Category Archives: Nature

Found hearts

While hiking at the Mill of Kintail last week, I came across this heart rock on one of the boardwalks.

Rock painted with a purple hear

A few weeks ago, I woke up and looked out my bedroom window to see this collection of hearts on my neighbours’ lawn, in celebration of their 60th wedding anniversary.

Over the years, I’ve encountered heart-shaped rocks in several locations, including during a Habitat for Humanity build in Bolivia. That heart became part of the foundation of the house we built together.

  • Lake Huron rock
  • Habitat for Humanity rock

My niece went to an amethyst mine near Thunder Bay and brought me back this sample.

Heart-shaped amethyst

When I come across an unexpected heart, it always makes my smile. I think we all need a little lift these days, am I right?

May my found hearts help to lift yours. What are your favourite hearts?

Rain on a cottage roof

“How was the weather?” people ask when we return from our cottage. They assume we would wish for nothing but sunshine and warmth.

But wet weather is a wonderful part of vacation life too. Rainy days are perfect for cocooning with a good book, or for settling in for a nap.

There are few sounds more soothing than rain on a cottage roof . . .

Photos are way more dramatic is wet weather too.

Grow with the flow

A few weeks ago in her post Planned Spontaneity, Laurie Buchanan of Tuesdays with Laurie contemplated the different growing patterns of trees and pondered how that compared to how we lead our lives.

  • Are you a planner, with specific ideas of which you want to go?
  • Do you live haphazardly, bending every which way?

Like most people, she is a cross between two styles: 70% planned, 30% free spirit.

I am about 50/50, but when I was younger I led a much more planned existence. Spontaneity made me uneasy back then. In fact, friends used to make fun of my wary stick-to-routine life and pushed me to step outside my comfort zone.

And then I became a freelance writer. Talk about unpredictable.

I have developed more comfort with the “unexpected.”

Once I discovered that some of my most amazing life experiences occurred when I said, “Let’s go this way and see what happens,” spontaneity came more easily. When I allowed life to unfold naturally, it always seemed to lead me to an important and life-changing experience.

“Given the unpredictability of this crazy world, it’s good to be able to grow with the flow,” I wrote in Laurie’s comment section, and that feels true to me. Best not to cling to plans in this COVID time, am I right? It has forced even the most wary of us out of any routines we might have been sticking to.

I’m trying to grow with that flow. All of this feels important and life-changing.

Two trees twining together as they grow.
These trees are growing with the flow together.

Hasten slowly

“Hasten slowly and you will soon reach your destination.”  

—Milarepa, as found in Finding Water: The Art of Perseverance by Julia Cameron

But, how can we hasten slowly? Isn’t that an oxymoron?

And yet, it seems we do. All the good stuff comes out of hastening slowly.

  • A university degree: scribbling notes and typing assignments during caffeine-driven all-nighters . . . for four years
  • A thriving marriage: juggling careers and taking whirlwind vacations, chasing around after toddlers, paying down the mortgage . . . for decades
  • Children: pacing the floor during sleepless nights, car pooling to hockey games, gritting teeth at parent-teacher interviews, wanting everything to be perfect for them . . . for, well, forever
  • Published writing: handwriting first drafts, transcribing messy second drafts, editing, reading aloud, pacing, getting up in the middle of the night to change a word . . . for days, weeks, years

When rewards are slow coming, it is easy to get discouraged. Whether it is raising money for a good cause, learning a language, landing a recording contract, establishing the perfect garden, or mastering the “Moonlight Sonata” on piano, we must push on.

And if we stop typing, juggling, paying, pacing, gritting, planting, weeding, watering, playing, practising, reciting, conversing—if we stop hastening—then we never reach the goal.

Whatever your destination, hasten to it, and slowly you will arrive.

Just . . . know, or just . . . no

Do you ever hover between yes and no?

Saying yes can

  • suck away hours of time for a project you’re not passionate about
  • lead you to grand adventure, in the way of Shonda Rhimes
The book YEAR OF YES by Shonda Rhimes

Saying no can

  • save you from being used or abused, or from drugs as Nancy Reagan would have wished
  • deny you fun or a fantastic learning and growing experience

Some days, on the surface, it seems hard to decide. You have to dig deep before the answer is clear. When you do, you discover you just . . . know.

Other times the answer is spelled out.

In my cottage area, garbage must be protected from wild animals. Waste management workers need to access the containers, so parking in front of them is a definite NO.

I love the simplicity of the sign. One word. No explanation required. If you’re the person thinking of parking in that space, just . . . no.

You just know, or just no. The answer is always clear.