FAVORITE PHOTOS, FAVORITE MEMORIES

CHRISTMAS is here and so are the winter cardinals.  They do not migrate.  They shelter in the branches of cedar, fir and pine.  A cardinal brightens the dreariest day.  A fine sketch I ran across and kept. I wish I could draw!

   

 With grandchildren, we made Christmas cookies today, homemade sugar cookies with powdered sugar icing.  Trees and angels and stars, Santas and ornaments and sleighs.  We ate a pile before the afternoon was over.  Full of sugar and love. Fun every year.

These holly berries out my door are sought after by every robin in the woods.  They check for days waiting for that perfect ripeness.  I wait with them. When they detect it, the robins cover the trees, fluttering, diving, acrobating and feasting.  Soon only prickly leaves remain until pollination in spring when the new green berries emerge to ripen again midwinter.  A lovely cycle. 
 

This is how I want to feel.  A winter cold, a disappointment, no matter if it is well with my soul.  Do you not agree? I was in hospital for a few days recently.  My body needed such attention, enough to remind me that we are not bodies with souls, we are souls with bodies. 

Have you been to the National Cathedral in Washington, DC?  Many have.  Last December we went to a performance of Handel's The Messiah here.  This year I was in hospital and missed our local performance.  Today I listened to it in my car as I drove, well-recovered now. There are so many churches in the world to visit.  Places to light candles and pray.  To feel a part of the 2,000 year-old Christian faith. 

Don't you love the light of flickering candles during our long nights now?  The winter solstice is just days away, shortest day, longest night.  This is a small collection of my candles, making the darkness a place of comfort, as it should be. 

I grew up here, in a drafty old house in Missouri where we had long winters and heavy snowfalls.  The house was built in 1904 and still looks the same.  I check it out when we go back to St. Louis, which we did in early November. A coal furnace my dad converted to gas.  Hills to sleigh ride, school even during blizzards.  We all have childhood winter memories.  I loved this house. 

This is the woods where we live today on a winter morning with the sun just rising.  The day will be overcast.  Nothing is more beautiful than a woods in winter, sculptural, clean and fresh.  It's worth going out of our way to see one.  If it's snowing, the snow absorbs sound and creates a blessed silence. 

Above is a picture of the Loretto Chapel in Santa Fe, New Mexico that we visited early last spring.  Below is the famous staircase of 33 steps, two 360 degree turns and no central support 

Maybe I will do a Part II later.  If you have time, check your own photos, even those years old, for your favorites and the memories they hold.  Thank you for looking at mine. 

Happy Advent, Happy Hanukkah and Merry Christmas.  Holding all dear, Nina Naomi 

DARKNESS

  

For darkness covers America.

Children go hungry while pedophiles feast.

 

Yes, darkness covers America. 

Brown neighbors disappear.  

Boats not in American waters. Unknown

Venezuelans not charged, not tried, or convicted, 

Blown up to no more than debris. 

 

Like Christians sent to the lions 

For the pleasure of Emperor Nero 

Remembered only for his tyranny and extravagance. 

Did Nero have a Golden Ballroom?  

Ah, yes he too loved gold.  

 

Darkness covers America

A faltering President turns to a reporter on Airforce One

And says, "Quiet, Quiet Piggy"

For questions about Epstein (who may not have killed himself). 

That word piggy so casually flung 

At a woman doing her job on Airforce One. 

 

Darkness also covers America

In December when the sun sinks low mid-afternoon.

A Gift-of-God-Darkness, 

So the light of the star pointing the way 

To the newborn awake in the hay beams brighter, sharper. 

This is the mid-winter dark that we savor,

To prepare, to be one with the earth.

 

When we keep to our rituals, they soothe our souls.

When we light the first candle on the Advent Wreath

And start to decorate our homes with greens, red berries and wreaths,

Some, many even, get depressed 

From memories or fear.

Those lighted candles help, week by week, one at a time. 

We light the second candle 

And wonder who might like what for Christmas. 

We light the third candle and set out the creche. 

Then we light the fourth. The church is full of light in darkness.

