"THE WORLD IS TOO MUCH WITH US"

 

Dwarf Red Maple and Snap Dragons

I started writing this post last week, seated outdoors with time to think. Having just finished my peruse of The Guardian, half my mind was on Donald Trump, who facing 80 and dementia, among other delusions thinks that he is Jesus Christ, or at least wants us to entertain that thought. Inanity and blasphemy. Like all of us when "[t]he world is too much with us," to quote William Wordsworth (1770-1850), I needed to transition back to the moment.    

How better than to share the beauty of the courtyard where I was sitting, the dwarf red maple newly blooming with last year's snap dragons reseeded?  My daughter-in-law had said that morning that we must pace our attention to the state of our country. So I worked in the yard, watering the moss because we are in a drought; pruning the dead branches from the hydrangea, which always bloom on our anniversary, early June; and best of all--swam. (Yes, it reached 81℉ that day where we live in North Carolina.)

Last year's fulsome bounty!

We live in an old mid-century modern house with a small concrete pool.  Great for my bad back.  I can slide in and reach the other side in eight strokes.  A luxury I never dreamed of until we found this abandoned property over 20 years ago.  I raised my head to a small field mouse, paddling in desperation.  I put a float under it and out it scampered, into the grasses.  Whew!  

So a small but, to me, a luxurious day.  I always feel like I may not deserve this old house in the woods with field mice and a pool.  I may not deserve a long marriage and retirement.  I may not deserve the free-time to sit and blog.  Do you ever feel like that?

Now, this week, we are back at our friends' house in Santa Barbara, California; the third year they have invited us to house-sit while they're gone, leaving our sweet old home to the field mice, squirrels and deer and my indoor plants to my gracious daughter-in-law. Here the purple jacaranda are in bloom.  I feel lucky again. 

How do you feel about your life?  I hope you mostly--if not entirely--love it.  Are content with it.  Wouldn't want to trade with anyone else at all.  Most of us say that, I've read. We may need more security and better health, but our life is ours. We won't give it away. 

No matter how we feel, here are my suggestions for spring, the suggestions of someone who has lived long:  Stick with the outdoors, stick with nature.  Wordsworth's poem continues, 

"late and soon, / Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers; / Little we see in Nature that is ours; / We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!" 

Backing away from the news from time to time keeps our hearts intact. Loving nature helps us love our lives, doesn't it?  I plant a few pansies and when the heat takes them, choose impatiens, begonias and geraniums.  Here at my friend's I am planting her thyme, basil, mint and oregano. My own has come up fresh and fragrant.

While here, I enjoy the orange and lemon trees, the amazingly fuchsia bougainvillea and the sight of the cold Pacific Ocean.  This is unusual for me.  Many people live in vacation spots or cities and towns known for their charm.  Not exactly true of Durham, North Carolina, a blue-collar town we do not intend to leave. 

So, there is no moral to this story.  Trump and his cruelty continue but so do our lives and loves.  So does God's creation.  So do our daily needs and resets.  So does the means of our salvation, our relationship with our God, with our families, with the life and water outside our door. 

Somehow after writing, this feels to me like a prayer.  AMEN

Nina Naomi  

 

  

 

 

 

 

  

A SPRING MOMENT--LASTING LOVE

 

 My Midwinter Moments are over for the year, the last one posted on January 22.  It's time for Spring Moments.  Of course, the first isn't a moment at all; it's a way of life.  Today, the day I am writing, is two weeks after Easter.   Like many, we had a our typical Resurrection Sunday:  church and Easter Breakfast.  We sat with friends in the Fellowship Hall and gorged on eggs, pancakes, sausage and fruit.  Very Lutheran.  

This year we had no family for brunch or supper.  We were alone together, our favorite way to be.  We have committed to de-cluttering this spring.  We are beginning with old love letters, the handwritten kind, written when we were very young and before email or cell phones.  It is the first time we have ever re-read these longing, romantic missives sent between college students living states apart.  

For three years we each wrote almost a letter a day.  Having met in junior high and dated in high school, in college we were growing into adults together, sharing our academic pursuits (both English majors) and amazing feelings of overwhelming love.  Not puppy love, or first love, but what was to become lasting love; love that would weather all storms, even great losses.  But of course, when we wrote these letters, we knew nothing of adversity.  We knew not that we were setting a strong foundation that would build trust of one another we couldn't, and didn't want to, break.  

