Blog
Nature is Nurturing
In the world today we all need a little or a lot of nature. Wherever you live, nature exists around you and even within you.
Begin today
Making the first step is often the most difficult in your journey to happiness.
It is worth it and so are you!
10/16/24
Happy
I’m happy today and I want to know why! I took my vitamins yesterday and the day before. I processed my raw emotions yesterday and the day before as well.
In a dream I had last night, the main female character said, “I’m moving to the country.” Her statement was matter of fact and it felt like my future self. My future self in terms of making a choice.
It’s one thing to make a choice each day. Today I got up, made coffee, got dressed and listened to a podcast as I walked my dog to the river.
The choice to ‘move to the country’ could be a physical change in location or a mental, emotional, or spiritual change.
I live in the country already, although my house is ‘in town.’ On my walk I thought about asking a friend to go for a walk with me sometime and how that doesn’t seem that possible because it seems like people are busy in life.
I thought about the idea of going ‘over the hill’ which is the way out of town to get to a nearby city where many people go for shopping and work.
I don’t have to go over the hill for anything unless I really want to. I am in the country, and I live in the country. I take walks, eat fruit, hang out by the river, and spend time in quiet contemplation.
The character in the dream that made the decision to move to the country took ownership of her decision and that is what the dream is telling me. Take ownership of my decisions.
9/6/24
Church Party
On a hard, metal chair
in the basement, I sit.
cold, unwilling
The older ones come
through the door
Into the kitchen.
“You want some cake?” they ask.
Religion is in the freezer
And I can’t go home.
am I hungry? no.
Now the cake is on
the plate, in my mouth.
*Poem written in 2002.
4/23/24
Disconnection is my addiction
I love connecting. My emotions can be overwhelming. I can and will find and use tools to process and understand my emotions. I have given my power to others. I give my power back to myself. I love and accept myself.
8/16/24
A fresh start
I think the starter became better because I let it ferment for longer. Because I waited to add the ingredients, I feel are best--organic flour--and I was patient with getting the flour out of town when I was feeling up to the task, the result of my pancakes was fluffy and yummy!
I would like to take this concept to another area of my life: relationships. I want to have the right ingredients for relationships with people I love and care about. I want to know that I can be patient for myself and others when processing emotions.
I have been feeling emotional lately--this is not new--but I have. I am a feminine being and I am not afraid of my emotions. In fact, I quite like them. It’s when I realize I can and will take space for myself to process emotions that I feel that they are actually helpful.
My emotions can tell me something is wrong in my body, they can tell me that something is wrong in another person as well. I am sensitive to all of this and that doesn’t have to be a negative thing. It helps to protect me, and I can look to them to help me establish healthy boundaries with myself and others.
I know that by being patient and adding the right ingredients when it is the right time for me will result in much better relationships than before.
My sourdough starter is named Sater Meadough and is named after my favorite place to be in nature with my family. I chose this name because it is a special place for me where I feel refreshed and renewed and feel joy! It wasn’t until after I chose the name Sater Meadow that I realized I could change it to Sater Meadough--perfectly transformed into the name for my new starter!
P.S.
My car recently got a new starter.
I think I will too.
8/9/24
The fire
20 miles away from where I live a fire is burning. I feel the feeling of fire when it is dark and late at night. I feel the horses afraid. I feel the animals confused. I feel the people devastated. I feel the community. I feel the help. I feel the hope.
I’m closer to the fire than I have ever known I’ve been. The fire outside of me. The fire within. I am afraid. I am not afraid. I am full of joy. I’m full of sadness. I’m full of peace.
I know this about myself. I am a feeling being. I am full of kindness and love. Love is bread. Let’s break bread. It’s about belonging to a group yet being beautifully independent. We are free to be on our own, yet we desire others to connect with.
What we can do when we are fully ourselves is beautiful and magical. As our full selves we inspire and enlighten each other.
I feel for the fire and the fire feels me.
