Nature – KM Huber's Blog

KMHuberImage; St. Mark's Wildlife Refuge; Florida; Gulf of Mexico

The Sour Joy of Being Alive

Posted on October 4, 2019October 4, 2019 by KM Huber in #LongerView, Aging, Inspiration, Spirituality, Zen

Not all lemons are for lemonade.

Some are made of sterner stuff–tart flesh and rind for grind–a bit of zest. Acquired taste? Maybe or a mere matter of equanimity, appreciating the lemon as is, without making it into something else.

I find the lemon fine, a new lens, a wake-up call.

Recently, I purchased a digital camera (with 42X optical zoom) and received binoculars (12×50) as a birthday gift. Why would I want either? My index fingers and thumbs are compromised as are my legs. Any outing is quite the risk so lemons abound, and no amount of lemonade will change that. And I am tired of making lemonade.

The thing is, when a lemon is around there is a chance for zest, a singular moment unlike any other; as well, there is the sour that can sap any day, maybe even change life’s course. The lens of the lemon has much to offer.

In the last few months I’ve increased my visits to local parks and to St. Marks Wildlife Refuge, where the wild ones still run but are wary of me and mine, as they should be.

Binoculars and a zoom lens bring me to them from afar. Each look is framed in forever–in my mind’s eye or a single snapshot.

There is a bite to these moments, and I don’t ignore it or make it something it is not. I don’t want to miss what the outing offers, the sour joy of being alive.

Will this be my last trip?

I bite deeper into the lemon to capture the moment for all the days of no trips.

My first binocular view was from my bedroom window, the top of a dying but still substantial trunk of a Loblolly Pine and a pileated woodpecker so very present in its work and completely unaware of me. There is joy in not being seen, not interrupting.

That memory of the woodpecker enlarges itself every time I call it round. What was initially a day of being confined is now a memory of being in the world bitter but the lemon rind surprised with a not so sour zest.

There is a freshness to the flesh of the lemon, and I am never more present than in its presence.

The bite of the moment is just one sensation in watching a tricolor heron sitting a branch of a now dead oak in the saltwater marsh at low tide, all the while a Cooper’s hawk sits atop. As I write, the moment grows in its magnificence. Memory does that.

It was a fine lemon moment. My insect spray did little to nothing in keeping the flies from biting my legs; my arms were weak so the camera swayed as did my legs. Keeping my balance was a constant shift as shot after shot blurred or the zoom lens was inappropriate for the distance but still the snowy Egret fished the sun-drenched marsh grass.

I have come to the lemon lens late in life, grateful I did not miss it. Like the dying trunk of the Loblolly pine, there are years of life left but being is ever changing. No excuses, no explanations, no adding of sweet to bitter, just freshness with a bite, zesty. Indeed, equanimity.

Looking into Nature’s Mirror and Finding Grace

Posted on March 22, 2015April 5, 2015 by KM Huber in Inspiration, Oneness, Spirituality

The cycle of seasons is nature’s mirror, ours for the viewing. Mostly, we celebrate a new season but not always the length of time nature takes to make the change.

We assign spring a date, anticipating an event that may or may not arrive as assigned. Arrival is always a mystery. In a moment of grace, nature unfolds in its own time, in its own way.

“I do not at all understand the mystery of grace—only that it meets us where we are and does not leave us where it found us.” Anne Lamott

I do not understand the mystery, either, but I am content for the experience of it. All I do know is that grace transforms. And like spring, it is its own mystery.

Grace flows with the majesty of a meandering river. Part of its mystery is the gradual eroding of its course, without beginning or end. We do not know the precise moment we are transformed. We only know that we are.

In grace, we do not wallow or stagnate but discover and re-discover the spring of our lives not so much as to re-live but to be reborn in yet another season.

Spring is not a one-time event.

Grace moves us to deeds we once thought impossible. In each spring of our life, we emerge anew. Grace allows us to bare ourselves as we are—to take the risk again—to meet each new spring we are allowed.

We are given only one body to grow but we have the gift of grace to transform, to meet yet another spring. Our seasons cycle within our hearts, bold with the opportunity each affords.

We need not remain wrapped in winter, blanketed in its protective shell. Like nature, ours is not to stagnate or to wallow but to transform from a winter’s day into a spring’s blossom. It is the way of grace.

The bud opens, and life begins anew, yet again. There is grace in this falling away of one season for another, a radical change replete with uncertainty.

As we are revealed so are we seen. Grace unlocks our softness.

