She Was Restless to Return to a Place She Had Never Been

So writes Pete Dunne about a first year peregrine's maiden migratory voyage, in his piece A Peregrine Going South. "She was restless to return to a place she had never been, but one she would know when she got there." That line has stayed with me since I first read it in 1995. I understood the longing to go, because I felt, and feel, it too. While in Pennsylvania, we lived directly beneath a waterfowl migration route and each spring and fall the skies were filled with Canada geese, snow geese and tundra swans, winging their way towards the, sometimes unknown, place that called to their wild hearts. "Take me with you!" my own heart cried, but, as I had had no wings with which to follow, I watched them soar out of sight, lump in my throat and tears in my eyes.

I know that same lump of longing each and every time I read Edwin Teale's A Naturalist Buys an Old Farm, an almost irrational pull towards a life that isn't mine, at least as far as I can see. But suddenly, in a couple of days, I will be there...for a week. A week in which I may see not another soul, in which my company will be the field and woodland insects and birds, and the fish, turtles and frogs of their pond, and whatever mammals I see roaming the land. How I will truly feel on this land, I have yet to discover. Will I feel at home? Will I, as a friend asked, feel like an intruder? Will I have periods of fear, moments of elation? 

On Sunday, I will begin a solitary time without internet and superfluous interactions with the rest of the world. I will be blessedly beyond the reach of the media and the angst of the daily news, and beyond the angst of so many of my friends' reactions to the daily news. A passage from A Naturalist Buys an Old Farm comes to mind. Looking back on their first night in their new home, Edwin wrote, "Sitting there in the twilight, watching the fireflies and listening to the whippoorwill that first evening, we seemed to be in the perfect habitat for a pair of naturalists. We felt as comfortable as a rabbit in its form. Here, in every season of the year, we would be living on the edge of wildness. All these acres around us, all these fields and woods, fading into the night, would form a sanctuary farm a sanctuary for wildlife and a sanctuary for us."  

With much thankfulness to God for this wondrous opportunity, I will sit, in spirit, with the Teales, and smile and wholeheartedly agree.

Wedding Anniversary

No, not mine. Seven years ago I was tickled and honored when my son asked if we might hold his wedding in our backyard. It was, as it turned out, the last summer I would spend at that Pennsylvania house, though we did not know that at the time. What I did know, was that I wanted the setting to be as beautiful as possible, peaceful and welcoming, not just for the wedding party and guests, but for life of all kinds. In the years leading up to the wedding, I had been slowly transforming our relatively conventional, rural/suburban yard into a one that  hosted myriad creatures, large and small and I was eager for others to enjoy their presence, as well.  Below are some musings soon after that magical evening.

"The journey of remaking my yard into native habitat supporting an untold number of insects and a “bird list” of more than a hundred species has been a rich and rewarding endeavor, one appreciated not just by wildlife but by human visitors who are taken with its beauty. We recently hosted my son’s evening wedding in the back yard and the gardens were a patchwork of color: deep red cardinal flower, pink and white garden phlox, red and purple bee balm, white daisy fleabane, orange butterfly weed, rose-pink swamp milkweed, and bright yellow black and brown-eyed Susans. During the wedding, ruby-throated hummingbirds zipped about, grey catbirds murmured in the shrubs behind the pastor, mourning doves cooed in the background and robins, Carolina wrens, northern cardinals and cedar waxwings sang their evening song, to the enjoyment of everyone who paid attention. For many of the guests, this was the first time they had ever been surrounded by songbirds and pollinators and they were delighted to be a part of something even larger than they knew. They had come for a wedding but, in addition, witnessed the abundance of life that can only be had in a native landscape."

Thank you again, Jon and Tara, for asking me to host that most special of evenings, all those years ago.

To Plant a Garden is to Believe in Hope

A few days ago, I took this picture of a new garden I recently installed for a client. It has taken a lot of hours, a lot of energy and no small amount of mental (and physical) frustration at the various obstacles that were encountered and then overcome. It sits in the midst of a woodland, and will need continual maintenance to keep it from being reabsorbed into the ecosystem from which it was carved. With due attention, however, it will be a lovely space filled with color and provide habitat for bees and butterflies from spring into the fall. 

