Category: greenliving

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Eating Dirt May Be Good For You

Izzy

For most of human history, people chased things or were chased themselves. They turned dirt over and planted seeds and saplings. They took in Vitamin D from the sun, and learned to tell a crow from a raven (ravens are larger; crows have a more nasal call; so say the birders). And then, in less than a generation’s time, millions of people completely decoupled themselves from nature. — Timothy Egan, NYT

When I was a kid, our typical day after school was finishing our homework, doing a few chores, then running outside to play. When dinner was ready, Mom called us in, we did our after-dinner chores than ran back outside.

We had forts in the woods, and forts in the blackberry brambles. Played kickball, kick-the-can, many variations of tag and hide-and-seek with a whole tribe of neighborhood kids. We captured fireflies in jars, investigated ant hills, caught crawdads with plastic cups, chased dragonflies and hunted snapping turtles in the creek (we didn’t hurt them.) We picked wild strawberries, blackberries and plums.

Elkhorn Creek in SummerWe raised a wild raccoon, lots of polywogs, a few caterpillars, two snapping turtle babies, some squirrel babies and a baby robin. Dug in the dirt, made mud pies, launched ourselves into the creek on rope swings, climbed very tall trees and adventured in the storm sewers. I loved lying on the big hill hear the cow pasture and just watching clouds. I had a secret place under a spiraea bush where I would lie on a blanket to read. Outside.

writing in nature notebooks

What adventure! Totally unstructured. I remember at some point longing to attend a summer camp because some of my friends were going, but I never did. I also didn’t have music or art lessons, extracuricular sports or academic tutoring. We just played (well, we did chores too.)

Life is different for little kids now. It makes me sad to think of how disconnected children are these days, from the natural world.

According to Richard Louv who wrote Last Child in the Woods, “Boys and girls now live a denatured childhood. What little time they (children) spend outside is on designer playgrounds or fenced yards and is structured, safe and isolating. Such antiseptic spaces provide little opportunity for exploration, imagination or peaceful contemplation…

Louv recommends that we re-acquaint our children and ourselves with nature through hiking, fishing, bird-watching and disorganized, creative play. By doing so, he argues, we may lessen the frequency and severity of emotional and mental ailments and come to recognize the importance of preserving nature” — Jeanne Hamming

Deer and Magpie in City Garden

Another excerpt from the book, “Last Child in the Woods:”

As a boy, I was unaware that my woods were ecologically connected with any other forests. Nobody in the 1950s talked about acid rain or holes in the ozone layer or global warming. But I knew my woods and my fields; I knew every bend in the creek and dip in the beaten dirt paths. I wandered those woods even in my dreams. A kid today can likely tell you about the Amazon rain forest—but not about the last time he or she explored the woods in solitude, or lay in a field listening to the wind and watching the clouds move. — Richard Louv

Help me organize my feelings ...

What can we, as teachers, parents, grandparents, and friends of children do, to make sure kids connect with the natural world and reap the benefits of unstructured outdoor, nature-based playtime?  Well, take some action. Any action. Here are 10 things:

  1. Here is an awesome list of resources and ideas, right here. Start with that.
  2. Next, download this guide, “Together In Nature.”
  3. Or … start by just getting outside. Anywhere outside.  With your kids. It doesn’t have to be in a wild place. Be random. Be playful. Let your kids lead the way. Explore. Be curious. Be refreshed.
  4. Splash in the rain.
  5. Go out at night with your baby in your arms.
  6. Take a nap with your child on a blanket in the shade.
  7. Grow some of your own food with your kids.
  8. Push for more nature-based education in schools.
  9. Help create green spaces in your urban community.
  10. Explore your city so you know where the natural places are.

And yes, eating a (little) dirt can be good for you — for your immune system and for the playful sprite inside every one of us.

Jaime-and-ema-imp

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Think-Eat-Save: UN World Environment Day is Today

painting by Cheryl Fortier

World Environment Day is today, Wednesday, June 5th, 2013. This year, the theme for WED is Think-Eat-Save, focusing on ways we can alleviate the incredible food waste problems that contribute to world hunger and environmental degradation.

On a TEDx talk, Peter Lehner shares how he began working on food waste issues when he backpacked 30 days of food in his mountain climbing years. It’s true that if you have to carry your food for miles, you pack carefully and considerately — and you don’t waste a bit of it!  His talk is 14 minutes long by well worth watching. (click here to watch Peter Lehner’s TEDx talk)

graph of food waste in the US
According to Peter Lehner, 40% of the food grown in the US is wasted and the average American family spends $2000 on food they throw away! $2000 every year thrown away by one family! This is absolutely crazy!

