On this morning’s walk through the woods, the very welcome signs of tomorrow’s vernal equinox.
It’s taken me until the last day of this crappy year to want to post to this blog. I certainly have plenty of time on my hands and the space to wander about in acres and acres of woods, but the only routine I seem able to stick with is a long walk with the dog every morning.
On our walks, I’m usually chasing my thoughts, working on my well-being while trying to figure out my purpose. Got to focus that monkey mind. So I’ve been trying all sorts of things like meditation, gratitude practice, tapping, breathwork … well, let’s just say I have been learning a little about quite a lot and the list is longer than I want to admit to. I do like learning new things, but I just couldn’t seem to to turn any of these into a daily practice.
Every day, on our walks, my dog is busy chasing and finding his joy. And I’ve finally realized that on our walks, I am beginning the practice of finding my joy too. I’m curious, looking at things, really noticing them, pausing the chatter in my head, and I am present. There is joy in that for me. My daily practice is to stay curious and make sure that my end of year horoscope prediction comes true: you will have more natural access to wonder and amazement and awe than you’ve had in a long time in the upcoming year.
.
I am in Mandalay, Myanmar exploring concepts for developing a garden on a tourist-visited site that once was part of a Buddhist monastery. Let me say that every word in that statement has its own layers upon layers of stories and meaning and events and even I don’t know how I got here.
About this garden … I hate to admit it but it has taken me the better part of a week to relax my expectations of what this garden should or should not be. I am resisting the urge to put a design on paper, to try to control the outcome and to instead, to simply observe.
What I am seeing in Mandalay is beauty and mess, a remarkable culture and neglect, opportunity and disappointment. It occurs to me that this describes the reality of a garden too. A garden is never completely under control: Sometimes plants do not thrive, some grow wild and unruly, and some are neglected. I think that every gardener knows this because they all see this. I know this too.
And yet, even before I arrived here, I started developing a garden plan based on opportunity and beauty and what I knew of Burmese culture. I jumped to design before really seeing this place. Now I know that isn’t going to be good enough for me, or for this garden. I’m seeing Mandalay and filling my head with the beauty and the mess.
Lost in my own backyard.
I really don’t think I am showing early signs of dementia, but I did seem to get myself turned around. To be fair, there are over 500 acres to wander and lots of trails and “could-be” paths to explore in my backyard. Let’s just say that it is easy to get distracted …Â and to be fascinated.
What a gift it is to be able to step into a state of uncertainty for a few moments. And then walk back home again.
Shinrin-yoku. Forest bathing.
I wrote that phrase down several years ago in my silly little book of random lists and thoughts and names. It’s at the top of the page, right before Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses by Robin Kimmerer. A great idea and a good book (hers, not mine). Maybe it is just a lucky coincidence that I put those together on the page and now I am living in a forest of moss. Still, it feels like more than serendipity to me, it feels like home.
Between every two pine trees there is a door leading to a new way of life.
John Muir
I can feel the woods pulling us in. We are on the move again, and although there is a lot of uncertainty as to just where we will be heading, I know it should be near the trees.
Sorry Detroit, but you stink. Not as much as you did a week ago, and I appreciate that. I also appreciate that I may have a more sensitive sense of smell than some but this particular odor really bothered me. I thought there must have been a rotting animal carcass under the deck until I realized I was randomly smelling this same smell on my walks around town. It is flowering pear. Rows and rows of flowering pear are planted everywhere.
I admit that they are lovely to look at, but there are multitudes of them, and on a warm sunny afternoon, this is one overwhelming fragrance. Well, it is to me. Thankfully, as Spring moves along the pears are starting to leaf out, their white petals are dropping, and it seems we have hit our “stink peak.” Now, I will appreciate them.
Looking out the window I see half a dozen pheasant in the vacant lot next door.
I believe this is my first sighting of a female. Make that two females.
The rewilding of Detroit.
I’ve been walking a lot lately, discovering parks and trails around Detroit. It doesn’t matter where I go, if I slow down and take a moment, I’m rewarded with little surprises.
I like to think that I’m pretty good at recognizing beautiful details all on my own, but on this particular day in Palmer Park, I was guided by signs. Original and unique art was placed at various spots along the path. Like randomly opening a book in the middle and starting from there, I didn’t really know what these character were doing here.
Why here? What am I looking at? It was creative. It was fantastic.
And there was no way I wasn’t going to slow down and look at each
of these little nature guides.
It seems that every one of these little signs tells its own story and it can be any story I want…
Once upon a time, there was a group of kids who headed into the woods. One by one, they each were drawn to a different spot. Each sat quietly for a bit in their spot and thought about how that place made them feel, what they saw, what they heard, smelled and touched. They took those feelings and they made them into art. The art was a sign, a reminder for anyone walking by each adopted spot to recognize that they were in a special place. Nature.
People walked by these spots and many never saw the signs. They didn’t recognize that they were somewhere special— they didn’t stop and take a moment to think about what they were seeing or hearing, smelling or touching. They didn’t realize that the kids created their art signs to show the magic that can be found on a journey through the woods.
If we look.
But some people in this story try to destroy the magic. They don’t think about how a place makes them feel, or what it looks like. They don’t see anything special about this place, or any place. They are the people who come to the woods, the parks, and the streets to throw their trash on the ground.
I want to rewrite this story. Because, along with the beauty I see in all of our parks and trails, empty lots and streets, I see trash. A lot of trash.
Being Here 