travels, reflections, poems….
Lappet-faced Vultures, Botswana, Africa Turkey Vulture, CA We were driving on a California country road this week surrounded by sweetly fragrant ceanothus wildflowers, when we came upon two lethargic turkey vultures standing in the road. Turns out they were doing us a big favor. Because they were not moving for us, we slowly drove toward […]
Vultures are Cool — Jet Eliot
Photo by Seth Inman taken in Kenya’s Samburu Game Reserve … Show me a photo. When atrocities dominate the news, and threaten to overwhelm, I lean on old photographs taken by family members that offer a meditative opportunity. Recently I have found myself leaning on those that transport me to some natural phenomenon I have […]
Sometimes, You Just Have To Say… — Organikos
Richard J. WellerRichard J. Weller, ASLA, is the Meyerson Chair of Urbanism and Professor and Chair of landscape architecture and Executive Director of the McHarg Center at The University of Pennsylvania. He is author of seven books, including the forthcoming The Landscape Project, a collection of essays by the faculty at the Weitzman School of…
Earth Day Interview with Richard Weller: A Hopeful Vision for Global Conservation — THE DIRT
Wild Design: Nature’s Architects / Princeton Architectural PressThe new book Wild Design: Nature’s Architects by science writer and essayist Kimberly Ridley is a slim, charming look at some of the most interesting results of 3.8 billion years of evolution — the beautiful and always highly functional forms of plants, fungi, insects, spiders, avians, and mammals.…
The Functional Beauty of Nature’s Designs — THE DIRT
So, as they used to say,
The sons of the Early One
Made the sea and the sky –
Why
No one knew,
And, with the hint of a smile,
By the night’s melody,
They made even all the winds that ran, playing,
Along the shore.
But after a long while,
Things needed a shuffle – a toss or a turn,
So, they brought about a long churn
Of the sea – and the rain
Fell, then all curled up
Like the crinkles of a leaf in the fall,
And the Wakeful One closed both His eyes
And slept and will waken again one day
To a whippoorwill’s call,
Or the pinyon jays’ cries,
But the most ancient Holy One, beyond the beginning,
Is always, in the sleeping and the awakening,
Within and beyond the day and the night
Of Evermore.
After a while though, when no one was looking
The dragon of yore
Crept
Up onto the earth and arose again,
He who believed in nothing at all,
And stalked the whole land –
Shredding
And tearing,
Causing hurt and howling too
With a horrible hiss,
Over the smoking sea,
Scattering the sand,
Until he tumbled into the dark Abyss,
And fell down, down
And then soon
After, there was peace
For the startled curlew,
So, all the big ones and the little ones and the long sea, rolling
All closed their eyes and slept
In the comfort, deep blue,
Of the dark for a while,
Till stars sailed adrift in the ever-wandering skies,
Over the lake of the softly singing, glad-winged geese,
In their feathered gown,
While the gold cup
Of the moon
Went sailing on in her cloud-ringed light
Along the bright rim of the brave sky.
**
By Sharon St Joan
© Copyright, Sharon St Joan, 2022
Mist-ringed towers drifting
And the snow petal
Remember the forest Gods
From long before
Who ruled all lands then.
It was exactly
Very, very long ago
When
The rains buffeted
The clouds in the sky
And much has happened since –
Betrayal,
Forgetting,
Diminishing,
Lessening.
The bitter knife of the wind prods
The memory;
Only the great-horned owl recalls,
And his friends.
Those Gods have gone to far worlds – away
And often hid,
To universes little known –
And yet they are not far,
Still here, alone,
While winds obey,
Because there are no moments now,
No distance,
No separation,
No illusion,
Only the reality,
Only the howl, laughing,
Of the coyote
Whose fur shines white in the moonlight,
Whose awareness is keen,
Like the eyes of the star.
Perceptions of snow –
Past worlds, wooded, green
The one true past is here now –
In the pinecone
That whistles in the January
Wind and in the juncos and white-crowned sparrows,
Who hop within the whiffs
Of the snow flurry,
In the winds of gold that fly
From the setting sun that falls
Behind the cliffs.
Gone now, the noble cow,
Wandering home in the mists,
Eternal mists of snow,
Of times that were and are
And are again to be
When the Gods guard the way,
To protect the sacred, snow-enchanted day
In the deep forests,
Now and yet again and evermore.
***
By Sharon St Joan
© Copyright, Sharon St Joan, 2022
Please visit the website, https://forestvoicesofindia.com. You can sign up for the newsletter too!
Listening to the coyotes communicating in howls and yips just yards away from our Sanctuary, brings to mind one of the most ancient Egyptian gods, Wepwawet (also known as Ap-aut and Sed) a wolf-like god whose worship originated in Upper Egypt. His name means “Opener of the Ways” and this has been interpreted as opening […]
Wepwawet, the Opener of Ways — Iseum Sanctuary
“The law requires that states uphold reserved tribal treaty rights. Therefore, in the case of the Ojibwe Tribes in Wisconsin, the Interior Department formally requested that the state consult and coordinate with the tribes when making wolf management decisions and respect the tribes’ right to conserve rather than kill wolves. We will take similar actions…
Wisconsin Wolf News: Secretary Deb Haaland Upholds Treaty Rights — Wolves of Douglas County Wisconsin
Varca Beach, Goa
Bird of the Day: White-throated Kingfisher — Organikos
Before the world was formed, there was a watery mass of dark, directionless chaos and in this chaos lived the Ogdoad [Ennead] of Hermopolis, four frog gods and four snake goddesses of chaos. These deities were Nun and Naunet (water), Amun and Amaunet (invisibility), Heh and Hehet (infinity) and Kek and Kauket (darkness). The water […]
Heh and Hehet, God and Goddess of Infinity — Iseum Sanctuary