8/2/24 Grief and dill weed
A vulnerable blog entry
To Sal
I was in a large grocery store and a man behind me in line was carrying a large bundle of dill as if it were a bouquet of flowers. Another man behind him asked what it was. Enthusiastically, and with an air of happiness and pride, he told him it was dill, and that he was making dill pickles. “I guess I’ve never seen it” the man behind him replied.
This stuck out to me because so many people are unaware of what different fruits, vegetables, herbs, nuts, and seeds look like in their original state before they are processed. People don’t know what the food they eat looks like.
I started thinking about people today and how they are disconnected from real life. It’s not just food, but everything else that is or isn’t a basic need—water, clothing, shelter, transportation, electronics…the list goes on.
How could we not know what something so essential—food—looks like?
Similarly, I have been experiencing emotions of grief, from several people telling me of deaths of loved ones recently, or of people close to passing. I even heard of a death of a family friend, my grandmother’s best friend.
These deaths are showing me what grief feels like. Instead of running away from it, I am facing it and allowing myself to feel the emotions of grief.
People and dogs have died in the last several years as well. I know that I can be a centered and grounded living support to those experiencing grief because I feel it so much. Growing up, my mother shielded me from grief. It was to protect me. I was a child, and she didn’t want me to go into the hospital room when my grandpa was dying.
I can heal by facing and processing grief. I want to face and process grief. It helps me to help others in this way. By hearing their stories and experience in the moment, and feeling present to what they are going through, I am showing them the connection that humans are meant to make with each other.
Life is full of emotions and there are so many different ones. We may not know what grief looks like but feeling a variety of emotions is what makes us living beings.
The night before my dog Sal passed away, I pet her lightly and gave her a kiss goodnight and said, “I love you, Sal.” I felt a sense of lightness especially so that evening. She passed away the next morning.
7/26/24 Cleansing is necessary for the human in society today.
A friend recently said: “It’s good that you guys do that” after I mentioned that I’m not eating bread right now. The beautiful sourdough bread she had made was sitting on the counter.
It is good to do juice cleanses. But I am going to take it a step further and say, it is necessary.
I am eating some cooked foods now after a few days of juice fasting and eating raw/mostly raw foods. I am feeling energetic and well. I am feeling happy. I am feeling like everyone can benefit from this.
I know that changing what I eat has helped me mentally, spiritually, physically, and emotionally. I’m done eating things that don’t sound like food, aren’t food, and are harmful to human health.
I’m glad I can eat fresh fruit and veggies and be happy about it. I am full of joy, peace, and gratitude today.
I thank you, earth for giving me what I need.
7/19/24
Rebirth of Rose
I’m about to break my fast from a three-day juice cleanse. I’m glad I am letting my body take care of itself.
I’ve been doing somatic or yin yoga in the morning and going on bike rides and spending time by the water reading.
I am committing to being healthy and I feel so good about it. The healthy habits I will continue to do are drinking good water, eating what is good for me, doing yoga, riding my bike, and any exercise that feels good to me. I will read books and write in my journal and play music.
The unhealthy habits that I don’t need are drugs and alcohol, caffeine, sugar, processed foods, and unproductive time on the internet.
Why do I want to do this?
Because what I feel has held me back is feeling insecure about myself and not feeling like I’m good enough.
I know how to take care of myself, and I know I am worthy of health and happiness!
I will do whatever it takes to be healthy and happy.
I have creative ideas that I am not able to pursue if I am not feeling my best.
I am dedicated to my creativity, to nature, and to live in harmony with my family.
I planted these two plants from seed for a very personal reason to me.
They grew and at one point started to look as if they would die. I repotted them, giving them a new home and new foundation. I added good soil to them. I kept watering them.
Now they are making me feel so happy today and it makes me want to cry. It makes me want to cry because it is so beautiful how life is.
When you take care of yourself, give yourself a better home, a better foundation, you can feel it. When you feed yourself the right things, you feel good. If you keep watering yourself, you will grow.
