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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.



Friday, April 2, 2021

Compassion in Difficulty

I just ran across the following blog post from last year. What I wrote for others twelve months ago I need for myself right now. Glad to have found it:

 

 

go outside to sit

wander freely among the trees 

pause in a sunbeam 

let rain sprinkles tickle cheeks

see Coyote dash through the yard, a change from his usual saunter-sniff

feel the shadow from overhead brush past and look up to see soaring birds of prey

soothe, comfort, pause, rest

cherish, send love now, embrace the beauty in whatever form it presents itself

 

*          *          *

            

Rummaging through files this morning, I came across a draft of some talking points from a webinar I gave several years ago:  

 

“Acknowledge Grief – what we fear, what we fear we’ll lose, what we’ve already lost

Embrace Compassion – for ourselves, for others

Be a Kind Action Practitioner – takes oh-so-many forms”

 

*          *          *

 

see those pansies already packed in a flat,

the ones that are not even your favorite colors, that are not even evenly-apportioned, that you 

hadn’t even planned to buy,

the ones that – nevertheless - seem to be calling your name?

linger no longer 

plant those very ones today

and see just how glorious tomorrow morning becomes

as you stand outside bare-footed, tousle-headed, three steps out of bed, one sip before coffee:

beholding the rain-scented air and the way a maroon pansy wears its pearls of water

 

*          *          *

 

that lilac bud gently shattered its protection

vulnerable yet imminently viable

raw, exposed, not yet its full lavender hue 

yet willing to do what is its nature

to flourish even in the hailstorms that came repeatedly today 



 

Orig. posted Apr 3, 2020



All blog images created & photographed by Jennifer J. Wilhoit unless otherwise noted. Please circulate images with photo credit: "©2021 Jennifer J. Wilhoit/TEALarbor stories. All Rights Reserved."