At home the lighted trees help, with treasured decorations.

Vintage baubles of mercury glass, so thin and shiny, so few left.

 

Light in the darkness that covers America.

Light in the people who stand up for survivors, 

The people who sell and buy local, 

Who boycott Home Depot (where ICE is allowed to do harm),

Walmart and Target (who dropped DEI). 

Light in the people who feed all with grace, 

Who quit buying Teslas, 

Who protest AVELO Airlines at our airport 

That deports brown people hands chained to feet.

 

Light shines through the deepest darkness 

When Christians follow their Lord.

When we don't look away, when we shield those under attack,

When we fund those on the front lines,

When we don't normalize evil.

 

Did we ever need Advent more?  

Was there ever a year when the choice was so heavy, the lines so deep?

Call the children to the table, say a prayer, eat your fill 

And sleep in warm beds.  

There is no moral, only truth.  

 

 

 

  

 

 

  

REFRESH PART IV

Lots of us take road-trips this time of year.  🎶"Over the river and through the woods to grandmother's house we go . . . ."  I wonder if kids still learn this song.  I live in the woods so whoever visits this grandma's house comes past the meadow and through the trees. 

No, we don't have snow yet

Most of us moms and grand-moms have prepared more holiday dinners than we can count. Our church also hosts a Thanksgiving feast on the day itself and just a month later a Christmas meal.  Whoever wanders in has the best traditional dinner.

This year five members of our New Jersey family braved I-95 for Thanksgiving at our house.  It's a harrowing road-trip but for how early they leave.  They saw the sun rise somewhere over Maryland. Family from Florida flew in, amazingly without delay. 

Our own road-trip was to St. Louis and back to see relatives right before the holidays. We drove through North Carolina, Virginia, W. Virginia, across Kentucky, Indiana and Illinois and over the Mississippi River to get to our home town. Mobility issues, some memory loss, two marvelous children, one with special needs--concerns disappear in the joy of being together.  And of course we remember when everyone was worried about whether the two sides of the St. Louis Arch would meet, we're that old. 

St Louis Arch, 630 ft tall, 630 ft wide

All I am thinking about now is how I want this holiday season to be a refresh for everyone.  I'm sticking to making my best efforts to buy local.  Our town has some wonderful Christmas markets with makers who design unique gifts.  I have those marked on my calendar.  One year we found small fused glass mirrors that everyone still has hanging making their homes more beautiful.  My husband asked for a radio this year, totally retro.  When streaming and online go out, we can listen to the radio! 😊  We have in independent book shop that everybody likes. 

It's important, isn't it, that however big or small our Thanksgiving and Christmas are, however confined our expansive our life, that we are thankful to be alive, to be as healthy as ever we are, for family and friends even if remembered, or especially if remembered. From Thanksgiving we move right into Advent.  Tomorrow the first Advent Candle will be lit in churches around the world.  We begin our time of waiting for the eternally new birth of the Savior in whom we believe. 

Every year I look forward to this season of long nights and preparation. If I were even older and lived alone, I believe I would still feel Christ's love and the blessings of a very average life holding me gently aloft.  Wishing for you in a month that can be hurried, in a year when our government has made each of our lives more difficult, a time where peace and joy undergird your thoughts, even the hard ones.   

With much love, Nina Naomi 

 

 

 

DEFEND US AGAINST ENEMIES OF THE GOSPEL

 

 Recently the prayer of the day in our church included the words, "Pour out your Holy Spirit on your faithful people. . . protect and comfort them in times of trial, defend them against all enemies of the gospel, and bestow on the church your saving peace . . . ."  The phrase "defend them against all enemies of the gospel" particularly caught my attention.  

In our congregation we have mentioned whether the Church should be political.  Some fear that politics sows division.  Others suggest we not criticize each other for our political beliefs--and we don't.  That may be because we are fairly homogeneous, but perhaps not.  Perhaps we simply love our neighbors as ourselves and do unto others as we would have them do unto us.  It is the core of our faith.

