Beyond the Tent

The subtitle of Micah Mortali's Rewilding: Meditations, Practices, and Skills for Awakening in Nature tells you everything you need to know about this book's focus. It's a how-to manual for learning the kind of outdoors skills and techniques that sharpen your senses and translate the story of the natural world. 

If the idea of tracking animals or building a fire as a spiritual practice is new and intriguing -- or if the idea of being alone in a wild place sounds daunting and scary -- this is the perfect beginner's book. There's a whole lot more to "awakening in nature" than buying a tent and sleeping in it. 

Numerous camping and wilderness manuals focus on gear and technique, to the exclusion of much beyond the thought process of "I'm going camping. What should I bring? What should I know how to do?" Mortali blends competent answers to those questions with a deeper look at what you could be open to learning, beyond those basics, and what Nature could say to your spirit while you're out there. 

Having been introduced to the meditative practice of fire-building, I can attest to the restful, restorative effect of gathering and placing wood with intention and appreciation. I've found it to be true that a fire created thoughtfully lights easily and burns more evenly. 

Combine that level of attention with a few breathwork techniques, some yoga-like postures, and prompts for quiet thinking, and your nature walk or camping trip becomes a retreat that places you comfortably within the world, not just on it. 

Excerpt:

Rewilding offers many pathways for connecting with the miraculous life-forms on this good earth, from walking with awareness and sharpening our senses, to becoming intimate with our land and harvesting sustenance from it. Through mindfulness, we come to the living earth as ourselves, as we are in this moment. We come back into relationship with the earth through a renewed relationship with ourselves as sentient, sensitive, and highly adaptable.     

Time-Spending

There's certainly more than the usual amount of time to be spent, these days, I'd say.

Still not enough time to get everything done, however. I suppose that's because I'm still putting in a full week at work, albeit from my desk at home. Like most people, I suspect, working from home means I save time by not commuting, not getting dressed up, etc. Which is more than compensated for by the time I spend making my own lunch and being distracted by unsettling news from all over. Some days my concentration is excellent, even better than it was in the office on my best day. Other days I feel more like I'm waiting for the biggest shoe ever to finally drop.

In Florida we don't think the virus has peaked yet. That's definitely unsettling.

Meanwhile, life rolls on. I've had some groceries delivered, and chatted with friends by phone and video call, and done a lot of cooking and some gardening. The New York Times hosts a tile matching game for free on their website, and I've discovered how soothing it is to play a few rounds of that every day.

Yesterday I made a vegetable run to the open-air, no-conversation, no-touch farmer's stand. I usually buy my vegetables at the Friday Night Farmers Market, which gives me a chance to browse and sometimes pick up a recipe recommendation from the farmer. This time we spoke through a cracked window on the passenger side of the car and the vegetables were packed and loaded into the back hatch. I leaned across the passenger seat to give him the money, both of  us careful not to touch hands in the transfer. I was wearing a mask. I tipped him. Our conversation was shorter but our eye contact -- being all we had left -- was stronger.

Mother Nature's bounty continues and I am thankful for that, as well as for the opportunity keep my friend's business alive. There was a small line of cars behind me, each of us grateful and craving a few words of conversation, no doubt.

It felt nice to get out of the house and go for a little drive. But I have to admit that removing the temptation to Go and Do has actually been good for me. I know I am incredibly lucky to be treating this as an opportunity for self-improvement instead of a desperate challenge to my survival. But there it is.

I hope I will continue to have the chance to be a better person, a better friend, a better neighbor, and a better citizen. I hope I remember to keep that extra eye contact, come what may.

Now if I could just manage to catch up on those book reviews. While there's still time. 

Humble Favorites

One of the plusses of being at home 99% of the time since March 17 has been the opportunity to observe my semi-wild yard at all hours of the day. I keep the front yard quite conventional -- fitting in with the Joneses, so to speak -- but the back yard is landscaped mostly by Mother Nature. The more I see, the more I appreciate.

I have a fresh crop of dandelions every morning, turning their fresh yellow faces to the sky. Soon they're gone to puffballs and the cycle begins again.

The cardinals come first to the feeder, when it's barely light, and are the last to visit at night, as well. Sometimes they stay so late that I wonder how they can see to fly. At more traditional hours I see mourning doves, a couple of grackles, a Carolina wren, chickadees, a red-bellied woodpecker, and a mockingbird or two. Occasionally a tiny gnatcatcher zips through, and sometimes the catbird stops by. I can hear others in the bushes but haven't identified them yet.

The passionvine is still blooming enthusiastically. My friends tell me that its fruits are edible and delicious. I'm hoping I get some!