I am a flower, and I am growing. Look how much I’ve grown!
I am a rose
I am a strong woman because I don’t give up.
I am a strong woman because I can be accepting of others even when I am not being heard.
I am a strong woman because I will do what is best for me even if others are saying unpleasant things to me.
I am a strong woman because I love others even if they are capable of hurting me.
I am a strong woman because I love myself even though I am not perfect.
I am a strong woman because I know that I can support myself.
I am a strong woman because I improve my mind, body, and spirit.
I am a strong woman because I take time to smell the flowers.
I am a strong woman because I am a rose.
Sides
It’s interesting that people turn to social media to connect with others when really, they are disconnecting from others and themselves. Who is being represented in your profile, in your posts, videos, etc. and which sides of yourself do you want others to see?
I want people to see me as a beautiful, talented, creative individual that loves nature.
I love and accept myself to the way I am on the outside and the inside.
I can create in many forms: music, art, photography, writing and more.
I enjoy visiting beautiful places in nature with my family. We love to find things! Rocks, mushrooms, edible plants…
What I want most is to represent myself in a new reality living in nature in the woods and the beach—anywhere we want!
There are obstacles to me accomplishing this.
Obstacles within myself.
One of the obstacles is Pre-menstrual dysphoric disorder also known as PMDD. I think of it as a really bad case of PMS.
I am telling you this because I would like some help with it. I see myself as a happy and positive person. Often more positive than others and positive to a fault even if you see that as possible!
Right before my period I stop feeling positive and I often feel more irritable, moody, sad, and upset.
I like to get through things like this in the most natural way possible and as you probably know, doctors aren’t about that.
They want you to take prescription drugs for everything.
I want to heal.
So, here is a side of me that I really don’t know what to do with. Do I talk about it, do I not? Will talking about it make me seem confusing and chaotic to other people?
Does it matter?
Do I matter?
I can tell you that it does matter and that I do matter.
But what difference does that make?
How do I improve myself and my life?
When looking at this side of me I feel like I want help to accomplish my goal: to live in nature with my family and support myself and my family with my creative business and any other project that will suit me digitally so I can sustain the camping and traveling lifestyle.
I’m in an online course right now about improving conscious business and one thing I wrote about as a limiting belief was that I didn’t know if I would be able to take care of myself when living on the road.
I know the right tools, approach, and support are out in the world to help me with this.
But I need that with me in my house. Helping me declutter the majority of my belongings.
I want to get this is done within a month. The way my life is set up right now is not working for me.
I’m not happy with it.
This is where ‘positivity to a fault’ comes in.
Tomorrow or the next day, my period will be over. I will feel good again. Positive, happy, excited about life. I’ll happily do the dishes, laundry, clean the house, take care of the animals, etc.
I might ‘forget’ about my goal and go about daily life. Decluttering here or there while still wanting to get rid of everything. But that desire to accomplish my goal shrinks and I proceed with day-to-day life with a family, part time job, and is that all there is?
Right now, it seems like it.
But in a few days, there will be limitless possibilities, love, freedom, joy, acceptance, peace, tranquility, and support of loved ones.
And I will be in recovery from PMDD symptoms.
And I will be on the other side of myself.
Philosophy
In junior college I didn’t set out to complete a specific degree. I took courses I was interested in. One of them was philosophy. My philosophy teacher reminded me of Jerry Garcia. I wasn’t the only one that thought that. It was known.
There was even a class I wanted to take called Philosophy and the Grateful Dead. In childhood, I remember getting Skeletons from the Closet on cassette tape at a yard sale. I thought it would be interesting to take the class and learn about how culture and philosophy play a role in this band and music in general. I didn’t end up taking the class, but I could still study ethnomusicology.
There a YouTube channel I love called CheapRVliving. The philosophical individual that started that channel has a new channel called The Examined Life Daily, about philosophy, psychology, and culture—all those interests I learned about in junior college!