That’s in the US and Canada … Worldwide the amount of food wasted — on average — is slightly less, but still outrageously dangerous for Earth’s future. Luc Gnacadja, Executive Secretary UN Convention to Combat Desertification, says:

Food is produced at such a high environmental cost. Yet, every year about one third of it is either wasted or lost. Meantime, one in seven people still goes to bed hungry. This enormous drain on our limited natural resources is shocking and morally unacceptable.

Lehner (in his TEDx talk) refers to a game they called “Journey to the back of the fridge,” when they would look for the multi-colored mold growing on an assortment of food. We have changed our food deal at the Carney-Shaughnessy household these days. We eat 90% vegetarian, and use aLOT of fresh fruits and vegetables, so it’s doubly critical that we shop/plan/cook in ways that we don’t end up tossing alot of produce in the garbage or compost pile (although composting is better than putting food in the landfill).

A couple of years ago, I would regularly have to clear out our fridge– throwing out science experiments like slimey greens, moldy salsa, stinky cooked beans, dried up leftovers … even the freezer had dried up meat and really old bread to toss. Not so anymore. We have gotten so efficient with menu planning and cooking just the right amount that I would estimate we have cut our food waste by at least 90%. One of the best things about that?  Saving money!

Okay, now for some eye-candy:

painting by Cheryl Fortier
Hover/Suspend by Cheryl Fortier

And finally, I am doing a shameless plug of my sister’s cause, ArtBomb, because today she has a stunning painting up for auction in honor of World Environment Day. Here’s what Mary Beth writes about the piece pictured above:

On Wednesday, June 5th, Artbomb will have a solo feature of the work of Vancouver artist Cheryl Fortier in celebration of the UN’s International Year of Water Cooperation and World Ocean’s Day.  Cheryl’s piece, titled Hover/Suspend, is a large, immersive and transporting painting depicting a close encounter between a snorkeler and a sea turtle.  The rendering of the water, and of the small swirling movements of the 2 participants in this dance of curiosity, is masterful, a balance between realism and abstraction.  The scale of the piece allows one to feel submerged with the figures, an underwater voyeur watching this enchanting and touching interaction between human and animal.  Cheryl paints with emotion, spontaneity and intuition.  This piece will both charm you, and transform your living room!

If you are interested in this painting, or know of anyone who might be, please pass this link along to them. ArtBomb auctions last ONLY one day, so it’s a great way to acquire original, professional art for reasonable prices.  I would also LOVE it if you share the link on your Facebook timeline, or Tweet about it.  Check out Cheryl’s website — she is an amazing artist. I love her paintings! 

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Garden Journal: Now’s a Great Time to Start One

Garden Journal © Maureen Shaughnessy

Garden Journal © Maureen Shaughnessy<span class=I’ve kept a separate notebook or journal for my garden for years. Off and on. I’m not as disciplined as I’d like to be about keeping track of what is planted where; which plants are blooming when; what I’ve spent on the garden … or where I bought my materials, pots, and other stuff.

Sometimes my garden journal is just a few pages in my regular sketchbook or journal. For the last few years, I’ve used a smallish 3-ring binder pages I have customized and punched to fit. I use different kinds of paper depending on what I’m recording on it: graph paper for recording my veggie plots and for sketching ideas for construction projects. Heavy sketch paper for botanical and nature sketches and for just doodling ideas. Vellum envelopes with holes punched in them, for keeping plant labels and other odds and ends (receipts, etc)… plastic sleeves with 3-holes, these are handy for seed packets, photos, loose seeds, etc.