While working, I have plenty of time for thinking and, like so many reflective people, I have been wrestling with the violence of the last few days and my response to it. I have wondered about what possible contribution to others' well being I make in my day to day life. I wonder about my role in bringing peace, to whom, I'm not even sure. I spend most of my working hours gardening for people who have the money to pay for someone to take care of their gardens...people who are financially well off, people who are well-educated and work for the federal government or private businesses. They are good people, well-meaning and compassionate to those within their circle of acquaintances, neighbors who look out for and take care of one another. I know that I am fortunate to be working at something that I enjoy, that creates beauty and habitat  but, still, I have nagging questions about the real value of all the hard labor and hours I put into the work of being a private gardener. 

I recently shared these thoughts with a friend, a therapist who serves people who have experienced significant trauma and its aftermath. She is too well acquainted with the devastation the world can sometimes bring and how it  shapes the identity of those who have been severely wounded. As I haltingly broached my questions about the worth of what I do, she had thoughts that, were they from anyone else, I would have been likely to dismiss. She declared that the world needs beauty, especially in the face of so much ugliness, and that it needs to see what can be, rather than only what is. She acknowledged that though I might feel called to do more, I must never think of my gardening in terms of not being enough.

 I decided to believe her, and her perspective allowed me to think about lessons learned from gardening that might apply to the healing of our fractured society at large. Gardens, be they flowers or vegetables, are never stagnant. They are never the same, two years in a row. Challenges that were once conquered reappear without warning. Remedies that once worked, are effective no longer. Inattention to the needs of individual plants invites their ruin, and inattention to the whole of the garden invites chaos and disintegration. One cannot long turn his or her back on what they have nurtured and expect an abundant harvest from healthy plants. 

Gardeners are some of the most optimistic people on the planet. When one approach does not work, they try another and are ever watchful for the need to adapt to challenging conditions. They may grumble and complain at impediments, but they seldom give up on their goal of a harvest-their practice is for the long term. They learn from past mistakes, readily share what has worked well for them andask questions from those who know more than they do.

Gardens, just like society and the individuals from which it is composed, need beneficence, defined as "the doing of good, active goodness or kindness". Beauty in both comes from the commitment to hard work and long hours, days, weeks, months and years of care. In a garden setting, it is the caretakers who do most of the work. In society, each of us either contributes to or subtracts from the well being of the whole. What if each of us were to consciously choose to contribute to the well being of the area in which we lived? In our different settings and situations, what would that look like?

I have a t-shirt that, up until now, I have felt was just a little too cliche-ish...a little too cute and folksy, but I have changed my mind. Just like the shirt, I sometimes feel worn and ragged, even cracked and faded in my efforts to contribute to the society around me that needs my involvement and care. Whether that effort be working in client's gardens, involvement in my church and with its members, choosing to be intentionally kind to people in the grocery store or on the boardwalk at the river, I believe that each instance of caring surely must contribute to a healthier whole. Indeed, I am reminded that to plant a garden or to work for the good of all really is to believe in and be willing to hope for something that may not be readily visible at the outset. The work of gardening and of caring for those we know and those we don't know is built on a hope that we might not always recognize, but without which nothing would be accomplished, or even begun. The hope that, in some small way, our contribution will matter and will bear fruit.

A Month From Now

Imagine stepping into one of your most favorite books and entering into the story that you had, up until that moment, only experienced in print. And, then, imagine that you have read that book so many times that some of its passages have become ingrained into your very being, and that reading it feels much like a homecoming. I have several such books, but most of them are of fiction, and their settings are inaccessible, but for the imagination. But, there is one book, one I have been reading for many years, that long ago sparked a deep longing for land to roam, creatures to observe, plants to recognize and greet in season, and a life lived in companionship with the wild. 

Back when I first started reading A Naturalist Buys and Old Farm, by Edwin Way Teale, I rightly assumed that I would never own a vast number of acres composed of woodlands, wetlands, fields and ponds. Initially, I balked against what I considered to be my lack of opportunity, but in time, I realized that I could steward the half-acre with which I had been entrusted for the benefit of wildlife, and for the joy of watching all who came in response. And that is what I did, and for several years the list of visiting birds and insects grew, and their presence and the beauty of the hundreds of species of flowers, trees and shrubs brought blessing each time I stepped out of my front or back door. 

