Tag: Nature
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Flutterbys
Perhaps we live our lives in parts, segments that seem distinct only in retrospect. But now that I consist of gnarled limbs and painted, fragile leaves already heavy with the luxury of years, I am allowed think of butterflies as ephemeral markers, unlikely bookmarks in my life. I’m not really sure when this idea took…
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Oh wonder! How many goodly creatures are there here.
There are times when it’s all too much -or perhaps, all too little. Here I am close to the end of my season, and to borrow from Macbeth, ‘My way of life is fallen into the sear, the yellow leaf.’ So what is left? What remains of what I wore in the heat of youth?…
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And this our life, exempt from public haunt, finds tongues in trees
I’ve always felt a part of Nature, but now that I’m in my autumn years, there seems to be a special urgency to it. Still, the continued rebirth of green each Spring gives me hope; the longevity of trees that will continue to stand long after I cannot, inspires me; or perhaps it is simply…
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Some relish the saltiness of Time
There are some things that have always filled me with wonder: the flash of colours in the garden as a hummingbird hesitates in a sunbeam, then disappears leaving only memory in its wake; the slow patient lap of waves from who knows where arriving as guests at the door of a tiny beach; the worried…
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Ich und Du?
When I was a child, I had no inkling of cultural appropriation. I eagerly dressed as the cowboy Roy Rogers, and enmeshed myself in what I mistakenly assumed were aboriginal customs of dress and philosophy; I once (and, it must be stressed, unwillingly) played the role of a girl in a Grade 4 school play…
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Wild Medicine
I think it’s good to keep renewing our perspective on things, don’t you? What we view may be similar, but it’s how we see it that might differ; it’s how we value it that could change. When I was a child, my mother was convinced that standing under oak trees was dangerous. At the time…
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I think, therefore I speak
Have you ever been overtaken by a thought whose content seems indescribable, at least initially? Perhaps it happens to us all, but we are usually able to gloss over the difficulty and, by trial and error, attempt to describe it nonetheless. I wonder how often the problem in translation even rises to conscious awareness however.…
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Yet Death will seize the doctor too
Death seems a lot closer now than in my youth; but it was always just around a corner, peeking out from traffic lights, hiding in the limb of a tree I might have climbed. And it’s not as if it suddenly surfaced when I retired either -death is a fact of life; we come from…
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A Flicker of Hope
It’s interesting what catches our attention when we surf the apps on our smartphones nowadays. Some of the more provocative articles have dubious sources, of course, but with a little digging the original study can often be found and the claims checked. The problem, however, is that even these results need to be reproducible in…