Looking Through the Life Lens

Posted on October 5, 2014 by KM Huber in Florida, Inspiration, Oneness

Focus is adjusting the aperture of the life lens to reveal the ever-changing depth of field. Sometimes, life requires a wide open lens—the big picture—often, the aperture is small, open only to the current moment. Big or small, clarity creates perspective.

The turning of the life lens is like a kaleidoscope, quick glimpses of what might be, any and all a possibility. Not all choices will be clear, even momentarily, but those chosen find a forever as memories, a clarity all its own.

These days, my life lens hardly knows where to focus for my aperture is wide open, the depth of field possibilities ever-expanding. I know that infinite possibilities exist in each moment but every once in a while life is so large, it’s hard to decide where to focus first.

Almost daily now, I walk Waverly pond and park for a little focus practice. Waverly residents are used to me and my aged, Kodak camera. Many of my photographic attempts resemble a quick turn through a kaleidoscope. Later, no amount of digital manipulation provides focus but in memory, focus has soft edges.

Of late, the resident pair of red-shouldered hawks have been quite fond of perching atop the “no fishing, no swimming” signs that are positioned on opposite sides of the pond.

I have yet to get a focused photo of their perching but I included one in last week’s post, anyway. From these two vantage sign points, the hawks’ presence on the pond and the surrounding park is a constant and clear reminder to all.

I have learned how close I can get to the hawks, which is usually just out of the depth of field for my Kodak lens. Auto-focus is insufficient so I keep trying different settings.

The hawks balance patiently, providing me one opportunity after another but only my life lens captures the essence of these moments forever.

Eventually, I get a clear, sharp picture of the sign sans hawk. This is focus practice after all. Inadvertently, I capture a snowy egret in the background; its image more ghost-like than feather and flesh.

I continue my walk around the pond toward the egret, stopping to lean against a recently pruned ash tree. I focus the Kodak lens through tree branches and find the egret looking at me so I look back. We stay this way for a bit before the egret returns to fishing, and I, to my walk.

Recently, the neighborhood association added a wooden swing. It is so comfortable that it is rarely unoccupied. From here, the view is as wide open as my life lens aperture can get–timeless focus.

The wooden swing is my last stop. Often, the hawks join me, either alight the light post or perching on the connecting power wire. On overcast, drizzling days, grub from the ground is a favorite.

Sitting on the swing makes focusing the Kodak even more of a challenge. For me, it is a swing in perpetual motion for my feet cannot touch the ground so I sit forward for focus.

The Kodak results resemble turns of a kaleidoscope, with an occasional exception, but my life lens continuously captures Waverly for a lifetime of remembering.

The View From Waverly: Bottoms Up!

Posted on March 30, 2014April 4, 2014 by KM Huber in Florida, Inspiration, Spirituality

Curiosity is standing on a moment’s edge, sharp with uncertainty, and deciding the leap is worth the risk. Staying curious closes the door on the known and opens us to the thrill of exploring familiar territory as if it were the first time.

When the “world is too much with me,” I escape to Waverly pond and park—in my mind’s eye ever idyllic—once there, I believe I will regain myself, and I do, but never in the way I anticipate. For when I am at Waverly, curiosity shoves aside all of what I am so certain, and no matter what happens, the view is new.

Life goes on at Waverly, impermanent but not imperfect. It is a distinction well worth remembering for nature does not summon the past to understand or to avoid the present, no matter how daunting or mundane the moment might be.

Nature just is, unfolding in every moment, perfect and precise, providing another perspective, different from the moment previous and unlike the one yet to come. Nature is curiosity sustained.

As I look across the waters of Waverly, there is not a single snowy egret or Canadian goose to be seen but the waters of Waverly are not as I have seen them–ever. Sediment, rust in color and seemingly the texture of sawdust, covers most of the pond.

Its red clay banks are deeply scarred by what was once roaring rivulets of seed pods and dead grass. Day long rains swept and splintered pine needles into fragments of themselves. Needles, pods and grass—a winter’s barge–now float.

Spring blossoms are sporadic, seemingly uncertain. Most trees stand bare, witnesses to a winter that seems in no hurry to leave. So far, spring is days of rain and weeks of gray. I do not know Waverly in this kind of spring. It is not what I want to see.

In response, my mind’s eye returns to Waverly idyllic, as if to wait out the moment that I have. I actually close my eyes on the nature that is for the nature I seek.

Standing on the edge of such a moment is a first for me at Waverly, and I open my eyes with a start, having heard nothing but having sensed something. It is the wonder of the world, whether at Waverly or wherever, that in the instance of knowing one thing, something entirely new reveals itself.

