Beauty
Oh, you, nature child, running free upon the earth, peering at frogs and snakes and puppy dog tails and wildflowers…I speak to you.
Oh, you, grown-up person, all facts & figures, all planning & obligations, all trying to figure out how to live…remember the earth where you once sank in delight in thick oozing mud, where you once scrambled up and down hillock, where you once forgot everything except the joy of the changing moment.
Beauty in triplicate
Oh, you, nature child.
Before we started categorizing and judging and blaming, did we not run amok along hedgerows? Did we not glimpse mice and squirrels and chipmunks?
Isn’t it still a special moment when we simply drop our daily concerns and enter into nature’s wildness, her unexpected not-knowing?
Follow those tracks
Yesterday, I picked thimbleberries around the house. Not yet plentiful, one must search for deep rich redness. So tart and sweet simultaneously. This morning I ate them on brown rice drizzled with maple syrup and, yes, some walnuts and chia seeds, as well.
I surprised a fawn napping behind the shed and he bolted in dazed long-legged spotted frenzy toward the ravine. I do not suppose fawns like thimbleberries; however, one never knows.
Ripening
Yesterday evening we drove to the Baraga State Park and watched a raptor rehabilitator showing a fierce red-tail hawk, an ever fiercer Great Horned Owl, and a beloved barred owl with whom I fell immediately in love. Both owls stared at me.
Owl blood runs in my veins, as some of you know. Owls can transform what is perceived negative into a gift. Just ask them some deep dark night when your nature child can’t sleep.
Glimpses between trees
After the presentation, I walked up our country road. A bit farther up, farther than one can clearly identify, a creature stopped in her tracks and stared at the human down the road. Was she fox or coyote? She bounded off into high grasses and back into the woods.
I caught up with her scent but did not find her. Nature’s creatures are like that–so elusive. Except when they’re not.
What man treasures…
People imagine what it is like to live in the woods.
Here’s my answer: It can be just like living anywhere.
However, if you allow the mind to slow down, if you can stop the inner dialogue, you’re in the Garden of Eden with a snake that might cajole or ignore or bite your third eye. It’s that enchanting; that dangerous; that intriguing.
But only if you move beneath everyday concerns. Only if you stop and reconnect with your inner nature child, that which dances, that which intimately connects with whatever arises next.
Nature child
Is part of you still a nature child? Does part of you still run wild with the wolves and bear and deep-underwater lake trout?
Lake Superior Spirit 
nice 🙂
I didn’t find my inner child until moving to NS. Living in Windsor, Ontario for 23 years left me aching for the deep woods and fields of clover, mountains and valleys and a wee chickadee to eat out of my hand. Found it all in NS.
Yes part of me is. Happily.
A lovely post. My nature child is always close now urging me back to where I grew up.
Love this post. The photo’s and the lyrical prose truly convey the mood. Slow down and pay attention to the wonder that surrounds us. Thank you.
Thias is is so nice,,,”nature’s child.” Evryone should be so fortunate to be a “nature’s child.” Nothing better than to be in the open air to convene with nature.
YES!!! Even on days when the body won’t, the brain and the spirit are always free to play!
Kathy – It was delicious (sort of like a refreshing Nestea plunge) to ease into this nature post and beautiful photographs today. Ahhhhhhhh 🙂
I agree with Laurie — refreshing and rejuvenating. Thank you!
Living in the woods is pretty much the same as anywhere else … with some benefits. Life is slower if you allow it to be, quieter if you don’t bring noise to it, and most definitely more beautiful.
Trying hard to find that child
Yes, I think I am still very much a nature child. I struggle sometimes with reconciling that with the expectations of those around me and their ideas of what my life should look like, their demands of my time. But I refuse to let go of that part of me. I feel lucky to be a nature child.
I think there is very much a nature child within me. She longs to get out far more often than she does.
Love your photos – would have loved to see the owls!
Beautiful! Yes this is what it is all about! The child of nature is who we are, deep within us, finding that child, finding the connection allows what we do the rest of the time seem that much more rewarding. Everything is a gift of nature, or the universe…
Let the child play, see with a childs eyes, yearn with a child’s wonder!!
As you say, it’s so easy to forget the ‘nature child’ within us, but so wrong to do so. I have a lot of nature child tendencies, and try to tamp down the “grown-up person” as much as possible. 🙂
Kathy:
When I read your blog and look at your photos, I can feel myself drawn from the computer at my library to the beautiful nature settings of the UP of Michigan.
Nancy
My inner nature child is alive and well, and almost stepped on a huge black snake this morning. I had gotten so close to it that it was coiled and ready to strike. I’m glad it made that little hissing sound to warn me. It was a beautiful creature, but I rather not get that close to the snake in the garden again.
Beautiful words and images, Kathy. 🙂
I’m not sure that I have an inner nature child. I’ve been an old soul from the day I was born. Thinking about it here I’m perplexed. Wonder what I’ve missed out on?
Oh yes, Kathy, part of me is still very much a nature child. I want to run wild with her creatures with my new granddaughter in tow, sharing all the magic and beauty and even the sadness we find there. Your first two photos are exceptionally beautiful today, very sweet and delicate. My mother was, and my husband is, very fond of owls. Perhaps that why he is so good at turning the negative around into a gift – a helpful thought for me to ponder today.
I always have been and always will be a Nature Child, Kathy. Now, I teach my Grandchildren to stop, look, and listen in the wilderness. No matter where I’ve lived, I’ve sought wilderness for my restoration.
This post is like a big sigh. A huge part of me is a nature child. Lately, I’ve indulged that child almost completely after work. When I feel the pull, I’ll get back to the computer. Or not.
Just got back from a walk along the shore with two dogs. I took a bag to collect interesting sticks, dry seaweed, shells and tiny stones… not sure what I’m doing with it all but it was oh so much fun …