Just as I was thinking about starting a nomadic support group, I came across this new channel. This channel invites you to participate and be a part of a community.
Going through a lot in life can be of great value when processed, understood, and shared with others. Let’s support ourselves and each other.
Bob is a wise man.
Knowing my Talent
I played clarinet in band and many other clarinetists would say things like “I’m not as good as you.” I felt close to them since spending time with them in band and on band trips and some of them were my friends.
In band a lot of comparisons were made between individuals within each ‘section’ or group of instruments. In that setting it is to be expected.
The final came up in high school and it was to record (on cassette tape) yourself playing scales and a song. Each person was supposed to state their name aloud at the beginning of the tape.
I completed my tape and I was proud of it. I knew I did a good job. Band members expected me to be in the first band instead of the second band because I was good. I turned my tape into the basket in the band room where all the final tapes were supposed to be turned in.
When it was time for the announcements of the first and second band members, to my surprise, the band instructor said that he had not received my cassette tape final. We discussed this in his office.
I told him that I turned it in as instructed. It must have been misplaced or stolen.
Nothing was done about it.
He marked it down as failed to turn in.
I was not permitted to re-take the assignment.
I do think I know who would have stolen the tape. But there was nothing I could do.
The band instructor didn’t believe me, unfortunately.
So, I was 3rd chair in the second band.
I wasn’t seen or heard.
But I DO hear myself.
One of the songs I have written is about hearing myself even when others don’t. I believe that by writing and playing songs that reclaim my power, I am healing myself from this cassette tape final situation and other similar situations where I have not been heard.
To literally not be heard, to be erased (which is what I felt was done to the tape: stolen, my name erased, and another name from another student taped over, passing the music part off as their own) to be told something untrue about myself (and by default my abilities) is very strange to me.
I have come to the conclusion that it was a form of protection by the universe. This experience is one reason why I didn’t take band every year of high school. I took guitar instead and that was great.
The final was a live performance with two guitar parts, and I played with my best friend. A much better experience than being told that I never turned in the final.
I know I passed the final. I know I was better than 3rd chair in the second band. How it was recorded on my report card isn’t what is important. How I feel about my skills and abilities and myself, is.
And I feel good. And I still love to play the clarinet and do.
The song I wrote is called “I hear me (crickets).”
The Story of the Snake & My Inner Child Meditation
My favorite park I used to visit in childhood had a bamboo area that felt like a bamboo ‘cave’ to me. I loved it in there so much. It would stay shady and cool on a hot day.
One day I was in the grass at this park, and I saw what I told my mom was a ‘lizard.’
It was actually a snake.
A rattlesnake.
The snake was curled up in the grass napping in the warm sun. I pet the snake lightly and admired its beauty.
In the meditation, I was at this park, with the snake again.
I realized that I wanted to be with the snake. I enjoyed its beauty, its energy, and how it absorbed the sun’s warmth.
I wasn’t aware of its toxins.
I wanted to be with the snake, in the sun on the warm grass because the snake was so beautiful.
This describes my interpersonal relationships. I want to be with people, friends, or partners. I enjoy their energy and see them as beautiful.
But I am not always aware of their toxins.
I see the good in the snake and in people.
I felt that I wanted to help the snake, keep it company just be around the snake because I loved its beauty and how different it was from me.
With the people in my life, I want to help them by being around them and giving them my good, positive energy too.
I felt good about making this connection within myself and I have always seen this as a beautiful moment in childhood.
My mother responded in fear telling me “That’s a rattlesnake!”
She was afraid, but I wasn’t.
The funny thing is. I am pretty sure I knew it was a snake. I just didn’t want my mom to be scared. She didn’t like snakes and I knew she would tell me not to go near it.
But I love snakes. And I love people no matter what they have inside of them that could be dangerous to me.
And this is what is beautiful.
About me.
I am not afraid. To love.
The meaning of the changing of a season
Fall means Halloween. Fall means pumpkins. Different colors and textures.
