OUTDOORS IS OUR MINDFUL PLACE

 

"Come to the woods, for here is rest," John Muir

Why did John Muir say this? Because each tree emits phytoncides, necessary to the well-being of the tree but also found in the scents that calm us, that take us past our hurts into healing.  Think cedar, Scots pine, birch, oak and sandalwood, any fresh woody fragrance distilled from tree resins and encountered during every walk in the forest.  Those who have studied trees and forests for many years suggest that without forest bathing, forest immersion, lying on a quilt under a cedar tree, or climbing one and perching there--i.e. without microdoses of phytoncides, we would all suffer far greater bacterial and viral infections. "Forest Pharmacy," BREATHE, June 2025.

I believe this.  Don't you?  Haven't moms and grand moms always told the children to play outside?  And not just to get them out of the way.  They come in calmer.  There has to be a scientific, biological reason that a walk outdoors does us good, even more so amongst the trees.  When we're anxious or depressed, the sight of leaves turning red and yellow, the smell of fresh cedar, the feel of chestnuts underfoot, can trigger an absolute neuronal sigh of relief.  Partly it's "The world goes on.  I'm part of something bigger."  But much is our sensory responses, feeling carpets of moss or shaggy-bark hickories, grass underfoot and, sadly, the smell of oxygenated hydrocarbons that fresh cut grass emits as a distress signal when its cells are cut or damaged.  

Fall is such a time for this.  Where we live, the woods are buggy and chiggery in the hot months, cool and welcoming now.  I am lucky enough to live in the woods, but that was not always so.  As a child I was taken to parks and gardens and zoos (different smells there).  But I did have a tree-house, and we have one now in our woods for the grandchildren. 

I'm not saying anything new.  The world is full of nature lovers.  We may be the largest group around.  We delight in wildlife and rainbow flower gardens.  We strip down in summer and bundle up in winter just to spend one more hour outside. We plant and trim and clear and do it again.  We are present to the environment--a breeze, the temperature, raindrops on our shoulders or sun on our back.  Often, outdoors is our mindful place.  Even storms help us see the bigger picture.  Safely under the eaves, I love to take in the rain.  As a child we had a sleeping porch, second floor with mattresses on the old wood floor.  We would be dragged in when it thundered.  

I read that a study in the UK at the University of Exeter showed that spending just two hours a week in nature led to better health. I know that the October air coming in my wide open sliding door next to my computer, birds settling in for the evening, is affecting my mood.  

Much of what I think and do now is about the maelstrom of strife in America.  I don't have to name any of it now.  But a reminder of our place in the universe and the continuity of nature is sure to help.  It's our medicine.   Let's take it.  

Taking our havens when we find them, Nina Naomi 

 

  

 

  

A PRAYER OF THANKSGIVING

 

Thank you God for my Book Club 

Where we discussed Tom Stoppard's Leopoldstadt 

About Jews who, like frogs in boiling water,

Were sent to gas chambers after years unaware of the tightening noose.

Thank you for my fellow knitters, not one under sixty,

who remember the protests that toppled a President and changed the course of a war.

Thank you for friends and family who demonstrate against and boycott

the totalitarian regime that now rules America. 

Thank you for our church, that ignores the prohibition on DEI,

Recognizing that Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

Is just another name for Civil Rights and Christian love.

Thank you for a Bible class that provides a safe place

For discussions of White Nationalism and brown persecution. 

Thank you for white people who protest when brown people can't. 

Thank you God for your word that helps us walk the line--

the line of resistance, the line of compassion, the line of fearlessness.

Help us protect the weak with our strength, 

Defeat the evil with our greater number, 

And keep us dedicated to your word and the world you want us to preserve.

AMEN 

 

 

 

ETERNAL THOUGHTS COME

 

North Carolina Shore

We have spent so much time at the beach this year that I am not sure how to feel:  lucky or guilty.  Lucky because the autumnal air, now cool, the rhythmic waves and the glistening night skies are restorative. I await tonight's moon, always sparkling across the water. Who can be depressed surrounded by eternity?  We crossed over the causeway, low tide and the Sound dotted with sandbars. We carted our goods upstairs and looked out on, for today, a calm sea.  We threw open the doors and windows.  Does anyone deserve this life? Could we, possibly?  

Maybe you sometimes feel the same about your life however you live it, in town or country, alone or surrounded, cobbled together or smooth sailing. It's your life and you feel lucky.  More:  it's your life and you are lucky. 

Guilty because bad things happen all around.  Gazans are being exterminated. Ukrainians have held off the Soviets for how many years now?  Those poor Israeli hostages haven't a hope. America is rising to the challenge of a fascist government led by billionaires. 