In this moment, it is the bobbing bottom of a duck amid murky waters, oblivious to winter’s floating barge. The duck rights itself, churning through the old as if it were new.

Once again, the duck is bottom up, now joined by yet another duck, also bottom up. For more than a while they are content within the muck, swimming one way and then the next, sometimes in circles, seemingly content in waters that are new yet the same. Ultimately, they swim beyond winter’s barge to open water.

So often, the unknown is merely a new perspective on an old situation, one that seemed so ripe for escape. Escape takes us only to where we have been as we have been. Staying curious allows us to meet the moment’s edge, perhaps bottom up, completely unsure of what that may mean but confident that these waters offer life in yet another way.

Walking Waverly in All its Wonder

Posted on October 27, 2013November 13, 2013 by KM Huber in Beyond Time, Consciousness, Inspiration, Spirituality

It has been twelve weeks since I added a regular yoga practice to my life and ceased my daily, morning walks. The change was a gift from lupus. There have been few days that I did not participate in a full yoga flow and only a day or two that I did not practice at least one pose.

The gifts of yoga have been many and continue to come but I miss walking Waverly, a park I have come to know in all seasons. It is a trusted place. Admittedly, during most yoga sessions memories of Waverly drop in and out.

I hoped to return and have.

It is still too soon to tell whether or not a daily walk may return to my regular regimen but that I was able to walk all around the pond means Waverly is still a possibility from time to time. As often happens at Waverly, it was a walk of wonder for the wildlife is rich and varied. I like to think my return was noticed.

As the images reveal, all of the usual suspects came out, if not to say hello at least to give me a glance. I was especially thrilled to see this creature, whom I have only glimpsed twice before. On this day, there was patience for a portrait.

Turtle Row is especially populous on this bright fall morning with all sizes welcome. Snowy egrets walk water’s edge, sampling the bounty of the pond. As I cross the bridge, the falling leaves crackle as they catch a crisp, momentary breeze.

In every direction is awe for the seeing, and I gawk. After some time I realize I have assumed Mountain Pose or Tadasana: spine straight, knees together with toes pointed in slightly to even my stance, head lifted in full appreciation of just being at Waverly.

Among the many gifts of yoga is learning to move mindfully, neither straining nor restraining the body but moving according to its level of flexibility. Yoga is my dialogue with my physical self; each movement opens my body to response. I have come to recognize the sensation of the flow of my own energy, my own Waverly.

In the real Waverly, my steps are deliberate—once I would have characterized them as slow—sinew connects muscle to bone in simultaneous stride, a mind-body connection. There is a light awareness of sensation with every breath, with every step.

It is a familiar, meditative energy that I have come to appreciate for it is present in a moment of monkey mind or one of being with nature. Such a meditative state always serves, highlighting the sensation of the physical self as the mind drops in thought after thought.

Walking Waverly, I open to its energy, swinging my arms and flexing my fingers just because I can. Images of past yoga sessions drop in and out of my walk, as if to remind me of the first time I felt warmth coursing up and down my legs. It is the energy of life.

I remember that I have not always acknowledged the energy of my life. Just because I was able to walk did not mean I was mindful of my body movement in any regard. It is possible I am receiving another chance despite decades of inattention to my physical self other than to constantly demand of it.

So on this morning as I walk Waverly again, I am mindful of the wonder in every step.

Thursday Tidbits: The Way to Fall Apart

Posted on May 30, 2013May 29, 2013 by KM Huber in Inspiration, Spirituality, Thursday Tidbits

This week’s Thursday Tidbits post considers retreat as a meditative withdrawal and as the idea of falling apart. As Pema Chödrön says, “Everything that comes together at some time falls apart.” Ours is to experience pain and pleasure–usually alternating but not always–for the nature of existence is impermanence.

Recently, I attended an online retreat offered by the Omega Institute, featuring Pema Chödrön. The retreat covered the four marks of existence–impermanence, egolessness, suffering, and peace–during the first minutes of the retreat, Chodron referred to the four as the facts of life. I felt a familiar stirring.

I had been drawn to the retreat from the moment the invitation arrived in my email box, about 72 hours prior to the event’s first session. I was not aware of having any connection to the Omega Institute, which is not to say I did not but is to say I do not remember a connection. Still don’t.

Serendipitous email or no, the retreat affirmed my suspicion that I was, indeed, falling apart again–health, writing, life–but the initial session on impermanence revealed how adept I had become at avoiding falling apart. That was an unexpected moment yet it was obvious I had been creating various bubbles of escape for some time. No wonder they felt so familiar, so comfortable.

