Conscious Tidbits – Natural Wonder

Longs and Meeker Mountains

“It is a wholesome and necessary thing for us to turn again to the earth
and in the contemplation of her beauties, to know of wonder and humility.”
~Rachel Carson

Rachel Carson is one of my personal heroes. She published a thoughtful little book called Silent Spring in 1962. Her book exposed the dangers of environmental pollution and galvanized the early environmental movement in the United States.

I honor Rachel today.

Here’s to people who hold onto their knowing. Here’s to people who realize that we owe our lives to this beautiful Earth mother that nurtures and supports us. And here’s to people who change the world by standing up for what they love.

Today I’m Grateful for… January Blue

“Blue Skies, Smiling at Me…”

“You are the sky.
Everything else – it’s just the weather.”

~Pema Chodron 

Today is another January Blue kind of day…Anything is possible when the Sky is this blue!

But, why is the sky so blue?? Why not red or purple or green?  Am I the only one who wonders about this?  Apparently not. 🙂  NASA scientists share the scientific reason for our brilliant blue sky below:

“It is easy to see that the sky is blue. Have you ever wondered why? A lot of other smart people have, too. And it took a long time to figure it out!

The light from the Sun looks white. But it is really made up of all the colors of the rainbow.  Like energy passing through the ocean, light energy travels in waves, too. Some light travels in short, “choppy” waves. Other light travels in long, lazy waves.Blue light waves are shorter than red light waves.

All light travels in a straight line unless something gets in the way to reflect it (like a mirror, bend it (like a prism, or scatter it (like molecules of the gases in the atmosphere

Sunlight reaches Earth’s atmosphere and is scattered in all directions by all the gases and particles in the air. Blue light is scattered in all directions by the tiny molecules of air in Earth’s atmosphere. Blue is scattered more than other colors because it travels as shorter, smaller waves. This is why we see a blue sky most of the time.”

(from http://spaceplace.nasa.gov/blue-sky/)

So, that’s the logical reason. Pretty cool.

But I also love this 14th century Persian mystic’s “crazy”, illogical thoughts about our blue sky:

“Even 
After 
All this time
The Sun never says to the Earth,

“You owe me.”

Look
What happens
With a love like that,
It lights the whole sky.”

~Hafiz 

Hope you’re having a January Blue sky kind of day too.  And if you woke up to face a gray sky – inside or outside – what would it take to shift and choose January Blue instead?  Just go for it.

Advice to Myself – Meander

St. Vrain in Snow

Rivers hardly ever run in a straight line.
Rivers are willing to take ten thousand meanders
and enjoy every one
and grow from every one.
When they leave a meander,
they are always more
than when they entered it.
When rivers meet an obstacle,
they do not try to run over it.
They merely go around
but they always get to the other side.
Rivers accept things as they are,
conform to the shape they find the world in,
yet nothing changes things more than rivers.
Rivers move even mountains into the sea.
Rivers hardly ever are in a hurry
yet is there anything more likely
to reach the point it sets out for
than a river?
by
James Dillet Freeman

Me·an·der   v.
1. To follow a winding and turning course: Streams tend to meander through level land.
2. To move aimlessly and idly without fixed direction: vagabonds meandering through life. See Synonym wander.
—————————
[From Latin maeandercircuitous windings, from Greek maiandros, after Maiandros, the Maeander River in Phrygia, noted for its windings.]                                                                    From http://www.thefreedictionary.com

 
 
 ∭

We call upon the waters that rim the earth, horizon to horizon,
that flow in our rivers and streams, that fall upon our gardens and fields,
and we ask that they teach us and show us the way.
~Chinook Blessing

 

Spacious Sky, Spacious Mind

Spacious Sky
“…it’s the opening
that’s the point. It is that lightheartedness, that bigness,
that spacious 
mind and love that can hold the suffering and accommodate it
and integrate 
it and understand it.”
~Susan Salzberg
 
Advice to myself today – be Spacious, my friend.
as Spacious as the sky…

Mountain Gratitude

“Climb the mountains and get their good tidings.
Nature’s peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees.
The winds will blow their own freshness into you,
and the storms their energy,
while cares will drop off like autumn leaves.”
~John Muir, 1901

I am so grateful to live here, bathed in the energy of mountain! Two years ago, after decades living in the flatlands of the Midwest, I jumped at the chance to move to the Rocky Mountains. And my life has opened up to vast new vistas and amazing new ideas since then.  It is the vast and expansive energy of the mountains playing in me and with me.

I am so grateful.

☾ ☽

Holy Night

Sun

falls over the edge of

a silent Earth

reverent day’s end

holy night slides in

and dark expands into

a landscape of dreams

I am full of this night

potent with possibility

in this dark space

waiting for moonrise

 and remembering

the light.

~Nancy L

 

Simple Joys Abound

Sun on Frost

 “Joy is the simplest form of gratitude.”
Karl Barth

Day Joy

wool socks
long walk

quiet woods
friendly dog

sun on frost.

Night Joy

moonless sky
soft bed

warm promise

dark quiet
winter dreams.

simple joys abound