Nature Reconnect: 10-minute time-out

Time to blog

There is a time for everything under the sun. (Even a time for Trump?) For me, it’s time to blog.

Many Americans who are deeply concerned about our environment are Trump-appalled. But I’ve noticed that some of our largest and most active environmental groups are working harder than ever. They are highly motivated, passionate, and energized. They’re gearing up to fight for clean air, clean water, uncontaminated food, and protected green spaces – the very things that we need in order to survive!

We all need to “gear up” and resolve to do our part. But what is my part? I’m a great-grandmother, a nature lover and a nature writer, an ardent student of birds and bugs and animals and children, and a bibliophile (I’ve written forty books and I’ve read one or two a week throughout my life). I will blog.

Most of my career has been spent “teaching kids to care for the Earth” in one way or another – through my books or in person. I believe that children who learn to love nature will naturally grow up to protect it. So as I blog along, I’ll include nature activities and nature news for children, as well as ideas for all of us to reconnect with nature.

NatureReconnect: 10-minute time-out

What would happen to us and to our lives if we took ten minutes each day to focus on some aspect of nature? How would it change our day, how would it change us, to suspend all activity (even the activity of worrying) for a few moments of quiet friendship with our natural environment? 

When I was writing a series of four books with nature activities for exploring each season, I walked every day for a year through our woods, around the pond, and beside a little creek, Trickle Creek, with a notebook and pencil in my hand. I was teaching myself to observe the tiny, subtle changes that occur as the seasons progress. I recall that year as one of the most peaceful of my life.

Daily, consciously, reconnecting with nature can be therapy, meditation, prayer, rest and relaxation. It reawakens our sense of wonder, curiosity, and awe. In this blog, I'll be sharing some tiny discoveries and ten-minute adventures. This is such a small thing to contribute, but if each of us finds a way to stand up for a healthy planet – a small and modest way or an earth-shaking and stupendous effort – we can save our Earth-home.
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“I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire
to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.” - Elwyn Brooks White

Orange mushroom (Lactarius Volemus?) ...

... and shelf mushroom (Trametes Versicolor)?