Do you feel like this?  Grateful for your family, your life, your job, but worried about all those who have less?  Or is it your family that has less right now?  Less hope, less promise?  We got a call this morning from friends whose son lost his wife last night to cancer, the mother of his young daughter.  We are meeting a friend this week here at the beach, whose husband died just months ago.    

I don't have any answers, any wisdom. That's for someone else. You could read this and think, "Yes, I know this."   I have written before about the "andness" of life. The almost whiplash between joy and sadness, hope and fear.  I just mention it today because here at the beach with the ocean at my feet and the stars above (it is now night) eternal thoughts come.  

Nina Naomi 

  

A WHITE MAN MURDERED BY ANOTHER WHITE MAN AND, THANK GOD, AUTUMN STILL CAME

 

The problem with writing about falling leaves, multi-hued pansies, heirloom pumpkins and the beauties of the season--those little ordinary things where our hearts can rest--is that here in the United States, Donald Trump et al are making it so much harder for We the People to flourish.  

So let me admit, that is our background.  That is what colors all we do, those millions of us who are not MAGA Republicans, who think and worry and work every day to ensure that our children get vaccinated, that COVID shots remain available, that cancer research grants are restored, that our neighbors are safe from ICE and off-site Gulags, and that voters are heard.  It's no small task since never before have the President and his supporters worked to destroy democracy.   1984 by George Orwell is no longer science fiction.  When you read, or reread, it, you will see the outcome of giving up.  Giving up, as they say, is unforgivable.  Or, in less judgmental language, not an option.  The next national #NoKings rally is October 18--find the one near you!  Nothing is more inspirational that to remember that the 1% is just that.  

This week Charlie Kirk was murdered.  Another victim of gun violence by another young white man discontent for some reason, it doesn't matter what.  But because Charlie was a right-winger who hated blacks and trans people and gay men and women and people from Latin American countries and Mexico, the United States flag was at half-mast.  Shame, that. We have had 100 school shootings thus far, and no flag was ordered half-mast for these innocent children. 

And what happens while all this goes on?  Well, at my house the dogwood have turned red.  At my house the frogs are as loud as they were in Spring.  The humidity has lifted and we open the doors and windows.  No heat or AC.   The meadow is ready for its last cut of the season.  The fire pit will be used soon, maybe this weekend if evenings are chill.  I am so looking forward to long nights and short days.  All the things I posted last, the things I love that are the same every year, are splayed before me.  Before you is splayed the same.   

At my house, like yours, children and grandchildren are the light of our life.  We cook, we pick fresh herbs, we fold laundry, we work, we clean gutters, we take care of family, we love friends.  There is no magic.  There is faith, if we have it.  There is activism if we are so inclined.  And yes, we are not giving up but while we gather and rally and vote, we will enjoy the sweetness of autumn, the "season of mists and mellow fruitfulness."  We will live in this duality of things.  We will resist, we will not despair, we will flourish.  This we will do.

In peace, Nina Naomi 

 

 

EVERY YEAR I LOVE THE SAME THINGS

 

Every year I love the same things

My lover from long ago 'till now

My own self, my body small

My God who keeps me whole

The place I live (and die) and thrive 

All of it, tree and deer, hawk and boulder

 

Every year I love the moon

Giving light in rhythm 

Every year the holy sun 

In my early window peacefully rising 'till I awake

Every year my morning tea, my time with phone or book

Or paper to hold blessings, longings, fears 

 

Those too the same each year

The blessing of long life, long marriage, steadfast God

The blessing of people who love me back

The blessing of my mind not yet confused or shallow

The longing for safety and the thoughts that wound to quickly pass

I tell them, "You I have survived."

 

The fear of future loss I have not felt

The blessings seem firmer

Nearer now I write them down

The movement of a prayer

A telling

                                  Nina Naomi 

  

THINGS THAT MIGHT MAKE YOU FEEL CALM, IN NO ORDER AT ALL

 

Eastern Tiger Swallowtail, Lantana

THINGS THAT MIGHT YOU FEEL CALM RIGHT NOW, IN NO ORDER AT ALL 

Open your door to the morning Fall air, expansive and cool

Go to bed with windows open, covers under chin as the night air deepens

Listen to the bounty of sounds from the morning birds 

In the afternoon, Watch a butterfly (or two) enjoy Early Fall 

Have an easy supper, maybe leftovers or carry-out or sandwiches

Skip the news.  Tell yourself, "I won't miss a thing,  it will be there tomorrow/next week/forever."

Scroll only on something entertaining.

