"THE STILLER YOU KEEP, THE MORE YOUR SURROUNDINGS EXPAND."

"The stiller you keep, the more your surroundings expand."  This is a quote by Rosey Priestman, who lives by the sea in Scotland.  I ran across it in a magazine I subscribe to, The Simple Things, @Iceberg press.  

I certainly feel like that when we're at the ocean.  All I need do is stand on the shore and everything happens without me doing a thing.  The tide comes in, the tide goes out.  It leaves piles of the smallest shells crushed by their life in the sea. At my feet the shore birds skitter, curved beaks parting the smallest of bivalves as air bubbles recede in the sand. Overhead the gulls screech and just at the waterline pelicans glide or rise and dive.  The stiller I keep, yes, the more life at water's edge expands. 

Have you noticed?  When you're in the right place, you don't feel the urge to go anywhere.  At home we live in a wood and it's the same.  You can look outdoors at any time of day and see the miracle of creation:  towering pines, rugged shaggy bark Hickory trees, squat dogwoods, oaks and red maples.  Branches bare in winter, over-heated in summer and glowing in Fall.  Today leaves floating down, settling about in red and gold. Raking them is a rhythmic delight, the sound, the smell; letting them be, too.

Priestman says, you can drift along doing your thing and nothing particular happens except the sea.  Or, here in the Piedmont, the forests.  North Carolina is a green state.  Our friends from Santa Barbara, California, kept marveling the way we are sheltered by trees everywhere. Overhanging the roadways, nestling the houses, spreading branches in parks and woods and gardens.  And with them, cardinals, finches and woodpeckers; gray and red foxes (we have one each); entertaining squirrels (too many to count); deer and geese and hawks and turkey vultures and ravens.  It feels quite a privilege to pause for the geese in our path or watch the deer bound off gracefully.  

Can't we nurture this feeling wherever we live?  Don't you feel privileged to be where you are, where you choose to be or stay?  I almost don't need to go anywhere else.  I don't have a bucket list.  Granted, I am older, but I have never had a bucket list.  Wait for the sun to rise.  Study the stars.  Watch the night grow longer and the moon head higher each night.  What we do is enough.  What we do is a privilege.  Our lives are a privilege.  

And if times are chaotic for some of the many reasons we can't help, take a break from the worry and stress and keep still for a moment.  The sky hasn't moved.  It won't go away. Breathe and look up.

Let's make everything simpler.  Let's try not to let stuff crowd in on us.  Let's keep our lives as empty as possible.  And in that way, paradoxically, they expand and are full.  

What do you think?                              Nina Naomi

SUMMER STILLNESS

Summer Blooming Local Crepe Myrtle

If there's any time of year that we might leave our worries and our schedules behind, it would be now--summer.  We rent a cabin, set up a tent, open the summer home or hang out in the back yard, sprinkler spinning.  Whatever our summer traditions are, whether from childhood when grandparents and cousins joined in, or newly born, this is when a memory or a yearning kicks in.  

When I was a child, as a school teacher my mother had the summers off.  She stayed outdoors, laundry drying on the line, reading and studying.  She packed me off to summer school classes for enrichment or to the local pool.  I went to Y camps, Vacation Bible Schools of all denominations, and to my grandparents'.  I read books lying on my bed.  We slept al fresco on our upstairs screened porch.  My brother and I rode our bikes everywhere, though not together, he with his friends, I with mine.  It may not sound like stillness, but in a way it was.  Worry-free is its own stillness. I know that now.  

When my children were toddlers we lived in a country parsonage in Illinois.  We had a backyard wading pool and swing set.  I put a hose at the top of the slide to cool the aluminum and the children slid or tummied-first into the pool where the dog waited for them.  Only the cat stood aloof.  I made Kool-Aid popsicles and we dribbled watermelon down our chins.  If you ran through the sprinkler right before bed you could skip your bath.

When my law practice was full-time summer meant swimming after work or over lunch, fewer meetings, an abbreviated court schedule and judges, lawyers and staff on vacation.  Law is a profession that measures workdays in tenths of an hour. It can be a job, like many, where time is brutal. But not in July and August. For eight weeks no one hurries. The  summer pace of law is a respite for everyone, including the clients. 

Now we spend time with grandchildren.  Today returning to her house with my granddaughter, we saw young parents hanging out across the street.  In-arms or belly-wiggling, a gaggle of babies squirmed and reached, blankets and all kinds of toys spread on the grass, moms and dads chatting but at the ready.  Hard work, I know, but what great neighborhood camaraderie!

If you haven't had the chance to take advantage of summer, there's still time. Slow down.  Leave the clutter, make no-cook meals with all those fresh veggies at the market or in your garden, grill some fish, kick off your shoes as soon as you get home.  Put no demands on anyone, especially yourself.  You know what works best.  