I am going through the boxes and reading the yellowing letters aloud to my husband, bits and pieces, as he gives intermittent attention to a project on his computer.  We run across adventures we barely remember. Each letter is full of feeling.  

"1 a.m. Monday morning.  Back in the dormitory again!  It seems I just left.  You were in my thoughts all the way from St. Louis to Fort Wayne, as I dreamed many beautiful stories about us which will all come true. . . . You are all the brightness in my life; you are my life.  Without you, there would be nothing.  I love you with all my being, with all the strength that I have, and never, as long as I live, will I cease loving you."

I think we were 19 and 20 when this was written.  We have grandchildren those ages now.   Can we look to the future from a letter like that?  Do such feelings make an unbreakable bond for a marriage?  Or might someone feel that way at 20 or 30 and squander it all for a secret relationship at 40?  Or even 70?    

I tend to think that the early longing we endured built, in me at least, expectation and assurance of lasting fidelity.  I believed that early letter and responded in kind. The slightest deviation from that kind of love, for me, would not stand. My husband, I hope, the same.  

I have stacks of letter yet to go through.  Then we will save some and discard most.  I want to save the one I quoted.  How sweet is that, from a 20-year-old to the girl he loved?  I am lucky to be that girl, that woman.  We are both lucky.  Reading these for the first time in decades is a Spring Moment for us.  

With happiness, Nina Naomi 

 

EARTHLY KING, HEAVENLY KING

 

It's almost time for the next No Kings Day, Saturday March 28.  I wouldn't miss it.  I hope you can participate too.  Not that what we have is a King.  Kings can be benevolent, wise, concerned for the good the their country.  But not dictators, or the Mad King, the wannabe tyrant.  

We are at the coast and will be for No Kings.   I will attend in the neighboring Town of Beaufort, on the Newport River alongside Beaufort Inlet.  Being here changes one's perspective.  Vastness does that, doesn't it?  Far horizons, dark skies, eternity all around.  Go outside any night and look up.  It's a comfort, like an embrace.  A feeling we need these days. 

From time to time I read Robert Reich on Substack.  Professor, political commentator, and former Secretary of Labor, Reich reminds us that tyranny cannot succeed where people refuse to submit to it.  And that's what we're doing, day-by-day and each time a No Kings comes around--refusing to submit.   We rally, we find joy in knowing that we are millions.  

We gather to show that our communities won't submit to a police state.  We won't tolerate anyone who protects pedophiles.  Or tolerate arrest without due process.  We gather because the opening words of our Constitution's Preamble are "We the People," not "I the President."  We gather so that those who follow Mr. Wannabe become more worried about losing our support than his.  

We gather out of respect.  If we are people of faith, we gather because our faith asks that of us.  If we are Christian, we honor one king only, our Heavenly King of Kings and Lord of Lords:  the One who keeps His promises, who asks those who need help to approach boldly, who changes not.  The Heavenly King who every spring sacrifices that we might be saved.  Our resistance says, "You may be a greedy billionaire who thinks to rule by fear.  Not me, not my neighbor, not today, not ever."  

I ask God to help and guide me.     In Peace, Nina Naomi

 

 

 

 

 

 

SPRING'S SACRED DANCE

Garden, Pierre Bonnard, 1935, NY Met

God of the equinox, spring or vernal, autumnal or fall,

We ask You to bless the light and the dark in our days,

Our country and world.

In our country shine your light on the evil being done in Your name

To Your sorrow and ours expose and defeat with our help and Yours.

Make us one with You and Your Word 

So that in our fear of wars and rumors of wars we remain steadfast

In action and faith, resisting always each in our given way. 

In this time when the sun hovers over the earth to equal day and night

And the song birds return to lift the universe with sounds only theirs, 

(The first of Your creation to sound the alarm of hope),

Teach us to use all Your resources--insect, bud and bloom, refreshing rain,

Green and yellow, purple too as imperatives to follow your Holy call. 

Inspire us to turn despair to action.

 

Out my window is dancing, spring is dancing, days longer just for the dance. 

