Choosing to Fly or Be Flattened (Another Lesson from an airborne Nature Teacher)

Flying birdThe cats were on it first. Poised in a purrrmanant stance dictated by some primordial instinct they remained fixated and staring at the glass door of our balcony. There, on the other side of the night, pummeling the door and windows in frantic flutter back and forth, was a baby bird. Seemingly lost in the dark drawn to the light beyond the glass, it slammed its little wings over and over again in a futile attempt to free itself from the nightmare.

The cats were hypnotized following the wee bird’s body slams from above and below their vantage points. What to do? Pete and I were prepared to find a way to capture the wayward baby and rescue it as fast as we could. And then, as if by magic, it stopped, turned around, and shaking its wings in what appeared to us as triumph (possibly a birdy “aha moment?”), just flew away into the night.

Relief! Though the cats now had to resign themselves to the boredom of relinquishing their feline fascination with their version of “the food channel,” Pete and I were thrilled to witness the little bird’s freedom. That, and realizing the rest of our evening wouldn’t have to be spent with having to rescue and succor a tiny terrified feathered baby 24/7.

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I Yam More Than I Thought I Yam… And So Are You

“The secret of change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new.”
― Socrates

Yam
Lessons from Mama Nature

If you’re as slow-going into this New Year as I have been, welcome to the club. Facing a year-end birthday and all of the triggers of getting older and feeling purposeless on this planet, I dragged along boxes of tissue into 2014, along with Vick’s VapoRub, decongestive teas, and in lieu of a stick of dynamite to blast out my stone-walling sinuses I was forced to set aside that “To Do List” and just propped up my self-pity-party along with a poor clogged head and scrunched down under piles of blankets and my cuddly cats (and Pete when he came home from work) and just get over this thing. Which I’m happy to say looks like is happening day-by-day. Tissue count is less and less. Spirits lifting. Great book-reading opportunity the best.

So now that my head is slowly clearing and I’m re-focusing on this thing called Life I just wanted to offer you a mental tidbit that is helping me. You know how I learn just about all my lessons from Mama Nature, and so far she hasn’t let me down? Well once again I received a double whammy Lesson from two tubers—“two-bers?” a yam and a sweet potato, which I swear are the same thing and I still don’t know the difference other than their size and color? But anyway, I digress.

I wrote a blog post some time ago—I Yam What I Yam— about the power of a once-about-to-be-tossed-out-worthless yam who got its second wind. Well it happened again. To that very same yam. The little tuber completely exploded with viney greens winding all across the counter top to my delight. And then as it began to wane, its leaves yellowing and falling it looked like The Grim Yam-Reaper had cast the final death knell.

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I Yam What I Yam

“The sun shines not on us but in us.”
John Muir*

Birthday yam
“I’m not dead yet!”

I’d left the yam alone in the kitchen bowl for far too long. Plans to bake or cook or boil it had definitely passed and now it remained ready to be tomorrow’s next garbage addition. Then I noticed the little buds peeping out of it. Tiny little leafy reminders not unlike the famous Monty Python movie quip seemed to shout at me, “I’m not dead yet!” And so it wasn’t. The hearty tuber was very much alive and worthy of being appreciated if not for a delicious meal, certainly a delicious work of natural beauty.

I placed it in a vase, added water and placed it in the sunshine. And in just a matter of days “Oila!” It transformed into this viney wonder spreading its loveliness out and over and above my kitchen sink.

As this is but another of my Nature Teachers, the Lesson was very much learned: that even if we believe we are on empty, and have absolutely nothing left to give or receive there is an indomitable strength of will to thrive and shine. There is alive within us all a voice shouting to be heard, “I’m not dead yet!” It’s that treasure, that goldmine glowing inside our soul wanting us to grow beyond our challenges if we would only take the time to nurture who we are. We’re wired to live even if all looks hopeless and in counterpoint to what we think is so.

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An oBEEtuary (and a gift from a Patron Saint)

Photo of beesIt’s very quiet outside my window. That’s because the bees are gone. There used to be a buzzing vortex of those (yes, very busy) honey-gatherers in animated waves going about their bzzzz-ness way up high on the fourth floor where we live. And now, because the guy four floors beneath them complained, once again the Homo sapien species takes precedent over the world of other-than-human types.

