I'm never quite sure how much I tell on the blog about my personal life. The Essential Herbal blog is a combination of magazine news (like... be sure and read the free issue posted >>>> and then order a subscription on the website :-) and what goes on around here are Frog Hollow, so I really try to keep it "clean", meaning that if there are unpleasant things, they get glossed over.
For the past 3 1/2 years, one of our brothers (his blog) has been struggling with end stage liver disease. He moved in here about a year and a half ago. It has its ups and downs, to put it mildly. So some days it has been hard to find my own center, and the overflow sometimes spills onto the people around me.
I can remember when I had my first apartment "downtown" that I really, really needed to get into the country at least every 2 weeks. If that didn't happen, I got edgy and tense. Even on the trip there, as soon as the streets opened up to roads, it felt as if layers of worry and concern would fly off, one by one.
Now I live close to the woods. This past month has taken me into them almost daily. Spring is always a major siren song, and I cannot resist finding out what might be blooming, bursting through, or multiplying on the forest floor. This year is a little different though, and I find it so enchanting and calming to walk towards the woods. Even stepping outside the door... looking out the window... setting my bare feet into the grass... all of these actions start a chain of events that make me feel better. Here are some of the pictures from yesterday:
3 comments:
I know what you mean about the woods. I was raised in the Los Angeles area and have ended up in rural northern New Hampshire about 5 miles from the Connecticut River. The contrast is stark. I never knew that the full moon created shadows till I moved here. I remember thinking as a kid if there was anyplace on earth that was totally quiet, that didn't have the continual hum going on even when it was quiet. I know now that, yes, there are such places, particularly in winter. I love listening to the Spring Peepers (frogs) that sing all the time now, birds chirping even in the middle of the night. I recently started a blog over at Typepad called Thoughts from Rural America.Thanks for posting the pictures. Enjoy your beautiful woods.
Ah - moonshadows. My daughter and I used to love dancing in the moonshadows when she was little. They are still fascinating.
I live in the "burbs" in Oregon but I am like you. There is NOTHING like going to the woods and just "being" with Mother Nature. And I, too, have to get out of town at least every 2 weeks or go nuts. I do have a nice sized backyard that I sit in when it isn't raining. Sometimes just being out doors is good for the soul for awhile.
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