For me it is difficult to pick just one, but if I had to I would pick the Ocean and all the sea creatures, 2nd to that is the beautiful flowers that blossom in the spring my favorite season.
To be sure,
this is an unfair question,
but I will do my best.
I think that the urge to Live
is what keeps the universe thriving,
in spite of what we humans to
to control it
or stamp out what we don’t like . . .
the pure energy,
the flame
that burns in every sentient being
is so powerful
that Life will do it’s very best,
and then some,
to come forth against all obstacles . . .
like a fragile little flower
growing up and thriving in the smallest crack of cement.
All creatures
are artists, story tellers, and musicians . . .
the eternal seas,
the clouds in the sky,
the rocks and stones
scattered about the world,
the earth on which we tread.
. . . the inherent fire burning in all of us
to grow and reproduce,
even in the most dire of circumstances . . .
the impulse to create,
to Be for the sake of being.
I immediately thought of Joseph and how he reminds us all of the importance of water. Every time I enjoy a hot shower, I am reminded of the thousands, maybe millions, who have no way to let hot and safe water clean their bodies and lift their spirits. Having lived in AZ where water is scarce, my heart aches when I see sprinkler system throwing water on the pavement instead of the lawns that some are grooming. I am sad when I see plastic thrown into our creeks, rivers and oceans. I often sigh and long for us all to turn to the use of rock instead of grass for our yards. Not to mention the noise and air pollution caused by lawnmowers. Fresh, clean, hot and cold water bring me great joy but also deep concern. Why? because we as a species in so many countries just take it for granted. I wonder if someday in the not to distant future if knock-down-drag-out wars might be fought over fresh and clean water. I remember seeing the musical, “Urine Town” several years ago. It was very well performed by talented people but I left the theatre tense and sad. It’s warning about water swirling in my head and heart.
I returned to MN yesterday for a great Thanksgiving filled with traditional American foods. How was your Thanksgiving?
I spent a week in CA with my mom, and while everything was unexpected, I still appreciate our quality time together. Months ago, my mom told me that she worried the avocado tree in her garden might not survive due to the drought. As I was there, I was awed by how resilient the avocado tree was. It is still alive despite the difficult weather. I can tell how adorable it is. My mom doesn’t have much experience taking care of the tree. Despite lacking nutrition, the avocado tree still produces a bunch of fruits. The avocados are small, but the taste is so good! How beautiful the gifts of the earth bring to it, and how much joy it brings to me and my family.
One gift? Oh boy. I guess one is the earth itself. The dirt. The rocks and sand and soil. As a kid, I couldn’t get enough of it. My ankles were constantly ringed with dirt. My sock were disgusting. A pile of dirt was days of entertainment.
I still like to play in the dirt. Riding my bike or hiking. I like gardening and planting things in it. And I like studying geology. I like going to the desert and seeing all the exposed rocks and formations and…dirt. Yes, dirt brings me joy. Sounds strange saying it. But it’s true.
Now, of course there are so so so many other earth gifts, but just thinking about the joy that I experience being out in the dirt, make me smile.
Another “just one” challenge ㋡. It’s a tie between seeds and trees.
Seeds are sheer magic. Planting each spring, I wait for those tiny packets–various sizes, shapes, textures–to break open in the dark and push up toward the light. When that first bit of green emerges, definite joy! A catalog for an heirloom seed company just arrived in the mail the other day and I know once I open it I’ll be lost in all the possibilities, far beyond what I have room to grow in my relatively small yard.
Trees talk to each other, they help each other, they share resources and warn of insect attacks, they serve as homes for so many types of creatures, they soar and spread and have so many shapes of the trees themselves and their leaves, blossoms, and seeds, they give us oxygen.
I’m so lucky to be able to walk in a legacy forest in a big park near my home (legacy meaning not old growth but it’s been many decades since any logging happened there). That park is one of the reasons I wanted to live in this neighborhood. The other day a friend and I heard not one but two great horned owls hooting to each other high up in the trees. In another part of the park we heard one of them again giving its alarm barks, no doubt because we were right below the clump of trees it was in. We couldn’t see it–trees make great hiding places.
