This article has been significantly updated. Please click to this article instead: “The National Park System: America’s Hidden Treasure.” Happy 100th Birthday, NPS! In 1916, when the National Park Service (NPS) was created (through the National Park Service Organic Act, during President Woodrow Wilson’s administration) to manage America’s parks and historic sites, there were […]
Nature
Antidote For Despair
May this imagery and poem feed your soul, as it does mine: The Peace of Wild Things by Wendell Berry When despair for the world grows in me and I wake in the night at the least sound in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be, I go and lie down […]
Want To Be Happier And Healthier? Try Natural Décor
I’m pleased to welcome Megan Wild as my guest Connection Messenger* this week. I’ve written so much about the joy of connecting with nature outdoors, but I thought Megan’s approach to bringing nature indoors and incorporating plants into our décor was worth sharing. I love that she included links to studies that support the reasons […]
Joy Sightings* After The Winter Storm
* “Joy Sightings” is a term coined by Laura West — CLICK HERE to learn about her Joyful Business Guide We must immerse ourselves in the outside world, even when the weather’s cold or rainy. Bundled up, I enjoyed being out when the snow was falling so hard — it’s like being in a […]
Love A Tree: Connect With Nature
Welcome to my guest author and Connection Messenger*, Paula Chaffee Scardamalia, Creativity Coach and Dream & Tarot Intuitive. Our connection with nature is an important part of our physical and spiritual health, and I loved the way Paula captured that in this post. Enjoy, and please let us know in the comments below if you’ve ever […]
Let’s Go Bananas!
This is a short, oddball post, but I couldn’t resist sharing this 5-minute video from Dole about how they harvest fresh bananas from the tree and ship them to market. I had no idea about most of this and found it fascinating. “But, Elizabeth,” you might ask, “What the heck does this have to do with […]
Courage To Face Winter
Reflections on an early fall walk It was 59° that September morning, and there had been a nip of fall in the air for three days. The spiky balls were swelling on the chestnut tree. Squirrels were scampering hither and yon—their activity seemed to be increasing, and I had to wonder if they weren’t responding to some internal urge to begin storing things […]
Is Death Terrible…Really? Alan Watts Speaks Out
“We live in a culture where it has been rubbed into us, in every conceivable way, that to die is a terrible thing, and that is a tremendous disease from which our culture in particular suffers.” ~Alan Watts, British-born American philosopher (1915-1973) I am sharing this four-minute video, not because I embrace all Mr. Watts’s points […]