then turned and jumped back up on the bales.
I think we have been adopted!
Oil Spill: Another View
Posted by: | CommentsMother Earth was tired of the endless trouble around oil. It seems all these humans want is oil. They are spoiling this fine planet as if it doesn’t matter. The endless pursuit of ‘stuff’ was trampling all over the delicate natural balances of wind, water, plants, and animals on Earth.
“That’s it! I’m done!! They want Oil? I’ll give them oil!” She Who is Our Home shouted; and promptly ruptured a vein.
“Will this be enough to stop the crazy neglect of our planet?” She whispered to the winds. “Can humans hold the Earth as Sacred, treat the Earth as sacred and save their Home?”
Five years without insects and the world dies; five years without humans and the world starts to recover. Hum-m-m interesting thought….
Gardening and Graduates
Posted by: | Comments05/25/2009
This time of year is so full of new plants and new life. Suddenly the leaves are fully out on the trees and the smell of fresh baked Strawberry-Rhubarb pie drifts about on the wind. Light filling the early evening is a mixed blessing for gardeners, urging us to do one more thing outside before supper and then making that meal far too late! I love the urge to plant and clean up last year’s old growth. I want to go get fish and bury them under the hills of squash and corn and potatoes. Primitive urges surface to dance in the light of the moon and stand for long minutes inhaling the seductive scents of Spring – lilacs, honeysuckle, iris, apple blossoms and wet earth. All of the wonderful abundant diversity of plants in our lives fills my senses with gratitude and awe. Their ability to come up through cement, live in the cracks of rocks, survive in all conditions, and change with the seasons is a good metaphor for all the graduates in this season as well.
The schooling that has been accomplished through all your study and hard work is amazing. The subject matter, though, may or may not pan out to be what you really need; may or may not be relevant in this rapidly changing, morphing world. The skills you have gained that will allow for your greatest success may not have been mentioned by your teachers and professors. Now at graduation it is time to take stock of the tools and techniques that will help you create your next life stage with passion and certainty. As with gardening some things will flourish this year that didn’t do anything last year. Some other ‘old faithfuls’ will wither and die for no apparent reason. We have more idea of the mystery in our lives now than ever before. So I look to the plants and animals – the natural world – for the most useful skills, talents, and tools for a future you can count on. We, like them, are evolving.
The key concept is to develope personal sustainability. Each one of us has the ability to sustain ourself as long as we also have the ability to re-think our life and then go with what works right now. Careers and trades come and go now with great regularity and increased speed. Count your education as something that has taught you how to think things through; how to find new answers and make up new solutions; how to get outside the box. Everything that has gone before can only give us the basic unstructured building blocks for the future. We are all standing on the very edge of the known universe. What do you want to have with you to help you with whatever is next in your life?
This is a variation of the old thought experiment: What do you want to have with you if you get stranded on a deserted island? What do you want to be able to achieve in a future that is not now defined; that is basically unknown; that is brand new? Think about it. Do you know how to make a solar cooker, plant seeds, be in community, step out of the backdoor with a song and a prayer knowing you can sustain yourself and others? Develope an understanding of re-purposing and frugality with your commodities. If we are going to create a world out of the best of the old world, what does that look like for you? In a world where money is no longer a stable commodity or even present in the same way as it was in the past, what matters to you and how will you get there from here?
These are the interesting questions. And the questions are always more interesting than the answers. Always. What questions are you asking yourself these days? How many different options/answers can you think of for every question? If you can start from where your passion is and how it can be increased and expressed positively in the world, you will have a better way of creating your future. Don’t base your expectations of the future on anything from the past. We are in such a totally different world that approach will not work.
What do I suggest? Be flexible and head for a passionate dream, not an old tired goal of our Father’s and Mother’s design. Their dreams and accomplishments are history. Your’s has not yet come into being. Know all of the basics of personal sustainability and how to get by out of a backpack OR have a good friend who does. Know how to think and figure out new solutions to new problems. Know how to drop anything that doesn’t work, no matter how long it has been in use. This includes beliefs, patterns, and solutions used by anyone else for any other time. Assess the situation with a new eye, and remember that ‘I can’t’ never did anything. We are a creative, inventive people. Use this to energize your life.
I’ve gone on long enough. We are in the midst of turning this world onto a new course or dying trying. That is what’s at stake here. Those are the skills we need now. All your young eagerness and enthusiasm are the very qualities we need now every where at once. There are no limit to the number of jobs available to birth our new world; you simply need to create them, see them, do them, and enjoy the ride!
Congratulations and Blessings! You are our future! Live in it with passion!
