Nature – micheleplumbstowell.org

248 Eagles Everywhere

Little things are exceptional, depending on our interpretation. Repeating patterns are often the voice of the Eternal. It is our job to do the interpretations.

I was sitting in the Infusion Center yesterday, in the back row of two. The curtains were pulled between my chair, and the chair of the man at the window. At the moment, we were alone in the room. He was speaking loudly into his phone (which is not considered kind or appropriate, but he either did not consider this, or did not know I was still behind him).

I learned that his infusion was a once a month dose for Crohn’s Disease.

But more to my interest was that he watched an eagle fly through his viewpoint and land nearby! And he told his friend, so I was swept into the experience by sound and proximity.

close up photography of bald eagle — Photo by Flickr on Pexels.com

On Sunday, Kwami and I were driving North on Highway 99, and a pair of eagles swooped across in front of us, landing on an Eastern tree. City scape, near Edmonds. Why would they be in the middle of the city like that? Wouldn’t they prefer to be down by the beach, a five minute flight away? But it was the joy of witnessing the oddity that struck us.

Mic and Tessa were headed to Whidbey Island on Friday. They also saw two eagles. Mic was beginning to think the experience was more common than exceptional. Little things are exceptional, depending on our interpretation. Repeating patterns are often the voice of the Eternal. It is our job to do the interpretations.

My recent life brings eagles. So many experiences have evolved in the last two years. Sitings, feathers, reflections. Eagles are the symbolism of the spring, of the higher self viewpoint from far above, new beginnings. They are the messengers of Spirit, or the embodiment of Spirit, of strength and bravery.

Currently, we can also focus on the coming of the spring and rebirth. It is nest building season for the birds. As they watch over us, we can be more aware of them.

We are honored by our experiences, reminded of the partnership we live with the Divine.

243 The First Frog

Our little spring sprouts are pensively peaking out above the surface, checking, deciding if the groundhog will keep us low and slow.

Predawn. He is out there, calling for a mate. The first frog.

He is quite literally the first, because I have never heard a frog on this property. This little guy may be croaking for a couple of months before he finds that “perfect someone”. Is it springtime? The calendar reads January.

green frog — The first frog Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

I have been pulling weeds, so many weeds. In the last few years, January bodes as “crunch month”. The bulbs rise above the surface and the young poppies crack the soil in light chartreuse. The race begins.

When we wrap up the fall garden, it is NOT ready for spring. This year I left most of the fucias alone, leafing and blooming. There is still a bloomer in the backyard. The hummingbirds use them as food. The winter never conclusively stated, “I am here”. The plants have been indecisive.

We have been indecisive. We are all pulling weeds, looking at the world, our lives, and making decisions about what stays and what goes. The process of 2020 was not a one year purge. The ’20s, the roaring ’20s are shifting us.

Our little spring sprouts are pensively peaking out above the surface, checking, deciding if the groundhog will keep us low and slow.

bunch of bright blooming flowers — A beautiful glass vase of tulip bulbsPhoto by Maria Orlova on Pexels.com

Jan gifted me a beautiful glass vase of tulip bulbs. They are indoors. Inches of height have emerged each day. The rush to bloom.

No rush. We are more like the outdoor plants. A cold snap could take us down.

Spend time on your roots. Continue to look. To ponder. To weed. Real growth, growth that changes our lives, changes the world, takes time.

241 Zen and the Art of Bonsai

It takes about a week of staring and trimming. Bonsai, the staring part. Nothing should overlap. The structural shape is key.

No. No mini bonsai here. I feel like I would kill one of the complex plants in the blink of an eye. One has to be a serious gardener to take on that challenge.

Somehow, orchids think that this house is the bomb. They bloom and re bloom, growing the craziest of flowers. There is one that looks like the plant from the Little Shop of Horrors. You can almost hear it call out, “Feed me Seymour, come on and feed me.” It has frightening spots and colors, and the blooms look like mouths that are ready to consume a limb. Visit at your own risk!

As far as bonsai, the Japanese maple in the front yard comes the closest. It is, however, huge. And it does require the “bonsai touch” for pruning. Repeatedly, the people who come to accomplish the big jobs on the property say, “That tree is the centerpiece of the property.” No pressure. It’s three quarters of an acre. One shrub that stands six feet tall and about 12 feet across is the absolute centerpiece. Don’t prune it incorrectly. Don’t kill it. Love the tree.

selective focus photography of green leafed bonsai — A Bonsai Plant Photo by Zulian Yuliansyah on Pexels.com

I have pruned it every winter. Last year, the spring brought it in bushy and leafy. That is NOT the goal with a bonsai, or a Japanese Maple.