I went to a talk by a local woman, Julie Ratner, who uses an Italian device called Plants Play to record the electrical impulses from trees, kind of like taking their EKG. It plays the impulses as sounds. You can hear some at https://www.restoringearthconnection.org/friends-of-trees if you scroll down. One is cedar in undisturbed forest, the other Sitka spruce by a clearcut.
I’m looking forward to reading everyone else’s answers. I’ll likely agree with all of them!
I love your reflection on trees,
dear Barb . . .
they are wise and magnificent teachers to us all, and a great reflection on the state of the health of our precious little planet. ♥️
Fresh vegetables! I get great joy from admiring the varied colors and tastes of all the different kinds of vegetables that grow from the earth. Although I am not a gardener, I enjoy going to a local organic farm and getting a variety of wonderful vegetables. They have built some hoop houses, so even in the winter they are able to offer many wonderful vegetables– squash, lettuce, watermelon radish, kale, tokyo bekana, carrots, beets, potatoes, cabbage… I am grateful to the earth for cradling these vegetables and giving them nutrients as they grow, and to the hardworking farmers who raise them.
The gift of winged creatures. I love their show at the bird 🐦 bath 🛁. Their song of good cheer. Their flight in the air. The grazing in the parks and fields. Their gifts of food for us.
Yes! I have a tree right outside my office window where we hang suet and a birdfeeder. Love all of them swooping in and filling their feathered bellies. Where we live I can walk by the water and see great blue herons, buffleheads, ducks, Canadian geese, loons, purple martins, and one time a kingfisher. We also have bald eagles, hawks, and I hear owls at night in the nearby park (and on a walk there in the afternoon Wednesday).
Snow brings me great joy. The Twin Cities hasn’t had a snowstorm yet. We’re due for 1 at some point. Snow makes the view look beautiful, especially on trees.
Cows, specifically their milk as I just made homemade whipped cream for my pumpkin pie and am enjoying it in my coffee this morning too.
and I have to also say cannabis and it’s medicinal benefits. ” You can’t spell healthcare without “THC.”
Another question where it’s hard to choose just one! The earth offers so many gifts, but today, I will pick trees as the one that brings great joy. The variety, the height, how they stand so strong yet sway in storms. They help keep the air clean. They provide shade. Many provide fruit. They are homes for birds, squirrels and more. And they are so beautiful, and so colorful this time of year where I am! There are trees in our new neighborhood that I have never seen before, and one currently is red on top and yellow/orange on the bottom. I am intrigued with this tree! I read something on a page I follow on instagram that said trees become their strongest in autumn… they aren’t bearing fruit or making new leaves, so all of their energy is getting pushed into the earth thru their roots… what appears as death is the catalyst for new life. Reading that made me appreciate this time of year more.
Love this. (I gave trees and seeds a tie in my answer)
I learned (or relearned, maybe) that when we see the autumn colors it’s the chlorophyll retreating so we’re seeing colors that were there all along. Magic.
“trees become their strongest in autumn… they aren’t bearing fruit or making new leaves, so all of their energy is getting pushed into the earth thru their roots… what appears as death is the catalyst for new life.” Trees are my first choice among many, too. This quote adds new insights into why.
I was going to say coffee. For it is almost magical most mornings. But ‘joy’? It is true that it is simply better for everyone if I get some each morning. Joy is not exactly the experience. Gifts are joyful when surprises besides. I expect coffee. It is an important part of this morning ritual of living.
So sitting. eyes closed, scanning and bumping around {and sipping coffee) I came up with cows.
I took a year off and worked on a farm when I was 39. I was a farm hand. Low man on the totem pole. The object of much sport at first as I was clearly a city boy and did not have workman hands (the first thing my colleagues looked at apparently in making their assessment). Yet, I surprised them and myself by becoming, quickly, adept at the work. It did bring me joy. But I was going to talk of cows.
There was a small enterprise on the farm that was essentially providing the food for the main house. A part of that being a dairy including two Jersey cows. The operation being small there were no milking machines so we milked by hand. THAT was tricky. My manager trained me in terms of position and hand motion. But beyond that it was the cow that did the instruction. Usually very patient and tolerant, but at the outset would sometimes take 10 minutes to deign to let her milk down and allow me to fill the bucket. My head gently nestled in her side in front of her left hip and smelling her fur. Eating hay, she would regularly turn her amazing eyes on me with a side-long glance veiled by impossibly long and delicate eyelashes. Our eyes would meet. Somehow satisfied she would return to the hay as I worked. It was a proprietary glance. And there was classical music playing on the radio from the local Public Radio station. These cows were very particular.