Of course I’m sorry the guy’s little dog got stung and that there were bees dropping down onto his deck below. I don’t want anyone to suffer in any way, but why do we have to go to such extremes of extermination? I begged the bee guy (a very sweet man who worked alongside his equally endearing son) to please just remove the bees and not kill them. He said the bees had built a huge hive that was imbedded into the walls of both my apartment and that of my next door neighbor. The honey and wax had built up so much that they would do damage to the walls and then there’s the apartment liability thing. Lawyers, corporations, blah-de-blah-de-blah, i.e. “son-of-a-b’s” who overrule honey bees.

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Learning Patience from the Original Webmaster

Nature Teachers: The Spider

 

“Great things are not done by impulse, but by a series of small things brought together.”
~ Vincent van Gogh ~

With patience and time, the act of creating creates who I am. The gift is in the process…not just the outcome.

I can orchestrate each moment for my Highest Good, using the gifts of patience, tenacity, and inventiveness to get the job done. The outcome may not be as I planned, but no matter what happens as the result of my efforts, I can both let go…and start all over again. I am not fragile. I am resilient. And no matter how hard I work to create a specific result, I know that the element of surprise can undo it all. Starting over is an integral part of starting…

 

Another Novel Idea for Mother’s Day

To your favorite Mom from Mother Nature!

All of Nature has a voice, a lesson, something unique to teach us. Here is a book that will offer Mom a sense of peace and harmony within herself as she watches and listens to the gentle wisdom of Mother Nature. How to embrace and let go, to be patient and accepting, to go with the flow, to accept the inevitability of change, on and on…

 NatureTeachers

Now available on Amazon.com.

Or

Take advantage of a special Mother’s Day offer to purchase all three of my books for $30 on www.wordsfromcara.com

Healing the “ouch-effect”

The Stone and the Ripple Effect

“The voyage of self-discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.”
~ Marcel Proust ~

Remember the last moments of the classic movie, E.T.-The Extra-Terrestrial? It’s one of my most favorite movies and those last seconds expressed by the boy, Elliot, and E.T. as they say goodbye to each other reflects all that I’m feeling right now.

E.T.: Come…

Elliot: (solemnly) Stay…

E.T.: (puts his finger to his glowing heart) Ouch.

Elliot: (mimics the same action, tearfully) Ouch.

E.T.: (E.T. and Elliot embrace each other, then E.T. puts his glowing finger to Elliot’s forehead) I’ll…be…right…here.

Elliot: (tearfully) bye.

E.T.: Be good. (touching heart about to leave.) Ouch.

(from the movie, E.T.-The Extra-Terrestrial))

I thought about how many ways to express it, this deep sorrow I’m feeling for the suffering of the world right now. E.T. said it best, “Ouch.” My soul hurts. My spirit hurts. I feel this immense state of “ouchness” for the people in Alabama and all the surrounding areas struck so horribly by a second-time twister. And those in Syria begging us to help them and all we do is watch horrendous film clips of babies, mothers, the innocent ones, brave reporters, being mowed down by murderers. “Ouch.” And animals caught in the cross-fires of human cruelty—gassed and shot, abandoned. We’re exposed to them all on Facebook and all over the media. Wolf carcasses spilling out of the back of the truck of their beaming human killers. Oceans suffocating in swirling acres of plastic. Everywhere I turn, everywhere I look there seems to be more and more suffering. Even within my own family and friends there is some great sorrow that I can’t alleviate. I can’t make it go away. So I stand in the middle of my life and cry out helplessly to it all, “Ouch.”

I know so many of you feel as I do. Many of you turn to your religions, to prayer, to organizations, activities, selfless volunteer work that helps greatly. I find that all of these efforts are powerful. Finding a place of peace and love within our own lives, our own circle of loved ones is a way to feel less hopeless. Doing something good is always the answer, always the way back home. Shoveling out the garbage and creating gardens of new perspective is how we discover new pathways to higher consciousness. I find sustenance in giving my talks, reaching out to others and giving them something within themselves to want to go on no matter what. I write and speak about what I need to believe, and it’s not always easy.

At this moment I am feeling this deep sense of “ouch” for our beautiful planet and the pervasive pain it’s going through everywhere. I wonder if that angelic little E.T. asked me to go with him right now would I leave all this ouchness for a better and different and kinder world? My spirit says, “Yes, go…” But my humanness says, “Stay and make it better. Don’t give up. Live…”

As my beloved mentor Otto Frank, Anne Frank’s father, expressed to me when I was at another low place in my life looking at the world in the sixties through hopeless glasses, “If the end of the world would be imminent, you still must plant a tree today.” He believed fiercely in never giving up hope.