But if refraining from politics means that we stay silent and passive in the face of oppression, then no.  Both Pope Leo XIV, the Catholic church, the Lutheran church bishops and others do not shy from speaking out.  No Christian should.  No American should.  No human being should. 

Many recognize that this administration and its supporters in Congress act as "enemies of the gospel."  How so is that true?  After all, do not all of us sin, repent and ask for forgiveness?  Of course we do. 

But we do not steal from the poor to give (tax cuts) to the rich.  We do not terrorize immigrants of color, cut food benefits to children or fire government employees; we do not deny science, make American businesses pay tariffs to the government, or build grand ballrooms where the beautiful East Wing of the White House once was--where Eleanor Roosevelt, Rosalynn Carter, Laura Bush and Michelle Obama once had their offices.  Where Jackie Kennedy planned the Rose Garden (now also demolished).   

Here in America, our white (like me) president has fired the black Chair of the Joint Chiefs, the first Black person to serve as Librarian of Congress, the first Black woman to serve on the National Labor Relations Board,  the first Black woman to serve on the Federal Reserve, the first Black chair of the Federal Energy Commission, the only Black member of the National Transportation Board, the first Black woman on the Federal Reserve's Board of Governors and so on.  None with cause.   

As Christians, as humans, what do we do with this information?  Ignore it?  Pray it will disappear?  Keep silent?  Our service the same week ended with "Send us to do good and to share our possessions with all in need."   Our Prayers of Intercession included, "Move us to understanding and reconciliation between people of other faiths...." 

This is a lot.  But we can't eat the bread and wine that are Christ's body and blood if we let others go hungry.  Hunger is a weapon, whether used against Palestinians in Gaza or poor people here.  ICE raids, troops on our streets, racial terror are evils to overcome. That's why 7,000 of us, many from our congregation, were at the NO KINGS day in our town on October 18.  That's why the speaker was the Rev William Barber--look him up if you need to--, a Dr. King successor. 

Most of us aren't politicians and have no pulpit or bullhorn. All we Christians have is the Holy Spirit feeding us and the words of our faith guiding us.  But we, along with those of other faiths and no faith, have the duty to bear public witness, hold leaders accountable, speak out and resist systems that oppress.  

Some things--the most important--are moral, personal, religious and political.  Think justice, mercy, fair-dealing, respect, goodness, the virtues that stand opposed to sin, including the seven deadliest ones.   We can't ignore politics and keep sin at bay.  We can't fear to mention the names of our two American political parties in a Christian setting and speak truth to power.  Of how we treat the poor, Pope Leo XIV said recently, "Either we regain our moral and spiritual dignity or we fall into a cesspool."

My thoughts of the present are animated by God.  We woke to ICE in Charlotte this morning and to protests against them.  As of this writing 81 Charlotte residents have been arrested for the color of their skin and their first language. God is in the midst of them.  He is in our midst.  No where else do we find hope but in His promise to defend us against all enemies of the Gospel.  The calls to prayer are legion, but so are the calls to peaceful action.  Not my words, but to give up is unforgivable.        In peace, Nina Naomi

 

VERY ORDINARY FALL DAY

November Early Darkness

The best thing about today might be now, sitting outdoors by the fire pit waiting for the early darkness that comes in mid-November.  The citronella candles are lit, since soon it will be too dark to type out here.  the air is mild, I am in long sleeves only by this fire.  We have so much old wood lying about, any strong wind brings down branches to scavenge. I love this place, this patio, this old house, the fire pit that was shiny copper at the beginning of the pandemic, now tarnished by smoke and ash.  

Or maybe the best thing was this morning when I got to sleep a bit and then drink tea.  Lazy Saturdays are always special, left from years of working long hours with stress and travel delays, trying to finish up and get home.  Especially as the weather changes, isn't a slow start nice?  

Or perhaps the best might be this evening when some grandchildren (no longer children), family and friends come for my husband's small birthday supper.  If the fire is still burning they may join me outside for a few minutes.  I made sloppy Joes, my husband's favorite.  And a bought cake.  Maybe that will be best.