The mesclun lettuce is still hanging on in the garden, although it's getting a bit warm. I pick it in the morning, wash it, and use it in salad for lunch or dinner. It's incredibly satisfying to eat something I've grown. I definitely will do more of that.

I've already planted crowder peas and started some collards. Both of them like Florida summers, which will be here any day now.

There's nothing particularly noteworthy about any of this. But it's my back yard, a little spot of wild Florida, and I love it. 

Just Lovely

Morning in Florida.

Misty Morning: Hatpin Season from Archbold Biological Station on Vimeo.

April Fooling

Mother Nature is a prankster.

For April Fool's Day, she spread my recycling all over the yard. We finally got some (much-needed!) rain last night. It arrived on the wings of a big wind and I had already put the bin out.

This morning I celebrated the fresh, cool, post-rain morning with a private Easter egg hunt in my own front yard -- finding sparkling water cans in the flower beds and under various bushes. The bin itself was upside down, smack in the middle of the driveway. It seemed like a challenge -- or maybe it was an invitation.

A walk in the wet grass at dawn is a lovely thing.

Now the windows are open, the cats are arrayed around the house, and we are all enjoying a cool breeze as I settle down to my workday.

I hope Mother Nature is pleased with herself. She is certainly full of surprises.

Learning

As I move daily toward a full year in my new job, I'm still learning new aspects of the daily routine.

I've adapted very well to the work (I wasn't eligible for a raise or a bonus, technically, because I'm so new -- but I got both! Hooray!) and the office routine. My co-workers are the nicest collection of folks anywhere, and we always have plenty of snacks around, too.

I'm enjoying riding the train instead of tempting fate in the legendary I-4 rush hour, even though I have to drive to the station. Sometimes the train is very loud, thanks to boisterous or tired children, video games, or oblivious conversationalists, but I am getting a tremendous amount of reading done.

One unexpected challenge is that this time of year, I leave the house in the dark and return home in the dark. That lack of sunlight is somewhat balanced by the usually pleasant walk across downtown to and from the office. A few times it's been rainy and blustery, and that's been exciting! Mostly it's a chance to sightsee a bit and enjoy stretching my legs.

These last few nights I've gotten off the train just as the last glow of sunset is fading from the very edge of the horizon -- to see three spectacular planets shining brightly in the southwest: Venus, Jupiter, and Saturn. I think I'm the only one who notices them -- everyone else seems bent on getting to their cars as quickly as possible -- but I try to enjoy them enough for all of us. 

Like Conversation with a Friend

Oh, this was nice.

I enjoy a book that blends the personal with the scientific. It's the best way to learn. A writer I know calls this "creative nonfiction" and that sums it up nicely -- although I admit I found it disconcerting when he would adjust the details of the personal side. His science was spot on, but sometimes our conversations would include me saying, "But it wasn't during X hike that we saw Y." His answer always insisted that the story was better that way . . . not that I found that very persuasive. In fact, it made me question the accuracy of other events he wrote about. Not the science, just the storytelling.

But I digress. 

I'm willing to give Carl Safina and The View from Lazy Point: A Natural Year in an Unnatural World the benefit of the doubt. I love the way Safina describes his beachfront life with his dog, walking the sand to discover what has turned up overnight, greeting the morning in all weather and all seasons with the dunes and the birds and the fishes. It sounds like an ideal life for a naturalist who loves the world as he does. It's also the ideal entrance into the scientific subject matter for that particular section.

I also loved his travels, cold water and warm water, and the things he discovers along the way when he leaves his Long Island cottage. I may never make it to Alaska or to the Carribbean -- I'm more of a long weekend traveler, not a long-distance, long-term traveler -- but I enjoy tagging along virtually. Safina is a very interesting companion, blending his travel stories of the people he meets with whatever scientific investigation they're pursuing. Anyone who's interested in nature will relish the opportunity to stand at their elbows and eavesdrop, without ever being jet-lagged or cold.

The discoveries these engaging people are making are generally Not Good. The world is damaged and we may or may not change our ways in time. It may already be too late, actually. (It was particularly affecting when Safina's host at the Svalbard Global Seed Vault described how the temperature ranges for growing certain crops are changing drastically due to climate change. In this case, "drastically" means predicted temperatures in the future have zero overlap with existing growing temperatures in certain regions. As in, you can't grow corn here anymore, it's become too hot.)

Safina faces this truth head on, but in the way a solid, discerning friend would broach the conversation with you, and would also -- we hope -- stop mid-sentence to point out a particular beachcombing bird that flew all the way from another continent before backgrounding his words with its cry. 

