I am a naturalist and ethologist who has studied many animals and birds in their natural habitat; my 15 year study of Maine’s black bears is perhaps the best example of the work I do. I am a dedicated animal… Read More ›
Eco-systems
Sacrificial Gathering in the Long Covid Desert by Tallessyn Zawn Grenfell-Lee
I am a fairly private person; but I do like nice hugs. I grew up in a home that involved so much intentional love and affection that I came to see it as a normal part of any loving relationship…. Read More ›
Herb Talk: Bee Balm by Sara Wright
For Carol. Women’s relationship with plants stretches back to the beginning of humankind. Most of us know that women invented agriculture and became the first healers. I come from a family of women who all had gardens, but no one… Read More ›
Morning Meditation by Sara Wright
I have just returned from the brook where I offered up my Toad Moon prayers to the song of the Hermit thrush and to the rippling waters – first honoring my body with a poem written just for her, and… Read More ›
In Sight (Part 1) by Sara Wright
Four years ago I made a radical decision to spend a winter in New Mexico. Maine winters were long and I was 71 years old. An unfinished experience 25 years ago had left me with a longing to spend more… Read More ›
Ecocide and PTSD by Sara Wright
The fierce light of the white star pierced her thick white fur as the mother froze. She was trying to imagine how her cubs could make the jump from one jagged ice flow to another in the cracked deep blue… Read More ›
Lessons From Birch & Mother Earth—Grace, Resilience, and Rebirth by Mary Gelfand
When I moved to Maine from New Orleans 15 years ago, I was delighted to discover how many birch trees were on the property where I lived with my new partner. Previously I had had little contact with these beautiful… Read More ›
Midsummer Meditation by Sara Wright
It is past “midsummer” and we are moving into the hottest time of the year without a drop of nourishing, healing rain… When I walk around outdoors I find myself focusing on the many different ferns that grace the forest… Read More ›
Gardening Through the Storm by Tallessyn Zawn Grenfell-Lee
I spend a lot of time thinking about gardens. I think there might be something to them. It seems strange to talk about gardens during such an intense time. The crucible of injustice, laid so bare during the pandemic, is… Read More ›
Nourishing Wholeness in a Fractured World, by Molly Remer
List for today: Rescue tadpoles from the evaporating puddle in the driveway. Look for pink roses in the field. Look for wild strawberries along the road. Listen to the crows in the compost pile and try to identify them by… Read More ›
La Llorona and the Dark Green Religion of Hope by Sara Wright
I recently returned to Maine after what can only be called a harrowing journey from the Southwest. Grateful to feel beloved earth under my feet, I walk along the pine strewn woodland paths to keep myself sane. My animals have… Read More ›
Coronavirus: The Villain Is Not Mother Nature: It Is Ourselves by Carol P. Christ
Over the past few weeks of lockdown in Greece, I have asked myself numerous times: if we can shut down the world economy because of a virus, why don’t we shut everything down until we end war or find real… Read More ›
Elder – Berry Musings by Sara Wright
I first became interested in herbalism as a young mother who kept a small herbal garden outside her back door. There is nothing better than fresh herbs to spice up any dish (as any good cook knows well) and baking… Read More ›
Trees Sleep? by Sara Wright
This post follows last week’s post: The Forest Has a Heart? In 2016, Zlinszky (Zlinszky/Molnar/Barfod) and his team released another study demonstrating that birch trees go to sleep at night (now we know that all trees – at least all… Read More ›
The Forest has a Heart?** by Sara Wright
Scientist Diana Beresford Kroeger proved that the biochemistry of humans and that of plants and trees are the same – i.e. the hormones (including serotonin) that regulate human and plant life are identical. What this means practically is that trees… Read More ›
The Portal: How Do We Know What We Know? by Sara Wright
Every morning I walk to the river in the velveteen hour between the vanishing blue night and the coming of the first scarlet, pink, lavender, purple or golden ribbons that stretch across the horizon. Sometimes clouds with heavy gray eyelids… Read More ›
When Every Day Will Be Tu B’Shevat by Ivy Helman.
Tomorrow is Tu B’Shevat, the New Year of the Trees, or their birthday. It is the day of the year when all trees, regardless of when they have been planted, turn another year older. The rabbis standardized this day in… Read More ›
Tree Talk: Dr. Susan Simard by Sara Wright
Scientist Susan Simard is a professor of forest ecology at the University in Vancouver, British Columbia, who has been studying the below-ground fungal networks that connect trees and facilitate underground inter-tree communication and interaction. Over a period of more than… Read More ›
The Circle of Life and Death by Sara Wright
This morning the sky was on fire before dawn even as I approached the river whose ripples reflected a purple so deep it was almost inked in charcoal – In the Bosque I noticed that one mule deer had used… Read More ›
Mess and Magic, by Molly Remer
Maybe beautiful things don’t only grow from peace, maybe they grow from the soil of living, which holds both blood and tears muck and magic. Last week I tried to work on my book while the household debris whirled around… Read More ›
The Man with the Hat by Sara Wright
I met a man on a rumbling train who had hooks in his hat. A fisherman, I thought with the usual dismay – brutal images of dying fish gasping for air exploded in thin air. Memories of my grandmother who… Read More ›
Equinox Reflection by Sara Wright
I gaze out my bedroom window and hear yet another golden apple hit the ground. The vines that hug the cabin and climb up the screens are heavy with unripe grapes and the light that is filtered through the trees… Read More ›
The Prophetess: Greta Thunberg, Global Warming, and the Legacy of Prophecy in Our Own Day by Jill Hammer
My community and many others have been watching in awe as Greta Thunberg makes waves around the world—her lone climate change protest in Sweden growing in a single year into a climate strike with millions of demonstrators around the world. … Read More ›
Field of Dreams by Sara Wright
Once the new white pine forest that stretches out before me was part of a larger field that belonged to an old farm. The woods cascade down a steep hill on the east side of the house and run parallel… Read More ›
Plant Trees, Trees, and More Trees by Carol P. Christ
I dream that all of us who are suffering burn-out because of national and world politics come together to plant and nurture trees. Scientists say that planting ONE TRILLION TREES would neutralize two-thirds of carbon emissions and reverse climate change…. Read More ›
Independence Day? by Sara Wright
She haunts me little bear, too slight, too wary to seek seed I cast for her under White Pine in whose strong arms she finds comfort and safety, if only for one night. The animals are innocent Where… Read More ›
Coming Home to Spring by Sara Wright
The older I become the more I appreciate Nature as she is, Nature the Creatrix of the Earth. Nature creating without human intervention. The cycles of life and death are so intimately intertwined and never more evident than in the… Read More ›
Climate Change as a Socio-Spiritual Feminist Issue (Or 10 ways to be a leader in the era of climate change) by Nurete Brenner
Authorities have observed that climate change is a feminist issue because it disproportionately affects women. Among these, the United Nations has gone further to acknowledge that climate change is a feminist issue because women are on the forefront of adopting… Read More ›
The Tree as Mother by Mama Donna Henes
Arbor Day, Earth Day, May Day and Mother’s Day are deeply connected conceptually, etymologically, culturally and emotionally. The tree, with its roots buried deep in the earth and its branches reaching upward toward heaven, spread wide to embrace all of… Read More ›
Meeting the Windigo by Carol P. Christ
Towards the end of Braiding Sweetgrass, mother, biologist, and member of the Citizen Potawami Nation Robin Wall Kimmerer sets out at the end of winter to visit a forest area near her home that she considers hers not in name… Read More ›