Still, isn't the best part of the day when we slide into bed?  Are we ever not happy about that?  Even when as new parents we didn't know how much rest we would get, it was still a desperately needed lie-down.  Sound sleep is a luxury.  After a meal and clean-up, I always think how nice a warm bath and cozy bed will feel.  Body lotion, clean old tee-shirts and raggy sleep pants, Pillows just right.  Just writing this makes me look forward to the end of the day.  

What is best for you?  Every morning I look forward to getting up and every night I look forward to going to bed.  I wonder if this is true for everyone.  Maybe we're just made this way.  Absent disasters and crises and all those times in our life that are too hard, maybe our default is to mostly love all the parts of our day.  Even work, over now in retirement, I could never have done without.  I remember not working and looking. for the right next step being more worrying than working.  

This is seeming like a very good, very ordinary Fall day, like one that most of us are having in our own individual way I suspect.  A weekend, some family, relaxation.  I hope you look at your day and find good things.  My wish whenever I write, is that what I am thinking connects in a small way to those reading, those who choose to read a simple diary of a mindful nature lover to the end of a post.   

The fire is dimming now and needs some stoking. 

Blessings to all, Nina Naomi  

 

LORD, TEACH US TO COPE

  

Someone I read the other day wrote about distancing as a fair way of coping.  Resistance, activism, helping others--but then in our arsenal as well, distancing.

What am I talking about? That no one in America is immune from the current destruction of our society.  SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) runs out now.  It may be reinstated by the courts, but over this regime's opposition, and even though the money is there to fund it.  Hungry people, the old, the young, the disabled used as leverage.   The kind of cruelty you see in war, an evil never justified.

Distancing is a respite from anger, frustration and despair.  It's a regrouping so that we don't give up.  It's a temporary move to reboot and refresh. It's not apathy.  It's self-care.  And it's OK.  

We can call it a refresh.  I've been doing that for a few posts. But whatever we call it, it's healthy.  It's healthy even if we are the hungry one.  It's healthy to go outside, take the kids for a walk, look at the leaves, gather acorns and pine cones, think about something else.  I did that today.  

I admit, I am not hungry.  I am privileged in my old age to be self-sufficient.  Why I have been given this blessing I do not know. But none of us takes it for granted.  None of us can take credit; we all work hard, we all do our best, maybe especially those who worry about each meal.  

Everyday we should try to do something other than worry.  Donating makes us feel good; if we have enough, it's the least we can do. Volunteering if we have time and strength.  This afternoon going outdoors into our woods brought home what we want to preserve. 

We are having friends over tonight.  They have been through some hard times.  Cancer strikes young as well as old.  That is their family tragedy right now.  We know how that feels.  Our young son died of cancer twenty years ago this year. No one forgets.  So I made a tablescape of acorns, nuts and luminous fall leaves.  I added some blossoms from the mums in the yard.  And a candle.  Honestly, so simple but gratifying.  Friends, maybe some music, a prayer before the meal, a supper of fish and rice and greens.  We won't talk politics.  We'll take a respite.  We'll show love to each other.  

My prayer is that I will do more for others; that goodness will prevail; that God will help us defeat evil, the evil that is trying to destroy our democracy and even the White House itself. The rest of the prayer we might leave to God.  Fashion the prayer we need, please Lord.  Teach us to pray as you did with the "Our Father."  Help us never loose our humanity.  Echoing a past Sunday's Prayer of the Day, "Pour out your Holy Spirit on your faithful people. . . protect and comfort them in times of trial [and] defend them against all enemies of the gospel."   AMEN

REFRESH PART III

Pilot Mountain, NC

Part of keeping a balanced life, refreshing ourselves from, at least in America, the unhappiness that the current regime takes pleasure in spreading, is taking care of our bodies, minds and souls. We all do this.  We might grieve the destruction of the East Wing of the White House, where Eleanor Roosevelt, Jackie Kennedy, and Betty Ford held sway.  We might protest the extra-judicial killing of Venezuelans who may or may not be transporting drugs. We make daily acts of resistance.  But we also take care.  