I have my journal divided into sections with pocketed dividers – the pockets come in handy for keeping loose stuff. If you make your own journal, you can make sections to fit the kind of information you want to keep about your garden. Here are some ideas for record-keeping and inspiration:

  • a plan view of the garden, drawn on plain or graph paper: this is not only to remember the layout of your plant beds and locations of special plants — but also to help you imagine improvements you might want to make
  • weather records for our city and growing zone: first and last frost dates, rainfall, snowfall, and extreme events such as hail storms (which always seem to hit us hardest the week after we have set out our basil and tomato seedlings!)
  • seed packets and plant labels: if you have a sheet for each plant, you can keep the packets in envelopes taped to the back of the sheets. Otherwise, a separate section for seed packets and plant labels is a good idea. I like to keep track of the nurseries where I bought potted plants
  • photos and/or sketches to document what’s growing throughout the year. I pair the photos with sheets on the individual plants. I also have a section for just beautiful photos of my garden
  • garden tasks: wish I were organized enough to write down the dates I did (or should have done) certain tasks like weeding, planting and pruning. It would help with planning
  • wish list: this is a fat section for me — there is always something I’d like to buy or make myself: wind chimes, plants, compost, a teak recliner, porch swing … or hardscape improvements I want: a deck, french doors, a little patio … dream on. Writing these things down or keeping clippings and photos helps me remember and prioritize. I had a garden pond on the wish list for years. A few years ago, my son, Mickey helped me make it a reality. So it works!
  • clipped or photocopied articles, reference stuff from books and gardening handouts. This is a good place to keep reference materials from garden lectures or how-to courses, or instructions for making things for your garden
  • use the journal to keep pressed leaves and flowers from your garden.

  • Instead of pressing the plant parts, if you’re feeling creative, make sunprints using light-sensitive print paper.
  • I keep a running list of wildlife I’ve seen in our garden, which is a certified wildlife habitat garden now
  • quotes about gardening and my thoughts inspired by connecting with my garden
  • ideas for cooking from the garden and recipes for salsa, pesto, quiche…
  • I try to keep track of how much I spend in the garden. It’s always more than I thought! Sometimes I don’t keep the receipts, I just write the costs down kind of haphazardly

some links:

  • lots more information about materials you’ll need and how to get started –they even have some templates you can download for plant record-sheets
  • Journaling Life has some good links to resources, along with ideas for what to keep in your garden journal. Thank you to Denise, Leslie, Gayla, Lisa and BitterBetty
for allowing the use of their garden notebooks in this post.
Please click on the photos to find links to their photo pages.
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Earth Day, Earth Sculptures to Remind Us

living mud sculpture Mud Maid
Mud Maid, a sculpture by Sue and Pete Hill at the Lost Gardens of Heligan

 

Mud Maid in Summer
Mud Maid in Summer

Gaia: the divine goddess, the Earth Mother … she sleeps so peacefully, waiting to wake up, dreaming her dreams of the seasons, of growth and transformation, of life and light. She rests in the dark cool shadows of winter and early spring, rejuvenating internally and she will awaken with the sunlight, bird song and the gradual warming of her body.

As I researched Earth Mother/ Gaia for my Earth Day post, I came across many living earth sculptures made of mud over an armature with plants growing all over them. I loved the original Mud Maid at the Lost Gardens of Heligan, commissioned by Sue and Pete Hill a brother/sister artist duo. This sculpture along with the Giant’s Head at the same gardens, seems to have inspired a host of other mud sculptures in both public and private gardens.

We are her children:

Mud Maid earth sculpture
Mud Maid and Child

The Mud Maid was built as a hollow framework of timber and windbreak netting, then completely covered with sticky mud. Her hands and face are a mixture of mud, sand, and cement which were first coated with yogurt so lichens would grow. On her head, Woodsedge and Montbretia were planted while Ivy was trained to grow as her clothing. — Angel (Environmental Graffiti)

Here is a goddess sculpture at the 2006 Chelsea Garden show, “Dreaming Girl,” also by Sue and Pete Hill.

the Dreaming Girl by Sue and Pete Hill
The Dreaming Girl, a living mud-sculpture by Sue and Pete Hill in Cornwall, UK
living mud sculpture Dreaming Girl
Detail of The Dreaming Girl
Eve mud sculpture
Eve

PHOTO CREDITS AND LINKS:

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Water Conservation in the Garden: Principles of Xeriscaping

Pergola and Patio in WaterWise Garden by Native Design, Helena, Montana

World Water Day is tomorrow, March 22, 2013 and Earth Day on April 22 this year. Mother’s Day is on May 12th, a good day to honor our human mothers as well as our Earth Mother. 

To celebrate World Water Day, I thought I’d write about water conservation, and include a number of photographs of gardens I have designed around Helena, Montana, using the 7 main priciples of Xeriscaping, or, as I like to say, WaterWise garden design. I hope you find some inspiration in these photos. If you have any questions about the gardens in this post, please email me or comment below. Thanks! 

