Tangos Turn: Sunday Outing

  note: Tango is my dog and the following is his perspective   I won’t complain about being left alone while J visits the nursing home because she already feels guilty enough. Besides, we walk several times each day, and she plans special outings every week. She is trying to care for me too, and…

Outdoor Joy

There is a delight in the hardy life of the open. There are no words that can tell the hidden spirit of the wilderness that can reveal its mystery, its melancholy and its charm. The nation behaves well if it treats the natural resources as assets which it must turn over to the next generation…

Reflection for Holy Saturday

The Peace of Wild Things When despair for the world grows in me and I wake in the night at the least sound in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be, I go and lie down where the wood drake rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron…

Throw Your Representatives into a Creek!

I will get to the part about throwing politicians into a creek, but first this: Every terrain excites me: desert, mountain, seashore, prairie, riparian. Naturally occurring terrain, not endless farmland. However, not everyone agrees with me about the inherent beauty in all natural settings. I know people who think of the desert as “wasteland”, or…

Trees Make us Feel Better

I am especially blessed after this election to reside in a beautiful forest. The weather is perfect, and I am outside all the time. A warm campfire at night keeps my toasty until bedtime. Had I been anywhere else I would have been a total basket case. I still cannot get my head around having…

Forest Bathing

Shinrin-yoku is a Japanese term that means “forest bathing.” Those who regularly sit out in nature claim that spending time in forests and other natural areas is a form of preventative medicine. How?  Forest bathing reduces stress, which in turn promotes better health. Apparently the positive effects of forest bathing have a scientific explanation. Trees…