ON WALKING AND NATURE

Walking and nature - a great combination. Last weekend I truly felt in need of doing something that would touch my soul; that would resonate with my core and bring me back to ground. Sometimes there is a real need in my life to return to base-camp.

Base-camp, for me, is a quiet, contemplative place that is rich with space and grace; with acceptance and love. It is a place that at once feels safe and yet also affords amazing freedom. Nature is that place for me.

My mind and body seem to be stuck in the "winter in Wisconsin" mindset, even as I look out my window, in Florida, at a green expanse of lawn and trees heavy with new foliage and azaleas in bloom. Which really helps me to awake to the importance of mindset in whatever we do.

I have been in a bit of a "blue funk" the last couple of days. Just one of those things. It has been a bit rainy and a bit gray and that might be contributing. So I have been doing more meditation and quiet time, which is tremendously helpful. I will go for a walk today, in the rain and take my camera.

I have been meaning to photograph the road on which we now live. It is absolutely magical in places, like entering into another world. It exists in the city but feels like deep, rural south. A walking photo expedition in the rain, that sounds engaging.

The pictures here are from last weekend's walk through Fort Caroline and the Tumucuan preserve. I discovered it while lost and looking for the bird sanctuary out by Amelia Island. I never did make it to the bird sanctuary, so that's is left to another weekend. But I did discover Fort Caroline and the hiking trails around that area.

There is something lovely about a walk through the woods, the call of birds, the wind in the trees, the sun on my back. Fort Caroline is a delightful marriage of coastal waterway, marsh and rolling wooded hikes. It is a very small part of the 46,000 acre Timucuan preserve - an estuary wetland preserve. 

You know you've been fully immersed in what you are doing when you realize, after arriving home, that you are covered in a fine powdered dirt that has blackened your sneakers and socks and left your face streaked with gray.

I suppose it's like a child coming in from playing and the surprise on their face when their mother exclaims, "Oh! You are filthy!" Funny, but I reluctantly washed the grime away, as I reveled once more in how it felt getting it there.

If I had a day that I could give you
Id give to you a day just like today
If I had a song that I could sing for you

Id sing a song to make you feel this way

Hugs
Betsy

We Are All Just Walking Each Other Home

Sometimes I find myself stepping back and marveling at the complexity that humanity has created in order to get from birth to death.  We are all just walking each other home.  It seems pretty simple when it's put that way.  Each moment of the journey is rich with possibility, with blessings, with challenges, but in the end it's just a step on a journey of many steps. It is too easy to get wrapped around the axle of past, present, or future - to loose perspective.  For some, being wrapped around the axle of life has become a way of life.  For some, the beauty and simplicity and camaraderie of the journey has been lost in the man made complexity.  

We are all just walking each other home.  

Does it matter if you are first, or last?  In truth I enjoy walking shoulder to shoulder so that we can touch, so that on this short journey of a lifetime we can be more intimate, and get to know each other.  I would like to foster a relationship with those that I walk with of listening, and caring, or helping and encouraging and of gracious generosity of heart, mind, and spirit. We should not be tripping, hindering, blocking, restricting, or in anyway impeding or making the journey artificially difficult.  That is foolish, childish, selfish behavior that inevitable leaves one alone on a dusty road to death. There is no purpose for petty nuances on this simple journey.

We are all just walking each other home.

Walk with me awhile.  I appreciate your company.  I am pleased and honored to walk with you, and I am grateful for your company, however, long we walk together.  Thank you for enriching our walk home.

With Love

Betsy

We're All Just Walking Each Other Home

To all of you who have allowed me to walk awhile with you this year, thank you.  Thank you for giving me the opportunity to come to know your stories and to appreciate your gifts and talents.  I feel so blessed to have you in my life - you who have brought such richness and beauty to my year.  I read your blogs, poems, stories, and thoughts.  I regularly loose myself in the photos and images that you share.  Thank you for putting yourself out there and for allowing me to walk with you.  I am blessed beyond measure.

With Love and Appreciation

Day 63: Sea and Sand, Body and Spirit: This Day is a Gift Like No Other

I am walking along the beach, my feet grounded deep in the sand, my head in the azure, sun-drenched sky, and my body and spirit are connecting each to the other - a prism of joy, happiness and gratitude.  I walk balanced between sand and sky - between earth and heaven, and the ocean sings to me.  Its voice rising and falling, its waves flashing as it forms its language, unintelligible to the human ear but so enchanting. My heart dances with the waves, my rhythms become one with those of the wind and sea.  I turn to see my footprints in the sand of where I have been, soon swept clean and erased by the water's ebb and flow. They are forgotten as I  I look ahead, down the beach, at the stretch of bright white sand that teases me to continue my walk.  This is the landing strip for my soul.  I follow the sea birds as they dive and sweep, dart and call.  I sit for awhile on the top of a dune, watching the wind move through the sea grass, stirring it into motion, rustling as it passes through the grass and trails off down the beach in small spirals of sand.  This world of sea, and sand, and sun, is intoxicating, and I drink until I can't possibly take in any more. This day is a gift like no other, and I look forward to saying the same thing...tomorrow...and the next day...and the next...