Mr. Airy, NC

  I can't write about our simple trip to a cabin in the Blue Ridge Mountains, only 2 hours from home, without first acknowledging that.  We're under stress, but we take care.  All of us.  

This week after the joy of NO KINGS DAY on October 18, with the eloquent Rev. William Barber exhorting us, I chose a mountain overnight to celebrate my birthday.  We drove past Pilot Mountain with its knob on top, to the town of Mt. Airy, which was called Mayberry on the old Andy Griffith show.   Small town North Carolina at its best.  Just about everyone in our region has been here. 

  Then we headed up and down the mountain to the even smaller town of Fancy Gap, year-round population under 300.   We stayed in the cabin pictured below, perfect with a fire pit outdoors and a lovely view of the property.  It was just cold enough. 

Cozy Cabin, Fancy Gap, VA

Of course, Bluegrass is the specialty of the region and we were excited that jam night at the Country Store in Fancy Gap is Thursday, the night we were there.  So barbecue and music was the evening.  Musicians wandered in and joined the circle.  Someone named a song and a key and strummin' and singin' began. 

 

Country Store, Fancy Gab, VA

The next day because it was my birthday I got to browse pottery and arts and crafts at my leisure.  I felt completely lucky the whole time, with such a fun experience and change from our ordinary day only 2 hours away.  It felt like a big trip, just the one overnight, and left me totally refreshed.  These kinds of good things, all good things in fact, are reminders of what we are holding the line for, why we resist, and why we won't give up and let our country become Turkey or China or Russia or any place with a billionaire tin-horn dictator. 

 

In peace, Nina Naomi 

 

  

 

PEOPLE AND PLANTS--A POWER COUPLE

 

Plants sustain all life on earth.  They provide the oxygen we breathe, the food we eat and the trees we use for shelter.  We devour them with relish, berry, flower, fruit, leaf, stem and root. Red Raspberries, crisp radishes, fragrant plums and peaches.  Plants feed the sheep whose wool warms us, the cattle whose milk sustains us, and the goats whose Goat-milk soap washes our bodies.  Our barns and beds are of wood, our bodies clothed in cotton and flax. 

Plants regulate the climate, prevent erosion and store carbon. They connect us to the land and to each other. They shelter the birds and mammals that wait near our bird feeder.  They inspire artists, from Vincent Van Gogh's SUNFLOWERS to Monet's WATERLILIES  to Georgia O'Keeffe's Poppies, lilacs, and petunias.  Each month is represented by its own flower, carnations for January, violets for February, daffodils for March and so on.  Flowers speak our hearts.  Nothing says "I'm sorry" or "I love you" or "Get well soon" like a bouquet of fresh flowers. 

Flowers feed the insects who in turn pollinate the flowers.  Walking and sitting among, or even just looking at plants and trees, soothes our souls and lifts our spirits.  Nature mends us.  Aloe vera relieves our skin. Trailing ivy absorbs formaldehyde and other toxins.  Bamboo Palms humidify a dry room. The forest is a pharmacy of phytoncides that reduce inflammation and protect our neurons just by breathing.  Like a human kidney, sea grasses filter and clean water and feed and protect manatees.  It's hard to be depressed outdoors on a beautiful day. Or to stand beneath a giant sequoia, 3,000 years old, and not feel the breadth of the Universe. 

I am glad we have this daily gift.  Nina Naomi

 

 

REFRESH PART II

 This is a different kind of refresh.  Over the years I've written about museum days, those days when you can join any century mid-stream and hang out with Dutch Masters, French Impressionists, whomever you want.  What about today taking a break with Georgia O'Keeffe (1887-1986).

Earlier this spring we were in Santa Fe, New Mexico and visited the O'Keeffe museum and sights.  On assignment for LOOK magazine (anyone remember LOOK?), photographer Tony Vaccaro took this picture of O'Keeffe in 1960 in her Abiquiú house.

Most of us think of O'Keeffe as the person who painted large flowers.  The artist disputed male critics who saw the blooms as depictions of female genitalia. They're flowers, she said.  I make them large so you can see them.  We must agree.  What great female artist wants Freud as her muse?  An interpretation that is gendered and outdated.  Although for me as a woman, the idea of our bodies flowering can also be quite lovely. No contradiction, I think. 