At the end of each of my talks I offer people a small, smooth stone out of a bowl. I tell them it represents each of them, each of us. A stone thrown into a pool of water radiates ripples that go on and on and on. Seeing ourselves as that little stone, sending out ripples of positivity or negativity is our choice. But it’s not just an empty gesture. There is actual, scientific evidence that what we think—good and bad—can and does change the world, thought-by-thought, ripple-by-ripple. Here is an excerpt from my book, Nature Teachers:

“Dr. Masaru Emoto, an internationally renowned science researcher and author, has written a revolutionary series of books, the first one entitled, Messages from Water. The premise of his research is that the power of prayer, beneficial healing sounds and words can even change the physical property of water crystals. In his continued research, Dr. Emoto has discovered that all substances and phenomena have their own unique magnetic resonance fields. His photographs of the dramatic contrasts between frozen water before and after prayer, angry and kind words or thoughts, and gentle and strident music are amazing. His work is so important on so many levels. He is documenting the scientific evidence that all of life is a vital force capable of reacting to positive or negative energy. Everything. The more we are aware of this vital energy, the more we are able to focus on our own power and the impact it has on everything and everybody.”

I encourage you to read Dr. Emoto’s book. It may help you realize that you actually can do something right now to help the world, just by your loving thoughts. I had to write this to remind myself that this is so and to help heal this quagmire of sorrow I am feeling for this life, these earthly beings of all species that I love so much. So, to answer beautiful E.T.’s quest to leave this place, I would probably have to do what Elliot opted to do as well. Stay. And do all I can to bless the “ouchness” of our beautiful planet with all my heart and soul; see it healing and growing in spite of or maybe because of the cataclysms in its wake. And follow E.T.’s sage advice to simply, “Be good.”

An elder Cherokee Native American was teaching his grandchildren about life.

He said to them, “A fight is going on inside me. It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One wolf is evil – he is fear, anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, competition, superiority, and ego.

The other is good – he is joy, peace, love, hope, sharing, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, friendship, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith. This same fight is going on inside you, and inside every other person, too.”

They thought about it for a minute and then one child asked his grandfather, “Which wolf will win?”

The old Cherokee simply replied, “The one you feed.”

Nature Teacher Feature of the Week: Dr. Gary Greenberg (artist, inventor, scientist, filmmaker)

HeartSandMix

 

“To see a world in a grain of sand and heaven in a wildflower. Hold infinity in the palm of your hand and eternity in an hour.”
~ William Blake ~

 

If you ever saw the very first Superman movie and followed the caped Super Hero flying through and over what appeared to be the planet Krypton, you were witnessing the deft work of Dr. Gary Greenberg. For, indeed, what Superman was actually soaring above was in reality human pancreatic cancer cells transformed through the magic of Dr. Greenberg’s dramatically magnified micro photographic filmmaking. The brilliant biomedical researcher is the inventor of extraordinary, high-definition, three-dimensional light microscopes, for which he was issued eighteen U.S. patents.

Because of Dr. Greenberg—artist, scientist, biomedical researcher, inventor, writer, filmmaker—we now can become wide-eyed observers of nature in a way that we never imagined in our lives. His drive to truly “see” life up close takes us on a journey deep into the exquisite grains of sand gathered from around the world, as well as a bug’s eye view of exotic flowers, and even the magnificence of moon sand and dust collected from all six historic Apollo landings, and much, much more each documented in startling detail never before seen with the naked eye.

Seeing some of Dr. Greenberg’s up close works of art made me all the more determined to talk to him. Who was this man who now made it virtually impossible to ever look at a beach the same way? Could we ever imagine that all those glistening stretches along the shore were actually startling landscapes of delicate, jewel-like crystals, gem-like minerals and brilliant-colored coral fragments? How did Dr. Greenberg capture the natural world in such a breathtaking way?

I had to talk to him and did just that over the phone recently. He lives in Hawaii and was very open and comfortable to talk to, during an early a.m. chat.

What started you on this three dimensional path, Gary?