Excerpt (visiting Svalbard, Norway, north of the Arctic Circle):

Here at the outer limits of their summer ranges, these birds seem familiar; I know them from home. Even Ruddy Turnstones sometimes get this far. From their North American populations, these species all send delegates to waters near my beach house. The murres, auks, skuas, fulmars, the terns, the loons, the eiders and Long-tailed Ducks, of course, even the bunting -- I've seen them all around Lazy Point. That's how small the world is and how big their lives are. Now, far from my own shores, they make me feel unexpectedly at home.

Note: This book counts toward the Mount TBR Reading Challenge.

Turning the Wheel

Flowers like this yet-to-be-identified late October beauty help us turn the wheel of the year. 

Happy Halloween - All Hallow's Eve - Samhain to one and all!

A Little More About Naturalizing

Anthropocentrism: the belief that human beings are the most important entity in the universe; interpreting the world in terms of human values and experiences; viewing the natural world as having value only in its usefulness to or for humans. 

As I mentioned before, I had a little trouble with the fieldwork in my Master Naturalist class because I was very empathetic toward the creatures we were studying. For me, going out in the woods to look for things is fun. Catching them by their wings and/or putting them into specimen jars, even temporarily, is not.

Case in point: our guide caught some very tiny oak toads and was holding them while talking to us. I know he was being gentle, but they were perched on top of his hands and held by one hind leg. They seemed pretty comfortable -- they weren't struggling or anything -- although I imagine they were scared from all the pairs of eyes focused on them, when their main defense is camouflage.

Photo Credit: University of Florida

While explaining things, our guide was gesturing with his hands. I immediately wondered how it felt to the toads to be zooming around in the air like that. First capture, then a rollercoaster! I certainly wasn't learning anything while focused on what they might be feeling. 

To his credit, when I mentioned it, he immediately held his hands very still for the rest of the talk. I was relieved. I bet the toads were, too.

Photo Credit: Eric Shashoua

(This one is actually bigger than the ones we saw. They are often teeny tiny!)

After he put them down, I stood near them while the class walked away. Otherwise they might have been stepped on. Even among these students of nature, I don't think anyone else gave them much thought after he put them down. It was kind of, "Okay, we're through staring at you for our own reasons. What's next?"

It sure made me think about anthropocentrism.

I know it's just two little toads but still. Every life matters when I can do something about it.

Naturalizing

Things I learned in the Florida Master Naturalist class:

It's fun to spend 6 Fridays in a row learning hands-on about Florida.

In September/October, it's still a little too hot to spend the whole day outdoors, no matter how much water you drink.

When the road gets muddy, sometimes you have to walk.

As long as you're expecting them, you can't see too many snakes on a hike (7 pygmy rattlesnakes in one day!).

Catching and examining insects, amphibians, and reptiles is interesting, but if the little creatures seem stressed I feel too much empathy for them to enjoy learning.

Meeting others who're interested in wild Florida is awesome.

Holding a baby gator is even more fun than you'd imagine.

Time Well Spent

I spent a very long day at a county commission hearing yesterday. More than 80 residents and organization representatives spoke in opposition to plans for a mega-development that would fundamentally change the rural lifestyle that area residents love and irreparably alter an environmentally valuable piece of property composed of wetlands, floodplains, and uplands.

One of the most eloquent speeches was made by the president of the historical society for one of the little towns in the vicinity. She showed many pictures of the community engaged in various small-town activities, and ended up by saying it's just fine the way it is.

She wasn't the only speaker who made me get a little teary, listening to her profess her love for the tangible and intangible treasures endangered by "progress" and -- dare I say it -- greed. So much of Florida is under attack for cash and falls without this kind of heartfelt opposition, when only the land and the creatures are there to appreciate the magic and the function of wild places.

When the county commissioners finally voted the development plan down, after 8 hours of considering the matter, there was a huge sigh of relief and some celebration. This fight isn't over -- the developer vowed to appeal -- but it's a victory for now.

I'm glad that the country folks get to keep their farms, their slower pace, their dark nights, and their quiet, and that all these other-than-human beings can remain at peace, too, at least for a while.

Photo: Joanne Bolemon

Photo: Joanne Bolemon

Photo: Joanne Bolemon

No Contest

Much as I enjoy discharging my civic responsibilities, making a dark start to have a scrub jay sit on my head is way better than making a dark start to report for jury duty.

The Best Sort of Serendipity

I set a few goals for this year, mostly based on things that occur in nature.