You might think all my posts about allowing bubbles to float up and through us while remaining in present moment awareness might have had some effect on me other than escaping with the bubbles. They did, ultimately.

A few months ago when I started reading Pema Chödrön’s books, I chose The Places That Scare You over When Things Fall Apart. I felt a familiar stirring of avoidance when I made my selection but convinced myself I needed to read the former title–for what reason now escapes me.

Not surprisingly, the phrase that I kept hearing in the online retreat was “when things fall apart,” more by participants than by Pema Chödrön. That was not surprising, either.

“Things falling apart is a kind of testing and also a kind of healing. We think that the point is to pass the test or to overcome the problem, but the truth is that things don’t really get solved. They come together and they fall apart. And they come together again and fall apart again. It’s just like that. The healing comes from letting there be room for all of this to happen: room for grief, for relief, for misery, for joy” (When Things Fall Apart).

The words falling apart have always been difficult for me. I eschew vulnerability in the same breath that I advocate an open mind and open heart; however, I do know “strength does not come from a bubble of safety” (Chödrön).

My bubble burst within the first few minutes of listening to Pema Chödrön, and my tears streamed right along with the video; Chödrön is quite a wit so my tears were from laughter as well as from the pain of recognition. It was a great way to fall apart, actually.

Nothing has changed and everything has changed. I am still dealing with a significant lupus flare and adjusting my life accordingly; as always, diet, meditation, and yoga figure prominently. For me, it is not a matter of being less but a matter of being more, just as I am, which is new.

If I avoid the discomfort that is part of being alive, I am living in a bubble. Bubbles burst; it is their nature. If I open to both the pleasure and the pain of life, I am vulnerable but strength resides in accepting that things fall apart and come together. It is the nature of existence.

*****

Thursday Tidbits are weekly posts that offer choice bits of information to celebrate our oneness with one another through our unique perspectives. It is how we connect, how we have always connected but in the 21st century, the connection is a global one.

Thursday Tidbits: A Lasting Innocence

Posted on April 11, 2013April 11, 2013 by KM Huber in Thursday Tidbits

This week’s Thursday Tidbits considers April’s Bloggers for Peace theme, children and peace. Whenever I think of children, I think of animals for both remind that life on the physical plane is ever ongoing, is ever born in innocence, is ever lasting.

Within all of existence, innocence is born again and again, always with the possibility of peace everlasting. For neither innocence nor peace carry the burden of judgment nor do children and animals.

Indeed, they are “all bright and beautiful as well as great and small.” Perhaps that is not a fair paraphrase of the opening lines of the Cecil Frances Alexander poem but I cannot think of children or of animals without remembering that classic poem. It is in their eyes that one sees the world as it is.

I am not a parent so my experience with children is limited to nieces and nephews that have always delighted. Another favorite experience was working with young writers eager to tell their stories yet they were also just as eager to listen, if the story was good enough. These days, I enjoy the grandchildren of friends and count myself most fortunate in that. The world through a child’s eyes is ever expanding.

Perhaps what is most revealing in both children and animals—beyond being forever young–is they are also ever present. It may be their greatest gift, this constant revelation that peace resides in the lasting innocence with which we are all born, and all we need to do is awaken what we allow to sleep within so soundly.

Animals stay present their entire lives–no matter how long they live– they never lose their innocence of being, despite what some endure just to survive. For those whose innocence lies calloused beneath scars that nearly break them, they remain present. Innocence is, no matter how deep.

Unfortunately, what some children must endure just to survive can bury their innocence, too. Yet, innocence is the birth right of all beings on the physical plane. We do not readily recognize our innocence as adults—for we struggle to be present, if we are that aware—we look to the children for innocence we once knew, perhaps making sure it still is.

No doubt, it sounds unrealistic to view innocence as everlasting, and some would argue that a lasting peace is just as unrealistic but sometimes we pass life by, too busy defining what it should look like when all we have to do is look into the eyes of the nearest child or animal to remember what life actually does look like.

This week’s video features “Bless the Beasts and the Children,” sung by the Carpenters and complete with images of both beasts and children.

Hope you have a moment to browse the related posts about children and their stories.

My favorite children’s author is Adrian Fogelin. Her latest novel for children, Summer on the Moon, placed second in the Florida book awards for 2012. The book link is to her website so you may read all about her. She also blogs at SlowDance Journal where you will always find thoughtful essays.

Peace Garret provides six children’s story recommendations.

Bayard and Holmes remind us just how amazing and bright young people are with their youth achievement awards.

Grandmalin provides parent wisdom as well as words to the wise for the rest of us in respecting children in her April Post for Peace.