Red Canna, 1919

Untitled Abstraction, 1970s

But her range is much wider.  This abstraction was painted when O'Keeffe was in her 90s and apparently reveals small hand tremors in the movement of the brush.  Then, years before, Geranium Leaves in a Pink Dish, 1938, so clear and round where the other shapes in Abstraction add curves and verticality.  

Oil on Wood Panel

Today we went to the North Carolina Museum of Art in Raleigh and found another O'Keeffe.  Art, poetry, music, the wind in the trees, orange and yellow leaves covering my back patio, chili in the crock pot, family coming to dinner--so many ways to refresh ourselves.  

 

Yesterday was NO KINGS and 7,000,000 people across America protested the authoritarian policies of Donald Trump.  Our demonstration in Durham was a wonder.  We were 7,000 marchers--one out of every 1000 demonstrators was right here in my city.

 

Thank you world.  I am refreshed.       Nina Naomi 

 

REFRESH

Brock Basin, Pine Knoll Shores, NC

OK, if you're an American who is well-informed, you are likely existing under the weight of serious day-to-day stress.  Obvious, right? The stress that comes not from personal crises (though those too), but from newly coping with and trying to defeat an authoritarian regime. I'm ready for the next big NO KINGS DAY, OCTOBER 18.  I'm watching the lower courts hold the line.  I'm listening to AOC and Bernie Sanders and Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson and hoping that the news about a cease-fire in Gaza brings lasting peace.  I admire the governors who protect their citizens. 

So why lead with a picture of canoes?  Because we also need to keep our balance and take breaks.  What more appropriate symbol of balance than a canoe.   Plus, following my own advice, I thought that picking some special photos, posting and writing about them would give all of our minds a refresh.  

So I chose this snap of colorful canoes just waiting to cut through the water with someone's strong strokes.   I love the way their random shelving ends up looking artistically pleasing. My first ever post was about canoes, Feb 2, 2017.

 

Then I located in my library this otherwise regal alpaca whose silly mop-top belies her distinction.  She lives with her family at the Museum of Life and Science here in Durham.  Alpacas are docile animals, but you wouldn't know that from their bray.  They hum too! 

Is there a farm near you?  Do you raise farm animals yourself?  My granddaughter and I have a date for Goat-Pumpkin Carving; can't wait to see how that works out.  

                                   A picture of healthy birch trees shedding their bark in sheets, caught my attention next.  We saw these paper birch on a visit to New Jersey.  So my break includes remembering times of small pleasures. Our woods has beech trees, which also have white bark, but it is smooth.  Their brown leaves stay on all winter until spring buds force them to fall. 

Here's another cute alpaca from the herd.  Can't resist.  The Museum is just 30 minutes or so away; I don't know why I don't run over more. There's a butterfly house there too, and lemurs and rescue bears.  The picture is a reminder to be more child-like once-in-a-while and ooh and aah at these unique species. 

 This snap I just took yesterday.  The fungi are sprouting in the leaf-mold as the air cools and nights lengthen. This tiny red-cap is a beauty.  There's a cluster of them just out my door south of a patch of moss. Here's another view.  

The deer eat them, we've noticed, so they don't last long.  The best break today was of course, searching the woods for what to photo, keeping my literal balance in our rocky terrain and inspecting the mossy trail I've maintained for over twenty years now.  I call it a fitness trail only because it keeps me fit (ha!).

Finally, let's end this refresh with upside-down reflections in pools.  I wrote about this too back in 2017, September, an early post.  We were taking a slow journey from North Carolina to the Eastern Shore and back.  The Dismal Swamp is on the Virginia-North Carolina border, 113,000 acres of wetland forest and coastal plain swamp. Again, so close to where I live, we should visit more.  

The water is only 6 feet deep but brackish, and reflections of tree and cloud make it look much deeper, don't you think?   

 

Last treat:  

I hope you enjoyed your break.  Thank you for being here.  Nina Naomi

 

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