Tag Archives: nature

beach day

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My daughter and I took a quick overnight trip last week to Wrightsville Beach…my first time there. I basically go to see and listen to the waves and birds, to take a nighttime walk along the ocean’s edge as the incoming tide wraps around my bare feet, eat some seafood, and just see more of my own home state. The motel was quite nice, the waiter in the motel restaurant at supper funny in an appreciated sarcastic way, and lunch at the Oceanic Restaurant at the Crystal Pier very tasty (including my summertime favorite Key lime pie), with a beautiful ocean view. This fair-skinned mountain native isn’t a big fan of sand or baking in the (very!) hot sun, even with an umbrella, or crowds, but seeing the water and hearing the waves was peaceful and lovely, and being there on a September weekday meant fewer people.


When I was a kid and my parents and I would go to the beach (usually Myrtle Beach), I would be so excited for that first glimpse of the magical Atlantic, almost like a Christmas morning feeling. I don’t feel that exact excitement at the beach anymore, and that makes me a little sad, but it’s still a wondrous natural thing, and like my daughter commented on our night walk, it seems kind of lonely in a way – I know what she means – and thinking back to travelers a long time ago coming here in ships to a new but unknown life, it must have seemed a little scary. I get that same sense of a kind of loneliness when I hear a distant train whistle. Anyway, it was a bit of a whirlwind trip, but a fun getaway as summer starts to wind down a little bit.

wandering, and other words

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I’ve always been fascinated by words. From childhood I’ve loved reading and writing, and my adult working life was specifically focused on words, as a medical transcriptionist/editor.

Sacred, meaning worthy of reverence and awe, is one of my favorite words to describe nature, but I also enjoy learning interesting, lovely new words related to the natural world. For example, psithurism is the sound of wind in trees, and petrichor, the smell of rain. A nemophilist is one who loves the beauty of forests, an orophile a lover of mountains, and Yugen is profound awareness of the universe that triggers deep feelings.

One word that especially resonates with me is solivagant, wandering (alone). Wandering invariably reminds me of a favorite movie, Alfred Hitchcock’s “Vertigo.” Madeleine went wandering. Her husband told Scottie, “And she wanders – God knows where she wanders.” Madeleine herself said, “Only one is a wanderer. Two together are always going somewhere.” Scottie doesn’t agree with that; neither do I.

I’ve been fortunate to have people in my life who enjoyed taking off down the road without an agenda other than to see what’s over the next hill, around that curve, enjoying the journey, communing with nature. We’ve been surprised by a traffic jam of goats, deer families, creeks running across roads, unexpected rainbows and patches of icy spring snows, an expansive patch of Turks cap lilies, joe pye in autumn, ducks and fishermen sharing the river in summer. There are many good memories to be made during an afternoon of wandering. I blame my love of “loafering,” as we southerners sometimes call it, on my parents and our weekly Sunday afternoon drives with no idea where we were going or when we’d be back, and it has carried into my adult life, via car, truck, motorcycle, bicycle, boat, foot, and even by canoe.

Wandering has a history among some favorite nature writers as well. Thoreau, Emerson, and Muir “sauntered” in Nature as a form of spiritual practice and solitude, while Edward Abbey encouraged us to “ramble…and contemplate the precious stillness out yonder, the lovely, mysterious, and awesome space.” 

Wandering can lead us as far from home (or keep us as near) as we like. It’s about taking time to slow down and appreciate what’s around us without being in a hurry or on a rigid schedule, and as J.R.R. Tolkien reminds us, “Not all those who wander are lost.” It can be as simple as exploring our own neighborhood, paying more attention, maybe seeing something we’ve never noticed before as we sped by on our way somewhere else.

Sunday is a great time to wander, and autumn, coming soon, is also a perfect time, seeing leaves change their glorious hues under clear blue skies, experiencing that crisp “feeling of fall” that’s hard to explain, perhaps being fortunate enough to happen upon one of those roadside stands selling apples, pumpkins, and fresh cider. I hope wherever and however you wander, you’ll allow the sacredness of nature to renew and inspire you.

(original version of this post published in the Universal Pantheist Society’s Pantheist Vision)

joe pye time

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School is starting soon. That means autumn is in the foreseeable future.  I’m sure that up in the mountains the Joe Pye is blooming all over. I don’t see Joe Pye down here in and about my Raleigh neighborhood, at least so far, and to tell you the truth, I miss it.  I find it comforting to see those blooms along the side of the road, quietly and nobly announcing the upcoming return of my favorite season.  It has been so hot here this summer that even an occasional twinge of fall would be welcome (that feeling that you recognize but can’t necessarily explain in words).


It’s called Joe Pye weed (Eutrochium species), but I see it as a beautiful flower, a herald of those vibrant leafy colors, cool crisp days, and the clearest of blue skies to come as we move through the wheel of the year.  Before you know it, it’ll be sweaters, blankets on the bed at night, hot chocolate, and cooking comforting meals that feed body and spirit, as nesting settles in to last throughout the winter.  I see all the seasons as blessings in their own ways, but autumn holds a special place in my heart, all warmly golden and red and orange, coziness in abundance.


I’m getting ahead of myself, though.  Today, it’s still August, still summer, still hot.  I’ll enjoy the beauty of the Joe Pye when and where (and if!) I see it this year.  For that and the lovely memories, I’m thankful.