The cows were very interested in me. They followed me with their eyes those first months. Watching my progress. Our daily bonding punctuated their oversight and by the end of the fourth month I believe I was relegated to being a member of the community by them.
One of them died after calving and I had the job of bringing up the calf as the owners had decided to keep her off grass and sell her as veal. So I would take the bucket of warm milk after milking the surviving cow and bring it to the calf. Tiny at first she was so excited by the smell but couldn’t figure the bucket out so I had to put milk in my cupped hand and hold it above her head (where she instinctively looked for the source) and once she tasted and sucked at it lowered my hand (with her lips firmly attached as she tried to suckle my palm) into the bucket…a choreography we had twice a day for months. Of course she grew, and got stronger, and calves ram their heads into the side of their mother just above the udder to release more milk, which in our case resulted in her periodically bucking up into me sending me and the bucket into wild contortions to maintain balance,,,it was a part of the dance.
The surviving Jersey was SO proud of me, and knowing her milk was going to her late friend’s progeny, she would wander over to that part of the paddock where she could look into the open shed where the calf and I were dancing with the bucket and supervise approvingly. She did that every time.
So now, out and about in the world doing life when I come across by surprise a field with some cows I beam with unrestrained love and affection for all cows. Truly, joy springs up in my heart.
The calf and I were very attached. And my farm manager sent me on an all day errand to get bee supplies purposefully to have me off farm when they came to collect her. So I was spared the agony of her possibly looking at/for me. I admonished him afterwards for I would have liked to have said farewell. But he said that, although he did want to shield me from the trauma, he really wanted to make sure that Urgulanilla the surviving cow (named after the wife of Claudius Emperor of Rome Plautia Urgulanilla…it was that kind of place…I loved my farm manager!) wouldn’t think I had anything to do with it, and so allow me to continue milking her.
I kind of figured someone might answer “coffee”, which many of us include on lists of things we’re grateful for.
I love your description of time with the cows. My older brothers raised cows for 4-H projects (before I was born). They described milking the cows in the morning, and the barn cats lining up to wait for them to aim a squirt of milk toward their open mouths.
I write my responses first before reading others reflections – I was amazed of your ‘cow’ reflection and immediately made me smile. My two brothers worked on a diary farm and I have fond memories of milking calves (with a bottle) and seeing how a dairy farm works. (they had the best yogurt too – Seven Stars Farm, Kimberton, PA) Cows have beautiful eyes. Thank you Howie.
Oh my, one. As I sit here amongst 20 inches of fresh snow and more falling, I am reminded of the gift of water in all its shapes and forms. And each and every form does bring me joy, from the quiet, barely audible stream, to snow falling as it is right now. I am 3 hours N of my home this morning, close to the shore of Lake Superior. Lake effect snow at its’ best!❄️
WOW!! One gift from the earth…goodness that puts me on the spot!! First thought was trees–everywhere you go there are trees..all different shapes and sizes…I love the old trees, the Redwoods (which I hardly ever see) Spanish Moss…Big old spruce trees…Pine trees, Fir trees…Can you imagine their history?? And guess ….the best tree of all!!! The Christmas Tree. Wishing you all a wonderful, wonderful day.
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For me it is difficult to pick just one, but if I had to I would pick the Ocean and all the sea creatures, 2nd to that is the beautiful flowers that blossom in the spring my favorite season.
To be sure,
this is an unfair question,
but I will do my best.
I think that the urge to Live
is what keeps the universe thriving,
in spite of what we humans to
to control it
or stamp out what we don’t like . . .
the pure energy,
the flame
that burns in every sentient being
is so powerful
that Life will do it’s very best,
and then some,
to come forth against all obstacles . . .
like a fragile little flower
growing up and thriving in the smallest crack of cement.
All creatures
are artists, story tellers, and musicians . . .
the eternal seas,
the clouds in the sky,
the rocks and stones
scattered about the world,
the earth on which we tread.
