Tag: nature

Morning Dawdler 3/17/23 Looking for Miracles

On By Susan St.PierreIn In my humble opinion...3 Comments

Rory asked these questions a day ago. It seemed a fun place to start the day.



Do you think being outside is good for a person’s wellbeing?

It is absolutely essential. When I’m outside, all my problems seem smaller. The immense beauty and expansive wonder of Nature (something I cannot fully explain) speaks to me. There are forces so much bigger than I. My favorite personal explanation is “It’s a place where I feel comfortably insignificant.”
Once when my granddaughter, at about 8 years old, was having a ‘meltdown’, my cure for it was asking her to go and sit outdoors. It worked. It always works.
I don’t consider it a distraction, but rather a reconnection.

How much of a sensation seeker are you?

This is a good one. I am a bit of a daredevil. But the path I take is usually testing my own limits. As an “eyes wide open” person when it comes to assessing physical danger, I don’t as often take safety risks as I test the “rules”. I think most rules are arbitrary nonsense. Remember the 6-foot distancing during the pandemic? Yeah…that one was actually an IQ test and most people were sadly scoring in the double digits. lol 😉

Do you believe in blind luck?

No. Since I decided to center my life around gratitude it has been even more beautiful. And to feel gratitude, one needs someone or something to thank. I am thankful to God for his grace and love. By finding that life direction which increases my perception of beauty and calm, I haven’t regretted the decision… and I truly don’t care what others think of it. Faith is absolutely a daily decision and no different from deciding what you’ll wear.
Since I’ve looked for miracles (I even did as a child), I’ve recognized SO much. It’s quite like the saying, “You can’t win the lottery if you don’t play.”

https://earthlycomforts.uk/2023/03/16/a-wild-aloha-to-you-27/

Reena’s Xploration Challenge- To My Granddaughters

On By Susan St.PierreIn In my humble opinion...11 Comments

I took the image and suggested prompt below and turned it on its head. As my blog’s primary purpose is to offer my views to my granddaughters, my interest is in their futures as truly strong women who believe in themselves. I would fail them if I suggested a vantage point, that I completely disagree with that suggests they should feel aggrieved or behave like entitled ‘victims’ of imaginary forces SO some may be offended. Hey… so be it.

The picture above seeks to capture your heart,
On terms now used more often to split us apart.
Women are special in their own beautiful design.
Their different abilities from men work just fine.
Equity tells us we need the same results,
It’s our diversity and efforts that term truly insults.
Our sizes and shapes don’t need to conform.
In Nature uneven potential’s the norm.
If you lift up a frog, it won’t learn to fly
Because all his value is swimming, that’s why.
Our potential is honored by being treated the same,
Not by deciding who gets a boost in the game.
Equality tries to promote sunny days
For everyone hoping to shine their own ways
But well-meaning people take an odd pride,
Thinking working achievements require a ‘ride’.
When fudging one’s gifts or in granting a perk,
Equity values no claim to your own work.
You’re not entitled to be all the same height.
It’s your equal chance to grow that’s your right.
The big no-brainer is we aren’t all the same.
Embrace your own talents for winning your game.
Equity enforces shortcuts chosen for some they enhance.
Equality promises you’ll all get a fair chance.

https://reinventionsreena.wordpress.com/2023/03/10/i-am-confused-ich-bin-verwirrt-reenasxploration/












Unanswered Question: When will ‘doing nothing’ become a viable choice again?

On By Susan St.PierreIn In my humble opinion..., Unanswered Questions7 Comments


The destructiveness of human hubris seems to be ramping up. Have we learned nothing from the whole Covid-19 reaction by ‘experts’?
I don’t think many have.

I could create a long, detailed, timeline of my own thoughts on the last 3 years but I’ll spare you. Here’s my Reader’s Digest condensed version:
I found the 2020 expansion of the two week “slow the curve” shutdown experiment disturbingly authoritarian.
I had a sound basic understanding of viruses and our immune systems from high school biology.
I researched what was being called “disinformation” and found it credible.
I refused the experimental “vaccine” and chose to not comply with masking, 6-foot distancing, and excessive hand washing, as much as possible.
Never got Covid, and since, haven’t gotten sick with any other virus.
(All while ignoring nasty labeling, condescending treatment, and discriminating vilification.)

