Welcome to Natural Thoughts – a place for your poems and essays.
In every walk with nature, one receives far more than he seeks. John Muir
A connection to nature is important for all of us. Moments we share with family, friends, or to just be by ourselves. To breathe in fresh air, watch the sky overhead, feel the breeze on our faces. Hearing birds sing, smelling the flowers, and watching the tree branches sway in the wind. Whether you are walking on a trail in the Appalachians, watching the waves crash on the Pacific coast, sitting at the edge of a mesa, watching the tall prairie grass ripple in the wind, or looking outside your office or house window – no matter where you are, you can pause. Just take in and be part of what you are seeing. For moments, an afternoon, an entire day.
Technology is a wonderful thing – my website would be nowhere without it. But it is easy to be so engrossed with what is on a screen that we forget about the natural world. For me, connections in the virtual world are insubstantial and fleeting. My real connections are with earth, sky, and water. Forests and wetlands. Deserts and mountains. Shores and plains. The wildlife refuge that is our yard. And in our world today, it is easy to get absorbed in influencers, celebrities, news, podcasts, and social media to the exclusion of so many other things. Let’s all use this space to remind each other – and ourselves – that there is a world outside of our small screens. A world of incredible beauty and adventure, where there are connections to everything, and where we can feel joy and awe. A world in which human prejudice, anger, and insults simply have no place.
Please click on Submit Your Story to send your essays and poetry to me and I will post them. Linda
-
29MayRead More
Rebuilding the Ark by Carol ………. Pennsylvania
In 1996, many of the plants I had always known as wildflowers suddenly morphed into native plants. So what had changed? Not the plants themselves, of course, so it had to be me—the way I thought of them. What or who had prompted that change, and exactly what was my new perspective? “Our job is […]
-
14AprRead More
Wood Violets by Shelly Lyons ………… North Carolina
last summer I rescued these babies from a bed I was being paid to weed, which once again perplexed me- how could someone consider these beauties weeds? not want green hearts and purple flowers in her bed of catnip and irises under the pink crepe myrtle? I brought them home thrown haphazardly into my 5-gallon […]
-
25MarRead More
The Empty Niche Syndrome by Carol ………. Pennsylvania
Long ago, somewhere in the eastern deciduous forests, the elements necessary to produce new plant species “realized” that, if they could just manage to grow, blossom, and set seed quickly enough, they could take advantage of several crucial things: the abundant sunshine that reaches the forest floor before the trees leaf out; the plentiful rains […]
-
12MarRead More
The Refreshing of Gifts of Nature by Judy ……. Illinois
I find the refreshing gifts of nature so helpful. Going to the porch and sitting out there in the sunshine, looking into the trees – especially the arborvitae now and in any season, and gazing at blooming trees and seeing their contrasts. Listening to the birds, appreciating the ever-changing sky, taking time to daydream, stretch, […]