Time passed and we moved, and moved, and moved yet again - three houses in 5 years, though, as it turned out, the first and third house were one in the same. In each new yard, I planted and got to know the creatures who came to live alongside my husband and I, but the longing for a place to belong, such as Edwin and his wife, Nellie had, still haunted me, now and again. Last February, I got to wondering about what had happened to Trail Wood, their home...was it still wild, did someone who loved it now own it, or had it been bulldozed and built upon, unrecognizable in all respects? An on-line search brought me to the Connecticut Audubon Society and to their ownership of Trail Wood, as Edwin and Nellie had bequeathed it to them, for the good of their land, and all who might want to come and experience it for themselves.

But, there was more...The CT Audubon, now offers an Artist-in-Residence program for four artists, two visual artists and two writers, each summer and each artist lives for a separate week at Trail Wood, working on their craft and living in the Teale's house and on their land. The instructions for applying were straightforward, and the application period was to close one week from the time I read of the opportunity. I surveyed some of my past writings, and some of my current musings and thought, "Well, why not?! I can keep applying year after year, and perhaps one year they might take me." And that was what I did. The writer's submissions could be up to 20 pages, and mine was that exactly. I filled out the myriad pages required, along with an artist's statement, and electronically sent the whole package off. 

To my great surprise, a few months later, I was accepted. I had just come home from a personal, silent retreat at a beautiful spot in eastern Virginia, overlooking a river that hosted nesting osprey and migrating loons and I was filled with the wonder of that weekend. As I began reading the email, I fully expected it to say that they thanked me for my submissions, but had chosen other artists. Instead, somewhere into the reading, I realized that they were thanking me for applying and would pleased to have me come, as one of the four. A few weeks later I was curious and wrote and asked why I had been chosen. I was humbled by the answer. "Your application, in my view, communicated much the same kind of spirit that the Teales possessed: an appreciation for the land and its inhabitants, an understanding of the fragility of nature and the need to work hard to protect and preserve it, and a strong, practiced belief in sustainable living...the Teale's door was open to one and all. I think they would have appreciated the talents and environmental ethic reflected in your application."

My submitted artist statement sums up why I write and what I would like any works that I create to achieve: The natural world has been where I have felt most at home for all of my adult life. As I have lived in many different places, for different reasons, the outdoors that has been my comfort and encouragement and has long been a significant part of my identity. I write, primarily, essays about the natural world and the life found there, and my aims are three-fold. I write to present the natural world as an accessible place, full of wonders and mysteries, for those who are not yet acquainted with it, in hopes that they will begin to see it with new eyes, and learn to care for it. I write, for all who will listen, about our human responsibility to care for the land and its creatures, and present easily implemented steps that people may take to do so in their own home landscapes. And lastly, I write for people of faith who need the reminder that we are called to be stewards in caring for the Creation, and that doing so is an integral part of life with God. As such, my writings are not the technical terminology of scientists, but more lyrical, poetic glimpses into the life of the various ecosystems I encounter on a regular basis. My hope is that, as a result, people will be intrigued and drawn into the practice of noticing, and thereby enter the more sacred practice of caring and protecting. I have been reading Edwin Way Teale for the last 25 years, never knowing that he and Nellie had left their beloved home to the Connecticut Audubon Society. As I worked to prepare this application, I have realized just how deeply his writings and care for the land have shaped and influenced my own.

And so, less than a month from now, I will travel to Connecticut, past the small town of Hampton, through the rural landscape that has endured, over the small bridge and up the long drive of Trail Wood. Whatever I find there, some 42 years after Edwin wrote of his daily exploratory excursions, I will be stepping into the story I have known almost by heart for the last couple of decades. For some unimaginable reason, I will be privileged to walk Edwin's and Nellie's trails, to listen to descendants of the insects they listened to, to dip my feet into their pond, to watch the night sky from their hilltop and to revel in the mid-summer fragrances and peace that they so loved. I am exceedingly grateful.