Don't scroll at all

Have lunch or coffee with a friend

Make a plan to keep up with your family 

pay a compliment

Start a brief conversation with a stranger

Cuddle your partner, Mom, child or pet

Feel love, share body warmth

hold someone's hand, give someone a gentle touch

Read, meditate or pray

go outside yourself and your own fears, give them to God or to the universe

don't believe everything you think

Ask for forgiveness and let something go

Be tender with yourself, breathe and let something go 

Do a few chores and enjoy a clean bedroom, house, patio, or porch

Arrange your things in a way that pleases you, admire what you've done

Sit outdoors and look around you, up at a tree, at the homes on your street; at the dogs, who are always excited to be alive

Be present, pay attention

Take a walk, take your time 

Feel a part of whatever is near you--other people, animals, trees and the moving air 

Follow the path of the sun, in your morning windows, across the sky as the shade moves from side-to-side, then as the sky lights up at sunset 

Watch for the rising moon.  Note it's stage.  Admire its steadfastness in being reliably there for us each night as the sun sets.

learn more about the night sky, let the stars open your mind to the vastness above

    This is a list without limit.  Other ways to feel calm?  Baking, exercising, jogging, journaling, creating. When we realize the many things that correct our equilibrium, we wonder, why aren't we more calm?  Calmness is such a wonderful feeling--not anxious, panicked, Topsy-turvy.  We should cultivate it, shouldn't we?  We know what the world is like.  We know the challenges we face.  In America we see or read them every day in the news.  how much easier it is to save ourselves and those around us if we can maintain some calm.  The ole British saying when the world as they knew it was crumbling from German bombs in WWII, is a good one:  "Keep Calm and Carry On."  Carrying on doesn't mean ignore the bombs and hang out the wash.  For us it probably means, "Hang out the wash and save our democracy."  

I know if I watch the moon tonight, cuddle with my husband, and wake up to the sun in my east-facing window and the birds welcoming the day, I will be calm enough to do what needs to be done.  So will you. 

We can do this.  Nina Naomi  

   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"THE LIMITS OF YOUR LONGING," Rainer Maria Rilke

 

GO TO THE LIMITS OF YOUR LONGING

                                    by Rainer Maria Rilke

God speaks to each of us as he makes us, then walks with us silently out of the night.

These are the words we dimly hear:

You, sent out beyond your recall, go to the limits of your longing.  Embody me.  

Flare up like a flame and make big shadows I can move in.

Let everything happen to you:  beauty and terror.  Just keep going.  No feeling is final.

Don't let yourself lose me.

Nearby is the country they call life.  You will know it by its seriousness.

Give me your hand.

                                                                            published 1905 

 

Not many poets take on the persona of God, but Rilke does.  German poet Rainer Maria Rilke assumes the divine voice of God as he imagines what is said to each of us when God launches us into being.  The poem is written in the imperative.  Do this, do that.  "Go to the limits of your longing."  "Flare up like a flame." "Let everything happen to you."  "[K]eep going."

Since God is speaking to us, we are invited to be listeners.  As readers, we are invited to wonder, is this the message I received as I moved into this world?  Is this the message my descendants will receive?  What does it mean?

We can see that this poem is not tricky.   Profound, hopeful, conversational, but not tricky.  Each reader of a poem makes their own picture.  What you receive from this poem is as valid as what I or anyone else receives.  

The picture I see is God sending someone--me or you, our child or grandchild, or someone years' hence, one of our descendants--out of the void and into the world.  Maybe the void is our mothers' wombs.  Maybe long before that, somewhere in the universe of galaxies.  God walks with us to where life begins (the country nearby "they call life") and tells we will know it by its seriousness.  Interesting, no? The poet's God sees Life as Serious and we can't go back.

But seriousness is not a bad thing.  Surely life is not frivolous.  All our thoughts, emotions, the love we give and receive, the losses we face.  Yes, life is serious.  Yes there is both beauty and terror and no feeling is final.  God tells us, "Embody me."  Not a casual thing at all.  To embody God is profound.  

At the same time, there is great feeling in life.  We soar sometimes, we reach heights we didn't envision.  God tells us to go to the limits of our longing, flare up like a flame.  This might sound exciting, or it might sound fearful.  How will we find the limits or our longing?  Might that take a lifetime?  Surely with God's help we can find what we long for.  We are told to keep God close, "Don't let yourself lose me."  If this frightens us, God offers to take our hand.  The last words we hear, dimly, are "Give me your hand." 

What I have written is the explication of a poem. There is no magic in that.  Many can explicate poems.  The magic, or miracle, is that Rilke said all of this in 10 lines.  He spoke as the Divine, giving us hope about the terrors we might encounter, reminding us that God walks with us walk hand-in-hand from the moment He sends us into the world.  No need to read this explication ever again.  But the poem?  It's worth rereading, perhaps learning by heart.  That way we will remember to make big shadows for God to move in.  

Nina Naomi