I almost feel nostalgia for last summer when we had so many friends for patio visits, separate chip-and-dip bowls and long conversations, albeit six feet apart. With everything outdoors we could let the inside go. To combat the stress, we were easy on ourselves.

I want to carry over some of that summer stillness to now.  To listen to it--the cicadas at night, the Cardinals at daybreak, your favorite warm-weather music. The sounds of children, of water splashing, of bare feet running in the house . . . .  To feel it--the heat and humidity, yes, but also the fresh breezes and cool rain.  Dewy mornings, sunny afternoons, shaded eyes, air-conditioned cars . . . . To touch it--dragonflies gently perched on your hand, combing wet hair.  What says summer to you?  Maybe the stillness is not so much external, but is in our hearts as we pause and appreciate the season. As my yoga teacher says while we settle, waiting her guidance, "Take a breath . . . ."                           

                                                       Nina Naomi

 

 

 

NOURISH YOUR SOUL AFTER A RAIN

Amanita Jacksonii

This is a truly beautiful mushroom with a brilliant red cap.  They are sprouting all over the woods. It is not poisonous, but some look-a likes are deadly.  So we can't eat them! I'm pretty sure I have this labelled correctly, but . . . . this is my first foray into identifying wild mushrooms.  I am way beyond my comfort level.  I could have gotten them all wrong or all right, no telling.  Still, don't you love trying to learn something new? Gills, spots, stalk, cap, bruising, spores--all part of a specialized vocabulary.  Plenty of web sites to help.

 

We've had so much rain in North Carolina that the fungi are exploding.  The amount of rain, in fact, is rather alarming.  So are the fires in California, the melting ice in Glacier National Park, and the grieving mother Orca holding her dead calf for 17 days and 1,000 miles.  It all makes me more than a little nervous.  I'm trying to do my part.  But the rain has definitely brought it's own beauty.  Some friends saw the sprouting mushrooms first when their headlights hit a cluster.  Since then I've been spotting them everywhere, in every shape and size.  I love it! Look at the one below at 7 inches!  And the little thumb-nail sized one.  We must have a hundred of those!

Amanita Jacksonii

The Amanita Jacksonii is usually solitary, but sometimes occurs in scattered groups. Doesn't that description sound more like an animal than a plant?  The Russula, below, is a very complicated genus, with more than 750 species I learned.  Wikipedia says that "Russula is mostly free of deadly poisonous species, and mild-tasting ones are all edible."  Well, that kind of sounds like I'd have to taste one to know, and that makes me nervous too.  I'll have to learn more. 

Russula Mushrooms

The one below is edible, at least it is if I've identified it correctly.  Chicken of the Woods.  Obviously tastes like chicken to some people.  We have a lot of Chicken of the Woods on fallen trunks and heavy branches.  

Chicken of the Woods

But the Northern Tooth fungus is not edible.  It's a combination shelf and tooth fungus.  Since it is a parasite, it causes the central core of a living tree to rot.  Then a strong wind will blow the tree over.  Not surprisingly I found this fungus on a trunk on the ground.  

Northern Tooth Fungus

The next one I've nicknamed Pancake.  It looks like a stack of these with maple syrup and butter would taste just right.  But I'm not going to experiment!  It's enough fun just to hunt these out and photograph them.  Because we have white-tailed deer, who apparently can eat at least some amount of even a toxic mushroom, the ones around our house keep disappearing after a few days.  This too is a subject I'd like to find out more about.  

The ugliest mushroom I found is apparently nicknamed Old Man of the Woods.  Not sure why old men are the butt here.  The ones in my life are as handsome as ever.  But here it is.  It grows alone on the ground with a layer of woolly scales on the top.  

The other treasures in the yard that the rain has helped are the heaps of wild mint and the spreading carpets of moss.  Both now come right up to our patios. Wild mint after a rain smells so wonderful.  

Chasing down these mushrooms and finding more and more squishy new moss is a silent adventure. So much of nature is noisy--the chattering of the birds, the deafening cicadas, the deer snorting, the boisterous foxes that were under our deck (Post:  "Make Your Life a Little Easier, Especially In Your Head"). Finding mushrooms is calming.  They're as beautiful as flowers.  They grow silently out of matter we often think of as dead--thick layers of fallen  leaves. But the natural compost is rich and good.  Pico Iyer (b. 1957), British born travel writer, essayist and novelist of Indian descent, says, 

It's the open spaces in any life, I suspect--

the moments when you lost yourself--

that make for happiness, peace, and clarity.

Each day, by the time I have taken all the pictures of mushrooms that I want, my body is relaxed and my mind quiet.  I've been totally absorbed.  My mind isn't trying to be still; it just happens.