Gossamer Naturalist

Tag: Mindfulness

  • January 8th, 2025

    Today I took a walk in a new place, learning the curves of its trails and the sounds of its waters. I had just received some disappointing news, and my vision blurred with the icy wind and the resurfacing of long held professional woes. When your vision blurs in such a way in the sunshine freeze of a Minnesota winter, a sort of tunnel vision forms. That which is directly in front of you becomes the object of focus. While my peripheral vision fades to a blur, the center comes into a sharp and present focus.

    In my walk, I come across a bridge across a creek, narrow and tilting with the ebb of freezing and thawing ground. In this strange snowless Minnesota winter, the creek beneath that bridge is frozen like glass. Its ice layer is smooth and clear and even more see through-able than the towers that rise in Downtown Minneapolis. In my vision focused state, I spot movement. I am watching fish swimming, dancing, beneath this frozen glass. They bob and weave and fight against the current to in place, while the creek moves in its thin glass casing of ice. This water flows to the Mississippi, and so to I believe do these fish. They are both of the same system that feeds the life that flows through the skyscapers of downtown, and then on to the Gulf and the Atlantic. Who knows what links and connections these fish will form, and where they will do so.

    Along with the concept of the interconnectedness of all things comes a mystery. If all things are connected, then how are they connected? What is the family tree of a moment, and how wide do we make that circle. A naturalist answers that question situationally, in every interaction with the public. How wide do I make the circle connecting this frozen pond to the great circulatory system of the Atlantic. Today those circles include the road bordering one side of the creek, the marsh on the other, and the great Mississippi River beyond either. These fish swimming beneath the ice are important. In the flicks of their tails and the coloration of their scales, they tell me that this creek is healthy, despite or because of human action. As a naturalist I communicate that hope and health, and help others see those stories.

  • The Beats of Continuing On

    The Beats of Continuing On

    The Lakes Shore we once paddled continues to breathe-
    In and Out. 
    The siche folds its layers over itself in fractal waves
          Like percussion beats.
    The beats of your breath, have ceased. Is life
    Like a butterfly? 
    Beating its wings, effecting change
    Half a world away.
    Is it the change you fought 
    So hard for in the world. Or is it
    Just the incessant beat of the world marching on?
    You once told me you were afraid
    To imagine the change we marched for-
    	       Side by side lifting a banner in the streets of St. Paul.
    You lived it and where is it now. Here, Now. 
    With the Lake and the rainforests of Panama. 
    	Forever impermanently interwined with reality.

    “Where ever you go, there you are.” He once told me. 
    We had taken such different paths to that same Canadian Beach.
    And the waves of Mother Superior went on 
    With the beating wings of a quail. 
    We walked together from Hattie Cover to the distant point of rock
    And we laughed until the sun set over that glistening Lake.
    And we wept.

    	The waves continue
    	From us to thee
    	Forever impermantently intertwined
    	While we are apart
    	One from the other.

    A Frost’s Amanita I found growing on my driveway this morning.

  • Learning in Time & Place

    Today, now, yesterday, and tomorrow, I sit at my little corner, with my salt lamp, record player, a friends lovely plants, over looking Gitchi Gumee, now bluer than the sky itself. The narrows of Wolf Lake stretch out before me, the space between mountains three.

    It was through these narrows the other day that I lead a class of seventh graders, snowshoeing to the cedar grove where it all simply stands still. They were unimpressed. However, it wasn’t for that day that I sought to impress them in this place, nor for today about a week later. Maybe tomorrow it was for? The cedars and the chaga in the birches takes their time to work their way into our hearts, but inevitably they eventually do.

    Yesterday was a very different adventure. A walkabout alone, through the melting network of ski trails along the Baptism River. I could hear the rushing waters of the Spring melt in this day before the equinox, but could see down the hill stood on. Between myself and the Baptism, a forest of spruce and fir and endless wet and sharp snow. A less interesting venture than a jaunt up the hill, towards a section of birch and the possibility of early buds. There were none, but many grouse and mystery birds abound.

    Learning in place is learning by existing and questioning. Why does this birch bend differently from all the others? Who is making that mysterious call (it was a blue jay)? Will this sunflower seed pop like corn or wild rice (nope)? In the past few years I’ve struggled with finding my own way of asking questions. But yesterday, standing at the deep snowed trail beside the hidden Baptism, I realized that I was asking these questions all the time, but wasn’t taking the time to notice them. As I welcome the Spring equinox today, I create this intention for the next three months; To take the time to notice the questions I’ve been asking myself all along.

    Quacking Aspen buds how do you prepare for the warmth of the sun? Can I do the same?.

  • Imbloc, Candlemas, Approaches

    A dear friend recently told me “I never understood why you loved candles so much, until I took one with me for a late night shower. Then I knew. Its the softness of the light, and the way it interacts with the softness of the world.” Or something like that.

    To be honest, the art of letting a candle burn, and giving into that softness, has at times been lost to me in my craft, especially in these COVID days. The art of making a candle became a routine, a piece of something I do rather than a sacred piece of myself. Momentum sometimes pushes our actions rather than true dedication and mindfulness.

    I live my life by momentum. The seeking of Love, the making of a candle, selling my craft and my work. All momentums, which swirl together without mindfulness to create a life. I suspect many people I share life with feel this same momentum. This is especially true in the depths of the winter nights, when we’re just keeping ourselves going until the spring thaw, and the appreciation of living that comes with it.

    Holidays and reminders break up this momentum, force us to pause and find our mind again. So why not add more holidays?! I dont know if you know Imbloc, a Celtic holiday, the mid-point between the solstice and the equinox which occurs on Feburary 1st. It is candlemas, it is the return of that soft light. St. Valentine’s day celebrations of Love often replace it in America, but why not celebrate both! As Gaby Herstik describes-

    Imbloc is the day when we are allowed to thaw our pains with medicine from the Sun, and grow what we want as we approach the spring equinox and the start of a new cycle. – Inner Witch, pg. 62

    There are some rituals she describes in Inner Witch and in her Imbloc ritual guide which help us find our way from momentum to mindfulness. Go check those out if your interested. https://www.gabrielaherstik.com/shop I myself can offer tools for some of these rituals, beeswax candles which hold in them different elements and facets of life, which can be used in Herstik’s rituals or your own. Contact me if you would like some.

    My intention this Imbloc is not let momentum rule me, and step into mindful action whenever I am able. Sometimes I wont be, and that’s fine. Candles are tool to help me realize this. To be mindful of a flame is to be mindful of the danger of life, but also its softness. Go find that softness as the thaw approaches.