. . . the inherent fire burning in all of us
to grow and reproduce,
even in the most dire of circumstances . . .
the impulse to create,
to Be for the sake of being.
Thank you for that reflection Dear Sparrow.
Beautiful.
I immediately thought of Joseph and how he reminds us all of the importance of water. Every time I enjoy a hot shower, I am reminded of the thousands, maybe millions, who have no way to let hot and safe water clean their bodies and lift their spirits. Having lived in AZ where water is scarce, my heart aches when I see sprinkler system throwing water on the pavement instead of the lawns that some are grooming. I am sad when I see plastic thrown into our creeks, rivers and oceans. I often sigh and long for us all to turn to the use of rock instead of grass for our yards. Not to mention the noise and air pollution caused by lawnmowers. Fresh, clean, hot and cold water bring me great joy but also deep concern. Why? because we as a species in so many countries just take it for granted. I wonder if someday in the not to distant future if knock-down-drag-out wars might be fought over fresh and clean water. I remember seeing the musical, “Urine Town” several years ago. It was very well performed by talented people but I left the theatre tense and sad. It’s warning about water swirling in my head and heart.
I will look up that musical dear Carol. Sounds intriguing and thought provoking as do so many of your reflections.
I returned to MN yesterday for a great Thanksgiving filled with traditional American foods. How was your Thanksgiving?
I spent a week in CA with my mom, and while everything was unexpected, I still appreciate our quality time together. Months ago, my mom told me that she worried the avocado tree in her garden might not survive due to the drought. As I was there, I was awed by how resilient the avocado tree was. It is still alive despite the difficult weather. I can tell how adorable it is. My mom doesn’t have much experience taking care of the tree. Despite lacking nutrition, the avocado tree still produces a bunch of fruits. The avocados are small, but the taste is so good! How beautiful the gifts of the earth bring to it, and how much joy it brings to me and my family.
One gift? Oh boy. I guess one is the earth itself. The dirt. The rocks and sand and soil. As a kid, I couldn’t get enough of it. My ankles were constantly ringed with dirt. My sock were disgusting. A pile of dirt was days of entertainment.
I still like to play in the dirt. Riding my bike or hiking. I like gardening and planting things in it. And I like studying geology. I like going to the desert and seeing all the exposed rocks and formations and…dirt. Yes, dirt brings me joy. Sounds strange saying it. But it’s true.
Now, of course there are so so so many other earth gifts, but just thinking about the joy that I experience being out in the dirt, make me smile.
It makes me smile too,
dear Charlie . . . ♥
Another “just one” challenge ㋡. It’s a tie between seeds and trees.
Seeds are sheer magic. Planting each spring, I wait for those tiny packets–various sizes, shapes, textures–to break open in the dark and push up toward the light. When that first bit of green emerges, definite joy! A catalog for an heirloom seed company just arrived in the mail the other day and I know once I open it I’ll be lost in all the possibilities, far beyond what I have room to grow in my relatively small yard.
Trees talk to each other, they help each other, they share resources and warn of insect attacks, they serve as homes for so many types of creatures, they soar and spread and have so many shapes of the trees themselves and their leaves, blossoms, and seeds, they give us oxygen.
I’m so lucky to be able to walk in a legacy forest in a big park near my home (legacy meaning not old growth but it’s been many decades since any logging happened there). That park is one of the reasons I wanted to live in this neighborhood. The other day a friend and I heard not one but two great horned owls hooting to each other high up in the trees. In another part of the park we heard one of them again giving its alarm barks, no doubt because we were right below the clump of trees it was in. We couldn’t see it–trees make great hiding places.
I went to a talk by a local woman, Julie Ratner, who uses an Italian device called Plants Play to record the electrical impulses from trees, kind of like taking their EKG. It plays the impulses as sounds. You can hear some at https://www.restoringearthconnection.org/friends-of-trees if you scroll down. One is cedar in undisturbed forest, the other Sitka spruce by a clearcut.
I’m looking forward to reading everyone else’s answers. I’ll likely agree with all of them!
I love your reflection on trees,
dear Barb . . .
they are wise and magnificent teachers to us all, and a great reflection on the state of the health of our precious little planet. ♥️
Those tree ‘songs’ are amazing! The cedar was especially moving to me. So cool. Thanks, Barb!