Have you ever rolled a pumpkin down the street?
I feel most like me in the fall.
In this photo I took at 3 Sisters Greenhouse in Emmett, Idaho, I feel like my childhood self. I came to this spot after visiting for a drum circle and knew I wanted to come back to take portraits.
My son and I took pictures in the evening. It is fun and freeing and even silly to me.
Pumpkins make me happy.
Tea Time
I found these while I was walking on the levee by the river. I thought of my grandma and grandpa. They had a wooden game with holes and these golf tees where you jump over one and take one out.
It made me feel good to see two of them and I feel they represent my grandma and grandpa.
I would play with the game and observe the simple moment of time passing at my grandparents’ house.
Playing with the game was like a meditation. There were different color tees, so I could arrange them in different patterns on the triangular shaped wooden board.
I feel these golf tees are telling me to take time to be observant. It is now fall, but I feel like it is like spring for me. My birthday is in fall and that is like a new beginning. My insides want to express words and music that I have created and more that I will continue to create.
For me this means recording my original music.
Fall brings to mind tea and time in quiet contemplation. I have been feeling like this throughout summer. Summer was strange and I feel like I didn’t experience the seasons the same this year. My spirit feels like spring, and I want to combine that inner child spirit spring feeling with the cozy warm loving fall feeling.
So, if today is the first day of fall (or my inner spring), then it is the perfect day to start recording music.
Stay tuned!
Best Friend
I want a best friend. Do I have one? Or two or three? Yes. But we don’t see each other often. They live far away or are busy with work, home and relationships. The best friend I want is the kind you can’t get rid of. They come over in the morning, afternoon, evening, and we have sleepovers! We go shopping or camping or hiking or swimming or take our kids to the park. We both have kids but we want to be kids too! Yes we are responsible but we want to have fun too! We want to do crafts, paint, play music and dance! My best friend is my partner in life. We may have relationships or are married but we love spending time with our best friend. If this is you—please respond!
A message from the trees
I typed an accidental text message a while ago and it said:
‘sad tree look rm b mpg.’
I felt that it meant that I need to pay attention to the trees and help them be happy. Also pay attention to the m.p.g. (miles per gallon). My initials are R. M. B. is one of my middle initials. I saved the accidental text that didn’t send as a note because I found it interesting.
I am currently camping with my family: my partner, our seven year old son and our two dogs. Our Geo Tracker gets pretty good m.p.g. but our Chevy Suburban does not. We use it to pull our camp trailer. We mostly drive the Tracker.
I was hiking with my family in the forest and I suddenly got ‘cramps’ and felt that I needed to stop hiking. I told my family to come back to get me and I found a place to sit down.
It was 4:44 PM and the same message was on my phone again (from the note I had saved). It added a couple of words at the end:
‘sad tree look rm b mpg look look’
So my attention was drawn to it even more.
I meditated for a bit and my womb felt better. I feel that it drew me to that spot in the woods. I looked at the four feathers I had found while I was hiking. Each one was unique. I sat with the trees, absorbing their energy and feel I received their message.
After a while I could hear my family calling me and I had to find my way out of the forest. They were honking the horn on the Tracker to make sure I knew where they were. I made it to the road and down to the parking spot, picking up a half full plastic water bottle on the way. I found them and I was grateful to have received a message from the trees.
Before going camping I listened to a podcast that had a guest on who was talking about growing trees that would be more sustainable than pine. She said it takes ten years to grow a crop, a good amount of money could be made on the trees and it is much better for the environment.
There are two places that the specific tree she mentioned likes to grow and one of them is Oregon. I would love to own land there and grow trees.
We are planning on visiting the Pacific NorthWest soon and I really would like to explore the possibility of helping the trees.
Work Cited
Anderson, Michelle, and Eric Rankin, co-hosts. “World Tree: A Green Love Story with Wendy Burton.” Awakening Code Radio, Apple Podcasts app, 6 Aug. 2020.