This morning, a grocery clerk was complaining about how she and her husband have been almost constantly sick this year. The customer ahead of me claimed she’s a nurse practitioner and said she’s never seen so much illness. I chimed in, “It’s because of the shutdown, you know. ” That nurse answered, “I have no doubt about that either.”
(If that clerk has had the “vaccine” and boosters, there’s also a growing ‘scientific’ suspicion that the “vaccine” itself may be interfering with the ordinary efficiency of immune systems too.)
Doing ‘nothing’ ended up being the best choice for me. Trusting Nature, and not interfering with it, often is our best bet.

After the Valdez Oil Spill, many years ago, scientists rushed in with fancy manmade ‘cleansers’ hoping to expedite the natural healing of the environment. A year later, under a too often seen headline “Scientists Baffled”, it had been discovered that areas “left alone” recovered more quickly than those they had ‘helped’. News flash: Nature knows best.

My last point comes from a post I read and responded to this morning. Our ‘stream of consciousness’ prompt was “wild animals” for today. Within the post, the writer had marveled how she had watched some wild seals scuffle, make a lot of noise, and flamboyantly assault each other, only to calmly end up sleeping beside each other. The writer went on to suggest “humans should learn how to get-along that way.”
I’ll just post my succinct comment on her post:
“A comical view of Nature. Thanks for sharing!
On the topic of ‘mixing it up’, resolving differences, and then slumbering like a seal, I agree!
IMHO…the current human over-sensitivity to “bullying”, has created unnatural interference by adults in ‘natural’ skirmishes among children. The ubiquitous claiming of ‘zero tolerance’ for” name-calling”, “shoving” or even “emotionally charged disagreement” has contributed to the uptick in unhinged viciousness among adolescents. By not allowing youngsters to learn how to resolve conflict on their own while small, they are becoming dangerous ‘powder kegs’ later on.”

I really want to know, “When will ‘doing nothing’ become a viable choice again?”
Human beings think they “know” so much that IMHO their arrogance of presuming they can direct, interfere with, and “save”, the natural world, is alarmingly dangerous to our survival.




SoCS-3/4/23-My Enchanted Childhood: A Glimpse

On By Susan St.PierreIn In my humble opinion..., Writing Prompts8 Comments

Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “wild animal.” Choose a wild animal (or many wild animals) and use it any way you’d like in your post. Enjoy!


Oh my! Where to go on a theme of wild animals?
I guess I’ll tell one of many tales of my encounters.
A connection with the Natural World IMHO is the greatest gift you can give a child.

My childhood was an absolutely enchanted one…
We spent family vacations at remote cabins we’re we went fishing, climbed trees, caught frogs, and sat around campfires. My Mom’s family even bundled their funds and bought a cabin by a lake when I was about 10. I would spend almost entire summers there.
Many whole days were all about catching, examining, and releasing, frogs and turtles and exploring. At night, we’d fish on the lake’s glassy surface using our favorite lure called a “jitterbug”. It mimicked the sound and motion of a frog on the water. In that near-silent scene (except for the lullaby of crickets), with the moon turning the water’s ‘smooth glass’ silver, I could hear (sometimes see) the lure lurching across the water.
“Glub, glug, glubbity”, {pause]…then repeat. Sometimes a small fish would take a slap at the lure. BUT the larger bass (lunkers) simply rose to the top making an almost inaudible sucking sound taking the whole lure in its mouth.
Then it was ON!
The pole would jerk as I ‘set the hook’ (pulled back). Larger, heavy, fish would take out line which is called “pulling out drag” and we’d fight as I reeled it in. On the best battles, the fish would leap fully out into the moonlight while shaking its head. That once quiet environment was now filled with splashing and the essence of the Natural World… a fight for survival.
If I had ‘set the hook’ quickly, once I bring the fish to the boat (if it hasn’t won the battle to get away), the hook is only lodged in the stiff corner of its mouth. That’s when the skilled ‘angler’ removes the hook and releases the bass back into the lake to hopefully pursue another day.

My husband and I honeymooned at a lake in Maine. Instead of going to bars or clubs, we sat on a moonlit lake and fished. Later on, we took our kids camping and finally bought 29 acres in the woods. We still spend weekends and vacations there ‘off the grid’ with our kids and grandkids. There’s no lake but plenty of Nature to ‘drinking in’.

I could have told you about the time I raised a baby raccoon, or kept frogs through one winter, or solved the mysteries of wild sounds I have encountered, or made friends with a Ruffed Grouse, but Stream of Consciousness takes its own course… maybe another time.

