Welcome!

Welcome! This is a place to share how we celebrate & deepen our relationship to Nature. Here you will find stories, images, & ideas about wilderness, human nature, & soulfulness. Drawing from the experiences of everyday living, the topics on this blog include: forays into the natural world, the writing life, community service, meditation, creativity, grief & loss, inspiration, & whatever else emerges from these. I invite you on this exploration of the wild within & outside of us: the inner/outer landscape.



Wednesday, November 20, 2024

Monday, November 18, 2024

Monday Meditations

mindful practices to nourish you throughout the day and week



Wander around the outside of your home and photograph a beauty in nature who captures your awareness today. 





Monday, November 11, 2024

Monday Meditations

mindful practices to nourish you throughout the day and week



Meditatively create a simple autumn display that you can place near the entry to your home. 




Wednesday, November 6, 2024

Monday, November 4, 2024

Monday Meditations

mindful practices to nourish you throughout the day and week


Choose one of the following prompts and make a gratitude list focused on that word: compassion, faith, Earth.  




Friday, November 1, 2024

Pause

I treasure you, Blog Reader. Your attention to these posts warms my heart. Thank you! I always have Earthy-creative things to share with you that I hope will inspire your own journey deeper into compassionate relationship with all beings, including the more-than-humans and your own inner wild places.

 

For now, I need to take a pause on these word-filled Friday posts. I have other creative and writing projects that must be finished, not least of all my book manuscript that needs my full focus as I make substantive edits. 

 

In my community efforts with interfaith climate justice work, I have been calling for pauses at events. People are beginning to expect that I will be the person at event planning meetings who calls for us to build moments of reflective silence into these group gatherings. Now it is time to offer my creative work that same moment of contemplative, quiet endeavor. 

 

On the forthcoming post-less Fridays, feel free to:

·      visit the fourteen years of blog posts archived on this site 

(scroll down the left sidebar to select by date, or do a search on the upper left);

·      check out the many short and long videos on my YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmH2LvfKbyw317YkMuiLp8w);

·      go to the website media page for articles, videos, photos, interviews (http://www.tealarborstories.com/pg11.cfm).

 

But please rest assured that Monday Meditations and Wednesday Image of the Week blog posts will continue (except during the winter holy days when TEALarbor stories’ office will be closed Dec. 11th – Jan. 3rd). 

 

I look forward to seeing you on Fridays again on the other side of this productive expanse. It is my fervent invocation that you will recognize your own needs for pause, reflection, and soul nourishment as we move toward winter in the northern hemisphere. 





 

Monday, October 28, 2024

Monday Meditations

mindful practices to nourish you throughout the day and week


Say “thank you” to a tree or plant who is now shedding its foliage.  




Friday, October 25, 2024

fallen

lately, i have fallen again

– it’s cliché i know –

in love, in rapture, in giddy crush, with the:

 

dark glow of Ebony

on the Saltwater’s surface at Sunset yesterday

 

Maple whose leaves blazed 

her fiery hues into the cracks of my heart 

 

Heron who flew low across the Tideline

searching for lunch as i searched for soulfood

 

many faces of Saltwater – blue, silver, ochre, white, peach

an evershifting spectrum of shimmer

 

Clouds who are shaped by Autumn

into layers and hues that blanket my being

 

Kingfisher who rattles and dives

headfirst into the treasure-waters of seafood

 

Hunter’s Moon whose bright orange upper limb

surprisingly peeked through thick Nimbostratus

 

Banana Slug who feasted on apricots

Whole and undigested in a pile of Bear scat

 

Katsura leaves whose cooked-sugar scent

beckons from a distance 

 

spring green Inchworm undulating up a tree trunk

amid Fall’s golds and reds

 

Darkness stretching beyond Dawn and before Dusk

the potent call to explore the crevices where Spirit and matter conjoin

an unlikely reunion of Ethereal with material, heart with body, candlelight with poetry, painting with journaling, Quietude with spoken Blessing

 

Grace

Divine Love

Tender Bliss

 

in love, in rapture, in giddy crush







Monday, October 21, 2024

Monday Meditations

mindful practices to nourish you throughout the day and week


Sit for ten minutes under a tree who’s familiar to you and notice details in the bark and foliage.