Fresh vegetables! I get great joy from admiring the varied colors and tastes of all the different kinds of vegetables that grow from the earth. Although I am not a gardener, I enjoy going to a local organic farm and getting a variety of wonderful vegetables. They have built some hoop houses, so even in the winter they are able to offer many wonderful vegetables– squash, lettuce, watermelon radish, kale, tokyo bekana, carrots, beets, potatoes, cabbage… I am grateful to the earth for cradling these vegetables and giving them nutrients as they grow, and to the hardworking farmers who raise them.
The gift of winged creatures. I love their show at the bird 🐦 bath 🛁. Their song of good cheer. Their flight in the air. The grazing in the parks and fields. Their gifts of food for us.
Yes! I have a tree right outside my office window where we hang suet and a birdfeeder. Love all of them swooping in and filling their feathered bellies. Where we live I can walk by the water and see great blue herons, buffleheads, ducks, Canadian geese, loons, purple martins, and one time a kingfisher. We also have bald eagles, hawks, and I hear owls at night in the nearby park (and on a walk there in the afternoon Wednesday).
Heaven on earth! I close my eyes and I can see it! Thank you!
Snow brings me great joy. The Twin Cities hasn’t had a snowstorm yet. We’re due for 1 at some point. Snow makes the view look beautiful, especially on trees.
My backyard is covered in snow today for the first time since last winter. A beautiful sight!
Pilgrim, the 1st snow of the season is the best.
Cows, specifically their milk as I just made homemade whipped cream for my pumpkin pie and am enjoying it in my coffee this morning too.
and I have to also say cannabis and it’s medicinal benefits. ” You can’t spell healthcare without “THC.”
TLC with THC.
Mooooo 🎶to my ears!
Michele, I had some whip cream pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving yesterday, and it was delicious.
I know!!!! Right?!!!
Everything 🧡 but specifically water. I love swimming and splashing and how healing it feels to be in water.
Yes, and for me, especially in the ocean!
Jennifer, I know that feeling all too well going swimming at LA Fitness everyday.
Another question where it’s hard to choose just one! The earth offers so many gifts, but today, I will pick trees as the one that brings great joy. The variety, the height, how they stand so strong yet sway in storms. They help keep the air clean. They provide shade. Many provide fruit. They are homes for birds, squirrels and more. And they are so beautiful, and so colorful this time of year where I am! There are trees in our new neighborhood that I have never seen before, and one currently is red on top and yellow/orange on the bottom. I am intrigued with this tree! I read something on a page I follow on instagram that said trees become their strongest in autumn… they aren’t bearing fruit or making new leaves, so all of their energy is getting pushed into the earth thru their roots… what appears as death is the catalyst for new life. Reading that made me appreciate this time of year more.
Love this. (I gave trees and seeds a tie in my answer)
I learned (or relearned, maybe) that when we see the autumn colors it’s the chlorophyll retreating so we’re seeing colors that were there all along. Magic.
I love that! Thank you for helping me relearn that, too – I love science!!
Thanks for these words, Sunnypatti:
“trees become their strongest in autumn… they aren’t bearing fruit or making new leaves, so all of their energy is getting pushed into the earth thru their roots… what appears as death is the catalyst for new life.” Trees are my first choice among many, too. This quote adds new insights into why.
I was going to say coffee. For it is almost magical most mornings. But ‘joy’? It is true that it is simply better for everyone if I get some each morning. Joy is not exactly the experience. Gifts are joyful when surprises besides. I expect coffee. It is an important part of this morning ritual of living.
So sitting. eyes closed, scanning and bumping around {and sipping coffee) I came up with cows.
I took a year off and worked on a farm when I was 39. I was a farm hand. Low man on the totem pole. The object of much sport at first as I was clearly a city boy and did not have workman hands (the first thing my colleagues looked at apparently in making their assessment). Yet, I surprised them and myself by becoming, quickly, adept at the work. It did bring me joy. But I was going to talk of cows.