I could go on and on about the critical NEED for kids to connect to Nature. If the topic interests you, Richard Louv has written two outstanding books, The Nature Principle and Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder.

Happy Saturday everyone!


https://lindaghill.com/2023/03/03/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-march-4-2023/
https://wordpress.com/read/feeds/24840312/posts/4583744269

Unanswered Question: Do city people know what they’re missing?

On By Susan St.PierreIn In my humble opinion..., Unanswered Questions13 Comments

I’d gotten a lot more rest than usual lately over the long weekend. We each have a personal quota so when my dog got me up at 2:00 am, I had a few hours of wide ‘awakeness’.
My thoughts started where they usually do with a stream of experiences I’ve had inspiring awe with the wonders of Mother Nature. Then I considered all the ‘urbanized’ people who might not have witnessed nature as I have had the privilege to do.
Oh, the places I went from there!

Much of the discontent, crime, and hopelessness, seems concentrated in urban areas these days. Why? People are people and I thought we needed the same things. Maybe we most urgently do.
My stream of consciousness eventually brought me to a profound (not necessarily correct) conclusion.

The over domestication of human beings is dangerous to their happiness and well-being.

The same thing has happened to animals. Wild animals can fend for themselves, and understand the natural world, but dogs, cattle, and parakeets, are at a terrible survival disadvantage since they’ve been kept for so long.

I’ve known some ‘city’ people who have visited places that were natural for the first time and been overwhelmed by all the things they didn’t know and didn’t even know they didn’t know.

There’s a rhythm in the natural world that human beings can, and IMHO should, know about.
One in particular is the awareness of a ‘line’, more like a pause, between night and day. Having tented and camped in forests throughout my life, I’ve witnessed it.
There’s a time about an hour before dawn when the summer night sounds pause for about 2 to 5 minutes. Crickets grow quiet, and owls stop hooting, leaving a dramatic silent pause before the morning birds joyously sing greetings to the new day. Witnessing THAT can change a person. The recognition of amazing forces at work that we humans cannot take credit for is humbling!

That pause was my personal choice for the most magical natural event (seconded by meteor showers) but there are countless others. I have no doubt human beings are meant to be part of those natural rhythms too. But how would city people even know about them? Their surroundings are removed and artificial in comparison to those who have access to the natural world.
I wonder if those seemingly lost people are starving for something they don’t even know exists. Could they be feeling incomplete? Might the lack of any natural connection be adding to the growing complaints about life having ‘no meaning’?

Well, at 3:30 this morning, my answer to those questions was “yes”.

My overall question is “Do those city people know what they’re missing?”

Wordle # 585- The Sunday Whirl- Lesson on Personal Safety

On By Susan St.PierreIn Random Word Stories, Writing Prompts2 Comments

boat* preserve* speak* resist* oil* fire* drive* fly* shoot* matter* close* right*



Nope! We weren’t going on a boat again. The kids got seasick the last time and learned nothing more than how to vomit over the railing without falling in.
We hadn’t saved enough money to fly anywhere so trapsing the Nature’s Wonders Club of 8-year-olds through our own local natural wonders seemed the best decision. One of the parents offered to drive us to the base of the trail leading to our famous woodland peak which was the tallest in our state.
I would carry a concealed handgun which I’d thoroughly oiled and loaded in private. It was likely I wouldn’t need to shoot it but having it was the wisest thing to do. Some of the parents may have objected but speaking to them about the value of guns in the wild was out of the question. Naive and ignorant of many topics concerning Nature and pro-active safety, discussing my decision would have complicated the matter and brought political resistance into play. Bears and ‘bad guys’ aren’t usually political, but they are, on occasion, more dangerous than those who are.

Now we are at a crime scene! Lights, rescue crews, and State Police surround my huddled, yet safe, group of 6. Professionals worked to preserve the drug evidence and are done with the questioning. We’d had a great time telling ghost stories and roasting marshmallows by the overnight fire, but on our way back in the morning, two men surprised us on the trail. They were most certainly drug smugglers who didn’t want any witnesses. My handgun saved us from certain death by wounding one and detaining the other. The kids had gotten more than a Nature training but a real-life lesson about not allowing strangers to get too close and that carrying a gun can be the right choice. Not one parent has complained about me carrying a gun since.





https://sundaywhirl.wordpress.com/2023/01/01/wordle-585/