Forsythia are dancing, redbud are dancing on roadsides.

Lenten roses are taking a bow.

We hear Your invitation to join this sacred dance.

To sing songs of protest if we wish, to march with signs of Love Conquers Hate.

To become peacemakers without falter.

To remember that every dictator dies ignominiously and alone. 

But we with our Lord, doing the tasks that our faith assigns us,

Shall grow this Spring with the flowers, using Your strength to restore Your world.

For this we pray in Your name O Lord.  AMEN 

 

 

 

 

IT MIGHT BE SPRING SOON

 

 Sometimes we need a break from everything, absolutely everything.  One thing we always need a break from is the quest for perfection.  Getting older helps with that; there's not a single thing I can do perfectly anymore.  My garden is not perfect and never will be.  Just the other day the top of a large ash tree hit the ground, blocking my "fitness" trail (i.e. a path of moss I tend lovingly).  I will have to call the tree service for their regular post-winter clean-up.  I want them to start at the road and work their way back, chipping the downed trees and branches--We live in the woods. This will take at least a half day and cost my winter savings.  

The daffodils and early blue hyacinth are pushing up.  I picked a few daffs today for my shelfie.  And the Lenten roses are lush.  I've sprayed the hyacinth and nandina with Deer Off to deter the still-hungry deer.  I've put out pansies and sprayed them too.  They will weather the few frosts still to come in North Carolina.  I'm using Squirrel Repellent liberally.  What a late winter garden:  everything smells like urine!  

So--perfection.  My favorite magazine, UK's The Simple Things, had a feature on The Slapdash Manifesto.  I.e., whatever is good enough is good enough.   I love that.  After all, being imperfect is what makes us human.  My house, my garden, my baking, my knitting, my hobbies, (my hair!)--all works in progress.  Simple means imperfect, and simple is really, really enjoyable.  

The Slapdash Manifesto consists of general principles for good enough:  

• Become a dabbler.  Just have a go.  Begin. 
• Enjoy the journey.  Its the doing, not the result that matters.
• Try.  Get in the spirit.  Forget criticism, your own or others. 
• Make your own rules.  Have fun.  
• Pause.  Go slow.  Stop and smell the roses, or eat cake, or take a nap.  

 Isn't this nice?  It makes me feel good.  Tomorrow I will check on the new plants, the perennials just sprouting, the sedum coming up in all my pots (I use it as filler, it's so reliable and sturdy), mint that is peeking through the leaves, oregano and chives I transplanted.  Even violets that will show any day now.  And won't that be wonderful?  

 

This Diary of a Mindful Nature Lover is thoroughly imperfect.  I've been posting since 2017, a long time ago now.  Whenever I check, it surprises me, the number of readers and where they (you) are from.   So, take a walk.  See what is making its way through the leaf letter in your garden or neighborhood.  Take a photo.  Show the world some love.             

                  In peace, Nina Naomi

 

 

 

 

LENT AND BLACK HISTORY MONTH

 

Lent this year began in February.  A moveable feast, our Shrove Tuesday (Fat Tuesday) pancake supper is, falling the day before Ash Wednesday which is 46 days before Easter, which itself is set by the Lunar Calendar, Easter being the first Sunday following the first full moon after the vernal equinox.  The resurrection of our Lord--like the tides that lap our North Carolina shore and yours, wherever you may be--is dated by the phase of the moon, our constant companion, using the Gregorian calendar which superseded the Julian calendar (put in place by Julius Caesar) at the First Council of Nicea in 325.  Could anything be more ancient? 

Something we might be especially thankful for, Lent 2026 (and many years, Ash Wednesday falling somewhere between Feb 4 and March 11) begins in the month we dedicate to honoring Black History.  This year is the 100th anniversary of Negro History Week, inaugurated by historian and author, Dr. Carter G. Woodson in 1926.  Then in 1976, during the year of our nation's Bicentennial, GOP President  Gerald Ford made the month official. 

So appropriate.  We began the Lenten journey on Ash Wednesday with the words, "Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return."   These are words of repentance and mortality.  They require kneeling.  Is the time we have to repent before our death really any longer than the time between Ash Wednesday and Easter?  Has it not passed, is it not passing, more quickly than we ever knew? 