It takes about a week of staring and trimming. Bonsai, the staring part. Nothing should overlap. The structural shape is key. Minimizing the leafing creates the see through effect. It is an art form. And it is a love form. Every rain free day, I sculpted for hours.

Loving nature through interaction. It is one of my favorite games. It does not come in the form of flowers or plantings or pots. But my love of nature does include staring, staring and shaping. Shaping the nature of “what is” into the most beautiful and functional way of being. Zen and the Art of Bonsai.

210 Lawn is a Four Letter Word

I notice the flicker of light, the tiny little bulb in the distance. I see something there on the horizon. We are moving to it, or it is moving to us, or both.

It really is. No adaptation in spelling is necessary; lawn is obviously four letters. This is not the normal season for complaints. And honestly, I like yard work, so it is odd that I do comment on such things. But lawns are controlled, unnatural, needy bits of land that people in “civilized” society believe to be a requirement. Where did that inspiration appear? In a grass manufacturing plant? Pot is far more lucrative. I suggest that.

So, out in the yard, the leaves are almost all off the trees. We have a straggler that chooses to end in December, but he lives in the front where there is no unnatural grass. I am raking leaves. That seems like an October activity, but they were up in the trees back then. Our weather has been unseasonably warm. Raking and breathing are rejuvenating. The lawn gets one point for that. It is happy.

As I make my way around the yard, gathering, I notice that the fir cones are minimal. Last year, I was buried in them, one every inch or two. Now, they are few and far between. Was the wild fire theory accurate? Did the trees of the Northwest feel less threatened during this fire season since they had coned the world during the prior one?

I scoop up a pile a cones, then a wheel barrow of leaves, and another pile of cones. The cones are on the edges of the garden beds. I left them there last year, unintentionally, because of emergency surgery. Maybe I left them there because of snow… and then eventually emergency surgery. I think that’s right. At any rate, I feel odd facing them again, completely a year old task.

So much of my day is spent this way, scooping up the incomplete and finishing it, tying it up with a seasonal bow.

We are in a reflective space. The darkness. The approach of the Solstice, when the days will finally lengthen. It doesn’t require action. But it may require noticing, focus, and a bit of will toward ending, finishing, leaving things behind.

I notice the flicker of light, the tiny little bulb in the distance. I see something there on the horizon. We are moving to it, or it is moving to us, or both. Enjoy the blanket of the deep, dark sky. Snuggle in and embrace it. The light is nearing, getting clearer, calling. You will see and hear it sooner than you can believe!

175 House Plant Exodus

Some of my plants have names. It really isn’t about connection, more about identification. Plants can be like pets, but I am scarred for life, damaged by foliage abandoment.

It is fall. Much like the plants that die down outdoors, there is a sense of season to the indoor variety. Two of my plants are calling it quits this year. They are going the way of over a million Covid deaths. It must be a good year to enter higher realms.

Nyasha is also losing a couple of bamboo. They are helped along by meddling cats, gnawing on the leaf ends, or going straight for a chomp at the stem.

Some of my plants have names. It really isn’t about connection, more about identification. Plants can be like pets, but I am scarred for life, damaged by foliage abandoment. In the past, I loved my indoor plants. They were my babies before the living, breathing, warm blooded variety. And then there were power outages, in winter, that lasted for weeks. Saving the animals, saving the children and the pipes, those were priority. The plants didn’t make it. And then they didn’t make it AGAIN. I was heartbroken. And I don’t connect as deeply.

The plants are vitality. They bring life in where space it devoid of nature. This house has a lot of wood features, another way of bringing the cycle of nature into a dead space. Ironically, dead nature, but nature none the less. So many apartments and houses are now created from materials that do not connect our hearts with God’s gifts of the earth, or they bring in items like marble, that are cold and harsh to our internal perception.

Tulip with pink flowers in a pot on kitchen window with other house plants.. — Tulip in bloom in the kitchen

I feel a bit of guilt for being relieved when a house plant departs. Another responsibility off of my list. Check. Sacred cycles. I can let the plants go. They cannot die, not really. They continue on as soil that feeds the other plants. We all do. We all die, and yet live, continuing in the cycles of the earth and in the spiritual journey of Unity.