There was a small enterprise on the farm that was essentially providing the food for the main house. A part of that being a dairy including two Jersey cows. The operation being small there were no milking machines so we milked by hand. THAT was tricky. My manager trained me in terms of position and hand motion. But beyond that it was the cow that did the instruction. Usually very patient and tolerant, but at the outset would sometimes take 10 minutes to deign to let her milk down and allow me to fill the bucket. My head gently nestled in her side in front of her left hip and smelling her fur. Eating hay, she would regularly turn her amazing eyes on me with a side-long glance veiled by impossibly long and delicate eyelashes. Our eyes would meet. Somehow satisfied she would return to the hay as I worked. It was a proprietary glance. And there was classical music playing on the radio from the local Public Radio station. These cows were very particular.
The cows were very interested in me. They followed me with their eyes those first months. Watching my progress. Our daily bonding punctuated their oversight and by the end of the fourth month I believe I was relegated to being a member of the community by them.
One of them died after calving and I had the job of bringing up the calf as the owners had decided to keep her off grass and sell her as veal. So I would take the bucket of warm milk after milking the surviving cow and bring it to the calf. Tiny at first she was so excited by the smell but couldn’t figure the bucket out so I had to put milk in my cupped hand and hold it above her head (where she instinctively looked for the source) and once she tasted and sucked at it lowered my hand (with her lips firmly attached as she tried to suckle my palm) into the bucket…a choreography we had twice a day for months. Of course she grew, and got stronger, and calves ram their heads into the side of their mother just above the udder to release more milk, which in our case resulted in her periodically bucking up into me sending me and the bucket into wild contortions to maintain balance,,,it was a part of the dance.
The surviving Jersey was SO proud of me, and knowing her milk was going to her late friend’s progeny, she would wander over to that part of the paddock where she could look into the open shed where the calf and I were dancing with the bucket and supervise approvingly. She did that every time.
So now, out and about in the world doing life when I come across by surprise a field with some cows I beam with unrestrained love and affection for all cows. Truly, joy springs up in my heart.
The calf and I were very attached. And my farm manager sent me on an all day errand to get bee supplies purposefully to have me off farm when they came to collect her. So I was spared the agony of her possibly looking at/for me. I admonished him afterwards for I would have liked to have said farewell. But he said that, although he did want to shield me from the trauma, he really wanted to make sure that Urgulanilla the surviving cow (named after the wife of Claudius Emperor of Rome Plautia Urgulanilla…it was that kind of place…I loved my farm manager!) wouldn’t think I had anything to do with it, and so allow me to continue milking her.
Howie, growing up on a dairy farm, this story touched me with your tender telling of your experience. Consider writing a children’s book someday. 😉
What a beautiful story! Heartwarming for sure, thank you for sharing! And yes to Coffee!
Howie Thanks for sharing about the cows. Your relationship with the cows is such a beautiful story. It warms my heart.
I kind of figured someone might answer “coffee”, which many of us include on lists of things we’re grateful for.
I love your description of time with the cows. My older brothers raised cows for 4-H projects (before I was born). They described milking the cows in the morning, and the barn cats lining up to wait for them to aim a squirt of milk toward their open mouths.
I write my responses first before reading others reflections – I was amazed of your ‘cow’ reflection and immediately made me smile. My two brothers worked on a diary farm and I have fond memories of milking calves (with a bottle) and seeing how a dairy farm works. (they had the best yogurt too – Seven Stars Farm, Kimberton, PA) Cows have beautiful eyes. Thank you Howie.
Oh my, one. As I sit here amongst 20 inches of fresh snow and more falling, I am reminded of the gift of water in all its shapes and forms. And each and every form does bring me joy, from the quiet, barely audible stream, to snow falling as it is right now. I am 3 hours N of my home this morning, close to the shore of Lake Superior. Lake effect snow at its’ best!❄️
WOW!! One gift from the earth…goodness that puts me on the spot!! First thought was trees–everywhere you go there are trees..all different shapes and sizes…I love the old trees, the Redwoods (which I hardly ever see) Spanish Moss…Big old spruce trees…Pine trees, Fir trees…Can you imagine their history?? And guess ….the best tree of all!!! The Christmas Tree. Wishing you all a wonderful, wonderful day.
Lots of votes for trees on this question. I wrote my answer before reading others. Aren’t they wonderful?