When I was around twelve or thirteen years old I received two gifts that changed my life. My grandfather gave me a book on Leonardo da Vinci that totally captured my imagination. And simultaneously, my father gave me a microscope. I remember feeling like a little kid with x-ray glasses. Fascinated by how things worked and looked up close, I began studying rocks and flowers, everything I could find and I haven’t stopped. I still do.

What is your main reason for combining science with art?

My mission is to bring the world of art and science together in people’s consciousness—to show the immense beauty of nature. We live within the most spectacular entity of the Universe, living laws set up by God. My work is a passionate expression of my own relationship with God. I am carving out my own path, following my own passion to show the connection we humans have with nature. When we commune with nature we become one with it all—aware of this link. Unfortunately, I think that in the Bible, Genesis #5 there are many passages speaking about “man’s dominion over nature” and just the word “dominion” is a way of setting up the human species to be superior over all of nature—not a connected to it. I don’t believe this at all. I believe we’re all part of each other.

So your art work—the books you create and talks you give, are doorways into which we can more deeply embrace nature and illustrate our connectedness to everything?

Yes, exactly. My hope is that once people understand how magnificent nature is they will value and care for it. The miracles of nature are tangible, and when we walk along a beach we are strolling upon thousands of years of biological and geological history.

Do you have hope for our world?

Hope for our planet, yes. But for humans, I don’t know. Most species only survive a few millions of years and then disappear.

What are you doing now to inspire others?

What does give me hope is what I’m doing now. I’m focusing on the next generation. Getting microscopes into the hands of students so that they will appreciate nature while they’re still young and hopefully will continue this awareness of the worlds within the worlds of nature—encompassing the micro world and the nano world within everything.

I hope you visit Dr. Greenberg’s website and discover as I have the dramatic landscapes of the hidden world surrounding us. His books and art work are collector’s items, and even his newest book is directed to young people inspiring them through a mystery using the microscope to reveal unforeseen clues.

If you love nature and are curious to see everything in a way you have never seen before in your life, welcome to the world of Dr. Gary Greenberg!

www.sandgrains.com

Homage to the Weed

“A weed is a plant that has mastered every survival skill except for learning how to grow in rows.”
Doug Larson

Flower Weed

I have found that one of the most enduring Nature Teachers is not the most appreciated of the plant family. In fact, its Latin name is “Arundo Donax”, or cockroach of the plant kingdom. The Weed.

I’ve never known why it is so hated, so completely undermined. For what I appreciate the most of about weeds are their determination to grow outside the lines. Yes, they wreak havoc inside coiffed gardens of landscaped perfection. But they don’t seem to care. I imagine them laughing at their undesired presence as they immerge with their scruffy, “bedhead” looks, some rumpled and scraggly, others spiky and wild, and many with a beauty all their own. They stretch to the sky. They wear flowers and burrs and stickers. They spread and burst into places no one seems to want them to be—and, like the famous honey badger—they simply don’t give a shit.

You can pull them out. Poison the hell out of them. Swear at them. Find the perfect chemical solutions and fertilizers to deter them, but ultimately the weed wins. Once a garden is deserted, or a field left to its own resources untended by human attention, the weed takes over and makes its untamed presence known. It grows anywhere, adapting to any situation. It doesn’t seem to have any special requirements in order to do its thing or be who it is. It doesn’t apologize. It just appears without any need for ceremony—happy to be alive wherever it grows. Rocky, deserted paths? It’s thriving. Discarded hillsides? Trash-inundated ditches? Inside train tracks, cracks in the sidewalk, freeway embankments? There’s always a weed to be discovered, seemingly unaware of its marked “ugly duckling-ness.” It bobs and dances in the sunshine and breezes appearing more swan-like than not. I love what James Russell Lowell says about the weed, that it is truly, “…no more than a flower in disguise, which is seen through at once, if love give a man eyes.”

Because I believe that the weed has within it something most of us long for but don’t have. Self-esteem. It’s comfortable with itself. It has a beauty, joy and resolve all its own no matter what the world says it is or names it to be. I love it and I strive to have all that it is and has—the fortitude of a cockroach and the elegance of a calla lily.

“I didn’t want to tell the tree or weed what it was.
I wanted it to tell me something and through me express its meaning in nature.”

Wynn Bullock

I invite you to enjoy this wonderful article by Richard Whittaker and Doug Burgess on the unique beauty and complexity of “Weeds.”

 Brown Weed