149. Processing with the Emotional Mind

I put some focus on the situation of the United States, and then noticed that my skin was literally bubbling with tension. My body reacted to a level of pre panic attack. There is so much anger, and it is fueled by the battle created by the upcoming election.

On NPR, a specialist spoke about the way the brain handles trauma. Six months after a cataclysmic event is the crescendo. The mind is then sorting everything through the emotional centers, which really shifts behavior and reactions. Rational mind has a hard time getting a grip, because it is secondary instead of primary.

We are six months into the pandemic, and stuff JUST got real! The interview pointed out that millions of additional people are being treated for depression, and Nyasha said that there is a boom in the need for counselors and therapists.

When I look into my world, it is not only six months after the onset of the pandemic, but also six months after my terminal cancer diagnosis (of dooooom). For so many people, the pandemic is the cake, and there is a lot of icing: monetary challenges, Black Lives Matter, isolation, political unrest…

Processing with the emotional mind can be an enormous space for growth, but also turbulence. Lots of the icing is being whipped up with the ingredients of this emotional reaction. The inner child needs to be held and comforted.

A creek in the park where we walk

The craft materials came out. I started stitching and beading a sacred gift.

Later, Kwami and I walked in the forest. We laughed as he shot photos and took films of the forest rabbits (squirrels) and the creek that has returned after the dry beds of summer. We drove in the fall sunshine, and ate a picnic lunch from a favorite restaurant. And later, more stitching, more beading.

The remedy to a crisis is to readjust the focus. Denial will not work. But, balancing the focus appeases the emotional mind, hugs the inner child. You deserve a world filled with love! Create it, be it.

143. The Scourge of Langley, Fluffy Bunnies

There is a sort of softness that goes with a city overrun by these creatures, casually roaming the sidewalks. An appeal. I felt… understood. Welcomed. Warmed.

Kwami was particularly intrigued. As we drove down the hill toward Langley, Whidbey Island, there were several furry friends having lunch in the grass. Rather, lunch was the grass. The rabbits ranged in color from beige to taupe to black, definitely not the wild variety.

I have visited Langley, WA, but I have never experienced this before! I spent some time lamenting about the care of domestic rabbits gone wild. They often suffer and starve in the winter, not inherently created for our landscape. I mused that perhaps they were city props, fixed before release, fed in the winter.

There is a sort of softness that goes with a city overrun by these creatures, casually roaming the sidewalks. An appeal. I felt… understood. Welcomed. Warmed.

Two brown fluffy bunnies on the grass in Langley, WA, USA. — Langley Fluffy Bunnies

Upon investigation when we returned home, I found an NBC piece titled “Hundreds of Bunnies Plague Langley”. Plagued? Really? In 2015, they didn’t know what the word plague meant. Apparently, city residents wanted to (or maybe did) unleash the raptors. Maybe there are raptors we could unleash on Covid 19, a presidential suggestion coming soon.

There had been an escape from the fair internment camps. The rabbits plotted in the night. Jail break. And now, they are very successfully taking over, free roaming the island, breeding at will.

The Scourge. I’m having trouble with this horrible plague. Maybe I can’t take their happy little hops or their fluffy little tails or the vigorously wiggling noses all that seriously. Worst case scenario… “there’s very good eatin’ on one of these, you know.” (Terry Pratchett, Small Gods)

141. Skipping Town, Whidbey Island

Whidbey Island is a place where the Sani cans are clean, where the rabbits run free, and where the firefighters post enormous signs on huge trucks reading “Ditch Mitch, Dump Trump” on one side, and “Firefighters for Biden” on the other. The island is a place where people actually do live on island time, sipping lattes in the courtyards, chatting with their elderly friends.

We set sail via ferry to the Isle of Whidbey. The stuffed Jesus doll that accompanies me on all of my major adventures (a gift from Barb when I was having surgery) jumped out for a photo shot with a life ring. Saving lives with Jesus! Luckily, no one went overboard.

White and green Whidbey Island Ferry on Puget Sound — Whidbey Island Ferry, Washington State

Nancy, the wound nurse, had instructed me, “do something spontaneous”. The wound vacuum machine proved an abysmal failure, and with it off of my body, a quick escape option opened up. A couple days on the island created a lot of opportunity.

I forget how “quick and easy” it is to hop over to another world. Whidbey Island is a place where the Sani cans are clean, where the rabbits run free, and where the firefighters post enormous signs on huge trucks reading “Ditch Mitch, Dump Trump” on one side, and “Firefighters for Biden” on the other. The island is a place where people actually do live on island time, sipping lattes in the courtyards, chatting with their elderly friends.

