Nature – Page 12 – Feminism and Religion

Every Bird in the Mountains: Wisdom for this Climate Moment by Tallessyn Zawn Grenfell-Lee

I found a bird’s nest the other day. A perfect, round little nest, with five pale blue speckled eggs. I’ve been working for several years to figure out how to support the birds who share our yard, with bird feeders, leaf litter and better soil for caterpillars and worms to feed the baby birds, yellow LED outdoor lights, and native plantings to attract more insects and pollinators. I knew that songbird populations are struggling, but lately I’ve learned even more about their truly worrying decline, and how we can all create ‘homegrown natural parks’ to help. It’s been a deep source of joy and hope, through the long pandemic, to see the tufted titmice, dapper chickadees, and bright red cardinals at our feeders, and the soft gray juncos hopping about on the ground. When we moved here a few years ago, a bird’s nest appeared right above the floodlight on our deck, and we got to see and hear the wee fledglings that spring, as if they were welcoming us to our common home. We loved those baby birds, and I’ve often wondered whether they are now among the visitors that seem drawn to the window feeder whenever we start to play music.

Broken Mothers by Sara Wright

I awakened under clouds
feeling respite from fierce
heat in April that
forced maple, birch,
beech, and poplar
to bud and burst.

First we planted
Balsam seedlings;
He climbed birch
to saw off
dying trunks,
some broken
beyond recognition,
wreckage from
the ice storm
a winter holocaust
that stole my peace,
my trust in white,
deep restful sleep.

Finding the Antler, by Molly Remer

May you witness
a growing trust
in the guidance around you.
May you allow magic to find you
where you are.

Seven years ago, I did a drum-guided meditation in which I journeyed deep into the forest. On my head as I walked, antlers grew, curving above me. As I followed the sound of drums and the glimmer of firelight, I kept raising my hand to check to see if they were still there, firm beneath my hand. I reached the fire and met the Goddess there, she reached up and took the antlers off my head and cast them into the flames, where they twisted and glowed until they became a golden ring, which she removed and placed on my finger, antlers now wrapped around my index finger. In waking life, I scoured etsy and two years later located a bronze antler ring extremely similar to my vision, which I bought and placed on my own finger in the woods as a symbol of my earth based path, my priestess vows, and some kind of unspoken dedication, felt within but not able to be fully verbalized at the time.

Vigil by Sara Wright

Preface: I am submitting this story for publication because it occurred during the Christian Holy Week and because it involves me, a woman who follows her dreams… That I did so in this instance was important in ways that I cannot comprehend rationally. But I know that it involved creating space for some kind of passing over from one way of being to another. Every word is true.

Roy comes Home

In the dream I’m creating a ceremony to welcome Roy home – it’s very elaborate – yet fluid – it’s fine when I make mistakes – I am creating the space for his death but also welcoming him home. I am also asking for gifts that are expensive. Someone, I think it’s Roy, says humorously and with kindness, “You don’t want much do you?” I laugh. He is teasing me. I finish the ceremony, and I see Roy in an old dented truck pulling on his ears – he can’t hear me but we have made contact. There is such Joy in his heart that I know All Will Be Well….

Red on Blue by Sara Wright

I dreamed her name

not long before light –

Pages fell out

of a story

written in blood.

Every spring

the words repeat

as mist rises

over the river.

Harsh white light

burns violet blue.

She changes everything

she touches

and changes nothing

at all.

Lily B and Messages From the Beyond by Sara Wright

The night before last I had a dream that has stayed with me. My dreams rise out of my body to teach and to comfort me so I pay close attention. I had recently written tributes for two men, Lynn Rogers, bear biologist, and Rupert Sheldrake, biologist and plant physicist. Both of these men mentored me like a “father” each encouraged me to believe in myself, celebrated my original thinking and told me to trust my intuition. Writing about these mentors reminded me of my own father with whom I had a most difficult relationship…

I am talking to my mother (she has been dead for 13 years) about having found someone who could help me with math and stuff I can’t do because of dyslexia. In this conversation my mother is not a personal figure (when she appears as herself it usually means that I am going to face some difficulty – As an impersonal ‘great mother’ figure she is very helpful). She replies that my father wanted to teach me all these things but he just couldn’t. So many problems were in the way. I choke up weeping over this knowing (and my tears carry over into waking) because I know that “my mother” is speaking the truth. I feel such heartbreak for both my dad and for me. Neither of us had a chance… as I awaken from this dream in the middle of the night Lily b., my dove, is bellowing. He is reiterating the truth of the dream.

Continue reading “Lily B and Messages From the Beyond by Sara Wright”

High Desert Sojourn by Sara Wright

I longed to re-visit
the desert – my first
journey left me
with a longing for
wide open spaces,
a blue sky dome,
a bowl of stars at night,
so to return 25 years later
was to complete
an unfinished story.
Now I could live among
the stately rock
stark white columns,
conical reptilian hills,
pink and purple sands,
ragged weeds,
Cactus People,
thorns and stickers,
delicate yellow flowers,
under a moon that rarely slept?

Some nights I missed the dark.
I always missed the Bear
I dismissed the longings
in my body,
Things were different here.

Maybe I could escape
the grief of dying trees,
stripped mountains,
a shrinking wilderness
too many gunmen
the loss of dreams?

That first November
I heard a haunting –
Crane calls
as they touched
down at nightfall.
My bones sang.
How I longed
to meet the bird
whose voice
sent lightening chills
through every nerve.

Continue reading “High Desert Sojourn by Sara Wright”

Wings by Sara Wright

Early in January I discovered a chickadee with a broken wing floundering in the snow. I rescued him, providing him with a safe haven in the house, hoping he might recover use of his wing. For the first couple of days we conversed at the edge of the mesh that covered the sides of his cage and he seemed pleased to be with me. I named him Blue.

On the third morning, a solitary chickadee chirped just behind me outside the window. I immediately suspected it was his mate because Blue became almost frantic jumping back and forth on the mesh that faced the window.

After that incident, things changed radically. Blue bit me hard whenever I changed his water. He tried to escape repeatedly. I knew that to let him go was to consign him to death because sub-zero temperatures were the norm for this time of year. I resisted. It took a few more days to face the truth. I could feel and sense it. I had to let him go although I knew he would die. Continue reading “Wings by Sara Wright”

Sacred Geese by Judith Shaw

The end of winter is near in the northern hemisphere. Though the cold persists the days slowly grow longer. If you’re lucky you might soon see a skein of geese flying overheard on their way to their northern nesting grounds – a beautiful reminder of our world’s ongoing cycles of change.