Trumpet Honeysuckle "Mandarin" in garden by Native Design, Helena, Montana
A colorful drought-tolerant vine that also smells delicious and attracts hummingbirds and butterflies, this hardy Honeysuckle vine also create shade and privacy on the back patio.

Private Front Yard Garden by Native Design, Helena, Montana
Front yards do not have to be just a few shrubs and trees surrounded by expanses of thirsty lawn. If you have a small property, make use of the front yard to create usable outdoor rooms. This waterwise garden provides plenty of privacy and several different activity zones in a little over 900 square feet. What was originally an open, dry lawn now has a 6 ft privacy fence, arbor and gate, two patios, a shade pergola and a colorful xeriscaped garden. (see concept sketch below)

Conceptual Sketch for Garden Design by Native Design, Helena, Montana

Large Garden Deck in Landscape by Native Design, Helena, Montana
More often than not, suburban back yards are just a weekend mowing and watering chore. Why not replace a huge lawn with a series of decks that are not only more attractive and easier to maintain — but add to the square footage of your liveable space? This deck in a WaterWise landscaped back yard provides at least four different “rooms,” one specifically designed for watching sunsets.

Small Private Garden with Cedar Fence by Native Design, Helena Montana
A privacy fence creates a whole different feeling in the backyard, making it perfect for quiet visits, reading or shaded dining on hot summer evenings. Birds are attracted to the running water in the pond, and butterflies feed on flowering perennials and vines.

Overflowing Water Feature by Native Design, Helena Montana
Xeriscapes can include water features. Here, an overflowing urn appears to flow into a dry stream bed. The bright blue color and sound of bubbling water create a focal point in this garden.

Garden Pond Plantings by Native Design, Helena Montana
Pondside plantings include native irises, corkscrew rush and tufted hair grass which will mature to a graceful arching clump grass


Rain chain near front door of courtyard garden, Native Design, Montana
Xeriscaped front yards do not have to be all gravel, juniper, yucca and potentilla. In fact, a well-designed xeriscape can look much more attractive and welcoming than a mostly-lawn entry garden. Here, sumac, hosta and native ferns share a plant bed next to the front porch, where a Japanese “rain chain” directs roof runoff into a drainage pipe disguised by a dry stream bed of black rocks. Spilling onto the stone paved front patio are drought-tolerant groundcovers such as creeping thyme, artemisia and snow-in-summer.


Xeriscaped Front Garden with Slate and Boulders by Native Design, Helena Montana
A xeriscaped entry garden with just the smallest circular lawn for a cool green sitting spot. The rest of this front yard is slate walkways and patio, a Mediterranean-style gravel garden, and planted terraces with aspens for shade and privacy

Slate Landing along street at garden entry point, Native DesignSlate paving provides a comfortable spot for guests to approach the front garden of this home. Steps leading down into the entry garden are flanked by aspen trees, daylilies, ornamental grasses and colorful flowering perennials.

Hillside Terraced Garden by Native Design, Helena, Montana
A grand entry experience greets guest to this home built on a steep slope above the road. There is no lawn at all in this xeriscaped garden. Instead the slope is tamed by a series of stone terraces and slate steps that create lots of liveable space on an otherwise unusable slope. The dramatic focal point of this planting is Karl Foerster Feathered Reed Grass.


Enter this driveway through a small grove of native aspens mulched with smooth river rock. The aspens frame visitor’s view of this grand brick home in the Helena Valley.

Xeriscaping and Native Planting by Native Design, Helena, Montana
A drainage problem prompted design of this dry stream bed to handle roof runoff during storms. Boulders and pebbles meander through drought-tolerant shrubs and perennials with a clump of aspens. Daylilies, Siberian Iris, Coreopsis, Potentilla, Russian Sage and Arctic Willow make a striking accent planting near the front door of this home.

Hops Vine on Trellis by Native Design, Helena, Montana
Xeriscapes can include vines such as this Hops vine to cover unsightly fences and block walls, or to create shade and privacy as in this photo. Here, the hops grows on a trellis on the west side of a porch, creating a cool spot to sit outside on hot summer evenings.


In our hot, dry Helena summers, shade is an important landscape element and fits well with any xeriscape design. Here, a pergola attached to the south side of this home provides shade not only for the stone patio, but also for some of the plants in the beds around it. Honeysuckle and Clematis vines are planted at the base of each post to eventually grow up and over the pergola. Aspens planted in clumps augment the pergola’s shade as they mature.