The tiny home, our Airbnb, was set in a field that was surrounded by forest. One evening, we were greeted by a four point buck, much taller than the car, and not too concerned about our presence on his driveway. No one was too concerned with our presence, honestly, or we with theirs.

Beaches, and forests, and small town shops are just what the doctor ordered. Literally.

137. Morris, the Flame Point Siamese

I don’t have loving memories of Morris (other than his acquisition), but I did love and protect him. I watch people live human interactions that are similar, a beautiful and tricky start, and then a tortured, painful, even abused existence. Take them back to the shelter. Leave them where you acquired them. Lick your wounds and move on.

There are several reasons that I am telling pet stories like that of Morris, the flame point Siamese cat from hell. Each tale has underlying wisdom, but also, each pet brings different forms of rapid growth to our life journey. Animals add an exaggerated statement to our days, maybe because of the depth of emotional attachment, because of the intensity in which they live in the moment, and because we live so much longer and thereby watch the process of birth to death with connection and responsibility through our hairy counterparts.

Sometimes they bring goodness. Mostly. It was questionable with Morris.

When we went to PAWS to adopt a cat, Morris climbed from the heights of the climbers onto my shoulder. He rubbed his head against my cheeks, wrapped his body around my neck. He was sweet and snuggly, and particularly vocal. I had my heart set on a kitten, but Morris convinced me otherwise. It was a ruse.

Morris, the Flame Point Siamese

He continued with kindness for a certain waiting period, like there was a warrantee, or a return policy. And then… all hell broke loose. Morris was a Siamese cat, the beautiful cream and orange type. He was a screamer, and worse, a deviant from the gods of the underworld.

When I look at my arms, the scars remain. Morris didn’t teach me lessons to live by. He taught me to love unconditionally while being abused. I often asked Mom why they didn’t take him back. My guess is that the child me would not let that happen! But it should have.

Morris would lie in wait. One of his favorite tricks was to stalk us in the dark. When we went for a glass of water in the night, he would pounce from a dark corner, grip the upper thigh with his front feet, and kick with the back legs, claws extended.

He adored a loving victim. Dee, the neighbor, knew his tricks. But Morris would yowl and wrap himself around her legs, and beg so convincingly until she finally fell for it. She would reach down, and he grabbed that hand with his teeth. Blood was the goal and he rarely failed.

Morris was a horrible fighter too. He and the neighbor cat had territory wars that resulted in repeated abscess treatments, which brought on more blood letting from the one who was rendering the medical treatment.

One day, I jumped in the middle of the feline turf wars. My left arm was in a sling for a week, and my current scars show the punctures from the top two canine teeth, and the long gashes from lower as the bite closed.

136. Dan the Dog

A box of Dan ashes would have given years of memorable accusation. Any time a particularly vulgar scent filled the air, the people in the room could have turned to the box, “Ooooooh Dan!”

We never named an animal with a human moniker. Mom and Dad did not name Dan. He was a rescue, and after years with Zapato, they went back to the familiar English Bull Dog breed.

Tan and white, and particularly stocky, Dan had been raised in a home without boundaries. What a handful! His favorite pass time was stalking and trapping the cat, full body, World Wide Federation of Wrestling style. Luckily Blitz was around 20 pounds herself, and used a strong, insistent voice when calling out for help.

Close up of Dan the Dog look alike — Dan was a tan and white, and particularly stocky English Bulldog

One day, Shante, the one year old version, dashed down the super long hallway that runs through the rambler. Dan, seeing his chance at a different prey to tackle, zipped after at mad speed. And following the two, also moving at an exceptional rate, was Mom. It was a scene from a Looney Tune cartoon.

After the ten yard dash, the hallway terminated in Mark’s room. Shante turned around, and in her loudest, deepest, baby voice shouted “NO Dan”. The dog stopped in his tracks, and slunk back to the family room. Tackle averted. If you think your voice has no power, think again.

I don’t have a lot of Dan stories, but as a secondary memory, Dan added a lot of gaseous moments to our days. It is traditional for Bull Dogs to grace the home with powerful scents. When Dan returned to God, the vet offered my parents the option of cremation, common practice once we came to the ’90s. Mom and Dad declined. I laughed about the sad mis-consideration. A box of Dan ashes would have given years of memorable accusation. Any time a particularly vulgar scent filled the air, the people in the room could have turned to the box, “Ooooooh Dan!”