Seeing the sunflowers on Lake Jesup (if they bloom again after being completely snuffed out by post-hurricane flooding last year) and seeing the swallow-tailed kites gather before they migrate to South America are two things I try to do every year. This year I added seeing the Catesby lily bloom and seeing the coreopsis bloom.

Noting the progress of the seasons in natural phenomena is one way I connect with Mother Nature. It also gets me out into wild places on a regular basis.

When the calendar warned me that it was nearly coreopsis time, I started pinging my network, trying to get in touch with a friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend who knows a grower. Growing wildflowers for seed sounds like a fascinating operation and I was hopeful my connection would play out. Sure enough, I received the gentleman's e-mail in pretty short order. But when I tried to use it, it kept getting returned to me -- even though my contact says she uses that e-mail all the time. I shook my head and let the matter drop.

And then, this happened. In a totally unrelated way, on a random drive for another purpose entirely.

Mother Nature is full of beautiful surprises.

Nature Weekend

Such a lovely way to spend the weekend!

I had a work event that involved camping with my colleagues and various guests along the banks of my favorite river, the St. Johns. We enjoyed hiking, birding, kayaking, an eco-tour boat ride, a clean-up, communal food, great conversation, and -- of course -- a bonfire.

We saw this plant community on one of our hikes: shoestring fern and various mosses, all thriving together on the trunk of a sabal palm tree.

This beauty was a highlight of the weekend for me: a banded water snake, perfectly balanced on an outstretched branch over an old logging canal that connects to the river. It was a cool afternoon and he/she was quite sluggish, allowing us to look as much as we wanted. I'm usually not very good at spotting snakes, so this was a real treat.

You know you're camping when . . .  you've only been there 10 minutes and you already don't match.

Baby Season

It's baby season here in Florida! All the creatures -- especially the birds -- have their young with them these days, and it's wonderful to see.

These long-legged babies are Sandhill Cranes. It's easy to see why they're called "colts." The word "gangly" also comes to mind.

Waking up early in the morning to the sound of the adults calling their pterodactyl calls as they fly over is like hearing the voice of wild Florida . . . . You can imagine it if you listen to their calls here.

Is this heaven? Nope, just spring in Florida.

On Impulse

I belong to a kayaking Facebook group. There are tens of thousands of members all over the world, including one cheery fellow in Australia who's convinced that he and I are cousins because we share the same last name. (Now he has me convinced, too, based on nothing more than his habit of greeting me by saying, "Hi, cuz!")

Anyway, for a Facebook group, we are quite well-behaved. The admins strongly enforce the posting rules, and we DO NOT DISCUSS the two topics we're unable to discuss without getting into arguments: wearing/not wearing a PFD (life jacket) and whether sit-on-top kayaks are/are not superior to sit-inside kayaks. Do not think I'm going to discuss those things here, either. It just leads to fights.

Sooo . . . we're quite the happy community, helpful to each other and chock-full of gorgeous pictures, enough gorgeous pictures that our paddling locations bucket list will never be emptied.

Now that you have the flavor of the group, you'll understand why we all rose to the challenge when one of us asked where she should go paddling in Central Florida while she's here on vacation. Lots of people posted pictures and made recommendations. Here's the picture I posted for her.

She replied that she'd checked it out, but there were no guided tours on the days she's available and she didn't want to paddle alone. Now, I bet she could totally paddle this alone unless she's a complete novice -- it's calm water, there's only a slight current, and the gators are generally placid. But I have to respect her safety concerns. So I did the obvious thing: I offered to go with her.

This may prove to be the easiest favor I've ever done for anyone!   

Happy Solstice

Turning the wheel of the year . . . .

I Have Lived

Photo: Karen Chadwick

This picture was taken two years ago and it still amazes me.

Pictured is Cannon Springs, which is usually covered with Ocklawaha River water, raised behind a dam that no longer serves any purpose. (If you'd like to learn more about the plight of the Ocklawaha, there's a wonderful short film that tells its story, River Be Dammed.)

Ongoing work strives to create the political will needed to remove the dam, free the Ocklawaha, and allow Cannon Springs and others like it to resume their beauty.

For now, they wait.

And I'm reminded that my life has had its transcendent moments.

Midsummer Dawn

Greeting the sun, as we turn toward winter.

Turning the Corner to Summer

We are fortunate to have this kind of everyday beauty already blooming and setting seeds in our neighborhood. We could use more rain after having a few showers yesterday--in the midst of a fearsome drought and wildfires across the state--but all told, I have no complaints about Mother Nature. She does things in her own time, and that's fine by me.