Pergola Shade Structure with Native Plants, by Native Design
A cedar pergola planted with vines shades this stone patio and bench-height retaining wall. Xeriscape principles followed in this design include thoughtful planning, low-volume irrigation, drought tolerant plants located in groups according to their water requirements, low-maintenance, improved soil, shredded bark mulch to retain soil moisture, extremely small lawn area and a native grass meadow.

Shady Private Garden with Aspens and Patio, by Native Design
A xeriscaped back yard has two circular stamped-concrete patios shaded by a small aspen grove, stone terraces planted with native drought-tolerant plants and a very small lawn area.

Courtyard Garden Sitting Area and Stone Wall by Native Design, Helena, Montana
This could be a front garden or back yard dining area. There is no lawn at all in this xeriscape. Instead the homeowners chose to install a paved patio surrounded by this stone retaining wall. Paved area tend to retain heat and can get uncomfortable in our hot summers. This patio has lots of cool shade provided by aspens and other trees, vines climing the walls and a cooling water feature that splashes down the stone wall, crisscrosses the patio and spills into a small reflecting pool. Plants are grouped according to the sun and water requirements, making watering and maintenance easier.

Entry Garden Paving by Native Design, Helena, Montana
An alternative to lawn grass: these pavers are spaced a few inches apart with grass planted between them. This allows rainwater to permeate as well as gives visual interest and breaks up the expanse of hard material.

Contemporary hillside home with native grasses, by Native Design, Montana
A native grass meadow was planted on this slope after construction of the home had disturbed the soils. The designer used all xeriscape techniques and mostly native plants to connect this contemporary home to it’s natural surroundings in the hills south of Helena.

Boulder terraces and native waterwise plantings by Native Design, Montana
An alternative to the big front lawn: a native grass meadow with boulder terracing punctuated with drought-tolerant mostly-native shrubs, trees and perennials.

Waterwise entry garden reduces the amount of lawn with drip irrigated beds, Native Design, Montana
To reduce the amount of bluegrass lawn in this front yard, the owners of this Helena Valley home put in large, bermed plant beds with many native plants such as aspen, potentilla, juniper, dwarf pine and artemisia. The soil was improved before planting and under the river rock mulch is a low-volume drip irrigation system

Entry garden with native waterwise plant beds, Native Design, Montana
To reduce the amount of bluegrass lawn in this front yard, the owners of this Reeders Village home installed several large, mulched plant beds with drought-tolerant plants such as amur maple, flowering crab, potentilla, blue fescue, blue oat grass, rocky mountain juniper, dwarf spruce, snow in summer and artemisia. The soil was improved before planting and under the mulch is a low-volume drip irrigation system.

Gravel path meanders through entry garden, Native Design, Montana
This Lakeside home replaced half of it’s thirsty bluegrass front lawn with a meandering gravel path, stone steps and a perennial garden under the mature trees. This is how visitors approach the front entry: much more welcoming than it was before these changes.

Slate terraces and plant beds by Native Design, Helena Montana
One principle of Xeriscaping is to group plants into zones according to their growing requirements, especially water requirements. Here, an isolated bed of shade-loving plants separates a lower patio from the upper one. Hosta, Maiden Pinks, Lady Fern and Coralbells thrive in the same bed.

To be continued … check back for more photos, more details and more inspiration!

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Water Features in the Garden: How to Visually Connect Them

dry stream and sculpture in garden

dry stream and sculpture in garden
Garden features such as urns, ponds and small flowing streams can add to your enjoyment of the garden as well as connect the different parts of your garden together.

Here is an example of an outdoor room with two water features. The water features — a flowing urn and a pond — are separated by a distance of about 25 feet in this garden. We needed a design solution to visually connect them.  The garden’s pond is located next to a low deck and appears to extend under the deck. The second water feature is an overflowing urn fountain on the other side of the small garden (in the photo above, look for the blue urn, barely visible behind the ornamental grasses.) The water flows over the rim of the urn and disappears into a hidden reservoir under the container. We wanted to visually and psychologically connect the urn fountain with the small garden pond as well as solve a drainage problem. 

Our solution was to build a dry stream bed using the same stones we used in the pond and around the urn. The dry stream gives an illusion of flowing water and in the imagination and mind of garden visitors, the urn is a perpetually flowing source of clear fresh water for the pond.