February is the birthday month of Frederick Douglass (1818-1895), abolitionist, orator, statesman and one reason the month was chosen to celebrate Black history.  You might want to look up the stirring poem "Frederick Douglass" by Robert Hayden, the first African American to hold the office later known as Poet Laureate of the United States.  Part of it reads:

this man, this Douglass, this former

slave, this Negro

beaten to his knees, exiled,

visioning a world

where none is lonely, none hunted,

alien,

this man, superb in love and logic,

this man

shall be remembered.   

 Today we still have human beings lonely, hunted, alien, beaten to their knees, exiled, killed.  In Lent we repent and seek forgiveness.  Jesus says "Love your enemies."  Tyrants foment hate.  Jesus says, "Forgive."  Tyrants seek revenge.  Jesus says, "Feed the hungry, heal the sick."  The tyrant cuts humanitarian aid and medical research.  Jesus says, "Blessed are the peacemakers."  The tyrant creates masked police forces and inflicts fear.  Jesus says, "Give to the poor."  The tyrant enriches himself.  

As we move through Lent toward Holy Week, we are aware that corrupted power, religious hypocrisy and state violence are at odds with peace, truth, trust, hope and the promise of new life. It is up to us to work for the peace of God that builds community and passes all understanding. What a wonderful challenge we have before us.  

As the Rev. Jesse Jackson said at the 1988 Democratic National Convention, we are "at the crossroads, a point of decision.  Shall we be expansive, be inclusive, find unity and power; or suffer division and impotence?" "Common ground," he continued.  "Think of Jerusalem . . . . A small village that become the birthplace for three religions--Judaism, Christianity and Islam."  "Yearning to be free," is our common ground, says this pastor we remember this year of his death this month of Black History.  

Lent 2026 we might recognize as one of special opportunity, wondrous opportunity.  It might be the Lent we have been waiting for.  We might become the people we need to be to act in faith and save those hunted, alien.  If so, we say, thanks be to God.  AMEN

 

 

OH HAPPY DAY

 It's dusk now  and the snow continues to fall without a sound.  We have our Christmas tree, sans ornaments, out on the front deck where we move it until we can bear to take it, stripped bare, into the woods, any day now as it's February.  It sparkles as darkness falls.  As I write, I can see the outline of the trees standing tall in the woods, each branch just lightly snow-covered (more by morning I'm sure) looking ethereal.  Now, moments later, only dark.   This is the North Carolina Piedmont and we can rhapsodize about the snow, it blesses us so seldom. 

I haven't left the house for days, suffering from a strain of flu that escaped my flu shot this Fall.  But today is Day 5 and symptoms are much better, so that nothing could be more welcome than what looks to be a genuine soft snow that will make our woods a refuge of white. Tomorrow our meadow will look like this: 

Cedars after snow storm in our meadow

 It is a beautiful sight.  The other day, during a dusting, I woke to find deer lying just up from our back patio.  They stayed that way the whole time I watched, no stamping of little hoof, just a direct gaze. 

I wonder where the resident Canada geese are during this weather?  No honking as they cross the sky tonight.  The birds must be hunkered down too I hope.  I hope the cedar trees are providing shelter and food.  We couldn't fill the bird feeder this week with the path all icy and both of us with the flu. 

We know how much is going on in America.  Mostly in Minneapolis but elsewhere too.  Cruelty and sadism to deplore and togetherness and community resistance to admire.  My mind, perhaps like yours, is buffeted and my actions more sporadic than I'd like. But we must always find what's wonderful, too. So tonight it's snow, deer, candlelight, blogging and a lifting of the flu symptoms that Tamiflu has helped with this week.  Tomorrow we will be solidly snowed in, in our house in the woods with no snowplows in sight and I will cook what we have.  My husband has been waiting to bake a cake; me, chili with every bean and veg in the house, lots of cumin.  If we loose power of course, all bets are off--two grandparents like ourselves.  But for now, thank you God for this snow.  Thank you for the time to write.  Help us defeat the totalitarianism in our country and keep us strong for that task.  Keep us mindful of the hungry deer and birds and all animals in our path, that we care for them as you intend.  AMEN