nature Archives - Page 2 of 22

Look Up and Stars Will Shake the Everyday (Upstate Diary, Mei-mei Berssenbrugge, Neil deGrasse Tyson)

At the ever-illuminating @upstate_diary, we suddenly found ourselves looking up through wintry trees into a vast moving star-scape. It transported us to a chilly night in the country. It led to reminders of cosmic views of the everyday.

Shared Harmonics in Nature and Art Makes Us See in a New Way

Do you ever wonder why we humans tend to feel good in nature? Annie Murphy Paul’s scholarly The Extended Mind: the Power of Thinking Outside the Brain gives the simple, obvious gist. It’s message is surprisingly echoed in art…

How to See Miracles (Helen McDonald, Miles Davis)

I was stunned recently when the morning light slanted across the leaves in the low shrubs across from me to reveal glittering spider webs woven throughout: an intricate network of homes carefully, miraculously forged. It reminded me of a perfect passage from H is for Hawk, and what it takes to see.

Personal Rigs for Pleasure, Illumination, Escape

The other day in Central Park, I saw I guy lying in a hammock under the sweeping branch of an ancient tree. Nearby was heavy-duty dolly that he’d used to haul a hammock stand to the beautiful spot.
It got me thinking about personal rigs people devise for getting OUT unfettered by any ideas of embarrassment or propriety.

Derek Jarman’s Gardens: ” a Testament, Blazing, Blatant, to Possibility”.

After being diagnosed with AIDS in 1986, filmmaker Derek Jarman bought an austere tar-painted fisherman’s cottage in sight of a nuclear power station in the bleak shingle landscape on the southeast coast of England. It would prove to be an act of creative vision as unique as those Jarman realized in his films.

Firefly Season Arrives After a Hard Year, with Haiku

Seeing a single firefly in a field in New York City sparked several haiku, and coincided with astonishing research on the magical insect.

Meditative Retreats Among the Bees via Erika Thompson and Pablo Neruda

Texas Beeworks‘ Erika Thompson’s videos have become a sensation, documenting her adventures calmly moving whole colonies of bees out of hives that that have formed in the midst of people’s lives: under a pool umbrella, in a patio chair, an old tire, a water meter, compost bin, the walls of a house. They are mesmerizing to watch as much for the view into the workings of wild hives as for Thompson’s relaxed, fearless self-assurance.

Hot Weather Joy: Communal Water Music (Hermeto Pasoal, Vanuatu Women, Stephen Nachmanovitch, )

Listening to the water music of women from the northern Vanuatu and Brazilian musician Hermeto Pascoal takes us into the realm of joy, and gives us ideas for our own hot weather revelry. Steven Nachmanovitch, tells us how to access our own inner music…

Thomas Merton’s RainText: ‘All That Speech Pouring Down’

The very best words on rain we’ve read are from American hermit, mystic, priest, Thomas Merton. He wrote it one rainy night in his hermitage at the Abby of Gethsemeni in Kentucky. It has shown us rain in a new way…

Ways to Honor The Mother Trees (Susan Simard, W.S. Merwin)

We have marveled at Susan Simard since we realized she was the model for the fearless, hermetic tree botanist in Richard Price’s wondrous tree-centric novel The Overstory. Her new book Finding the Mother Tree: Discovering the Ancient Wisdom of the Forest about the intricate underground communication network trees create and depend upon got us thinking about the perfect gift, for Mother’s day or otherwise.

Listen to a Breathtaking Treatise on Stars (Mei-mei Berssenbrugge + Vija Celmins)

One morning, I found myself listening to poet Mei-mei Berssenbrugge reading Wonder from her book A Treatise on Stars. I was transfixed, calmed, transported by her voice and the story it told. It proved a surprising lesson in seeing stars, and the connection between wonder and not knowing.

Rewilding Ourselves to Heal Wounds or Illness

In this lovely (refreshing) short film, Laura Owen Sanderson describes how she found healing from a dire illness through wild swimming. For her, the process was a kind of rewilding…

Refreshing, Calming, Endlessly Watchable Sea Lions Surfing Waves (Flying)

We feel like we’re flying ourselves as we watch these sea lions leaping and flying through the waves in pure fluid JOY.

Tree.fm: Listen to Forests Around the World and Plant Some Trees

The past week working at our desk, we listened to soundscapes of forests in Malaysia, Estonia, Portugal, China and France… Through a remarkable website, we found ourselves transported into tranquil environments AND quickly able to gift trees to friends…

Cosmo Sheldrake’s Remarkable Musical Collaboration with Endangered Birds

Over 9 years at dawn, Cosmo Sheldrake carried recording gear, laptop, and sometimes a keybord into fields and woods to make music in collaboration endangered birds. The result is his new album Wake Up Calls; it is both charming and illuminating…

Life Lessons from the Forest

Ferris Jabr’s deeply-pleasurable “The Social Life of Forests” tells the story of scientist Susan Simard whose pioneering research changed the way we think about the fundamental nature of forests: as complex deeply-connected networks that allow trees to communicate and cooperate. It offers a powerful lesson for this time of pandemic.

Marina Abramovic’s Public Service Announcement

In this video, performance artist Marina Abramovic describes the tree therapy she developed many years ago in the Amazon rainforest. It has become part of her “Abramović Method,

Tiny Whale Videos Spark Dreamy Reverie

A therapist friend once described the idea of reverie as a tool for healing; dreamy meditation and daydreaming, free of anxious thinking, has a powerfully restful effect. That state is what I found myself in after I stumbled on these tiny videos…

Why Walk in Hard Times (Rilke)

We take a walk daily because it never fails to refresh our thinking, change our view of things, calm us. Especially, in these most stressful times. It is perhaps our most powerful medicine. Walking, we find our mind shifting, ideas sparking, problems beginning to yield in ways we never expect. Rilke nailed it in A Walk:…

The “o my god at the heart” of Trees

Some remarkable writings and images describing intimate encounters with trees got us thinking about what really happens when we sit inside one, climb one, sit in its embrace…

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