In order to fool the eye and create as natural-looking a stream bed as possible, I took my inspiration from the way bedrock, boulders and cobbles come to rest in a mountain stream. Too many times when folks attempt to create a dry stream bed in their landscaping it results in something that looks very unnatural — or worse. The tendency people have is to dig a swale or channel; line the edges with large rocks and fill the center with smaller river rock. That isn’t the way river dynamics form streams in nature.

howtobuildadrystreambed

In the center of the above montage, you can see the rough sketch I made before we started construction. It’s almost impossible to design the exact layout of water features, when working with boulders and other natural materials.  Fortunately I was able to stay involved in the construction process to make sure the final results matched what was in my head. I also owe much of the credit to the contractor who installed the water feature — he was sensitive to the same forces of nature I observe, and we worked well together.

If you want to design water features in a “natural” style, consider water’s natural behavior — particularly the way water affects the environment through which it flows. Take a hike in the mountains and observe the way gravel and cobbles fill the nooks and crannies between boulders lin a tumbling mountain stream. Gravel is lighter than boulders, so it is picked up and carried by water more readily than the larger stones. Spring runoff and high flows are strong enough to move boulders so these are shifted until they get stuck in a tumbly looking pattern. If you live in a valley — there may be natural water features you can imitate.  A stream or river can give you design clues in the shape of the meanders, the oxbows, the inner and outer curves and how the banks are sculpted by the flow.  Where are the large rocks, if any?  Where is the gravel deposited and is it all the same size?

What other garden features might benefit from an observation of nature in the design process?  Ponds, boulder benches, stepping stones and other pathways, terraces, stone walls, even steps leading from one garden level to another. These will be topics in at least one future post so check back for more design inspiration.

Links that might help with designing garden features in a “Nature Inspired” style:

Garden Buddha in Dry Stream Garden

Here are some more photos from this garden installation and it’s first year. There are several nature-inspired garden features in this small private landscape project including dry-laid stone walls, shade structures, a wandering stepping stone pathway, boulder benches and a total absence of lawn. Click on any of the photos to see a larger version. Enjoy! And please comment if you have any questions about your own water feature. Thank you for reading!

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Contemplative Art in the Garden

Closeup of wing-like leaf

A garden is a peaceful place to connect with every part of creation . . .

Buddha Statue in Garden
Resting Among the Ten Thousand Things ©Maureen Shaughnessy 2008

I have worked with my son, Gabe and his best friend Jack, on spring garden cleanup for some of my design clients. I love hanging out in these gardens! For me, that is one way I know I have succeeded in a garden design. Another sign of a successful design is that my clients are happy in and with their own gardens, even years after the first installation.

The almost life-size Buddha (above) rests among the “ten thousand things” in a Contemplative Garden we have installed over the last two summers. “Ten thousand things” is a Buddhist expression representing the interconnection and simultaneous unity and diversity of everything in the universe.

Each one of us is here for a reason and the world would be incomplete without us.

 

In the Huichol spiritual tradition my husband and I follow, there is a similar concept, that each of us has all of creation inside our hearts:

“Huichols say we are all joyous beings of light. We were created out of love, from all the elements of the natural world — fire, air, water, and earth. Because of this, each of us is a miniature universe, a mirror of the natural world outside of ourselves, and also a mirror of the spirit world. All the knowledge and secrets of those two worlds are also inside of us, and everything is perfectly arranged. Our job is to tap into that arrangement, to understand it and to live in harmony with it.” — Brant Secunda, Huichol Shaman and Healer

If we strive to deeply understand and perceive our world as inseparable from ourselves, then we will have empathy for every part of creation. We are an integral part of everything. Every one of the ten thousand things is, in the true sense, part of us. And everything is perfectly arranged!

This — whether we paint, draw, sing, pray, dance, cook,write code or write poetry — this empathy makes every one of us an artist and a spiritual being.

So, today, go out into a “Garden,” no matter where it is and see your connection to nature as a work of art and as an act of prayer: in a wildlife refuge, in your back yard, on your balcony, in a city park, in a plant nursery or just in a clay pot on your kitchen windowsill.

Find your connection with nature: watch the unfolding of leaf buds and see not just a “plant” but also freedom, flight, wings, wind, the lightness of a heart. Can you see your own life in the artistry of the natural sculpture in the photo below?

Closeup of wing-like leaf
Winged One, © 2008 by Maureen Shaughnessy
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