Swan Sanctuary

Observing birds and trees has always been one of my favorite pastimes; however in the absence of those, I enjoy watching the clouds. The large cumulus clouds that resemble giant scoops of vanilla ice cream, looming upwards against a backdrop of azure sky, are breathtaking. On windy days, the sky can be cloudless and during heavy rain or snow storms, the sky is merely dark and overcast. My favorite sky is one which is filled with a potpourri of different sizes and shapes of clouds painted in varying shades of grey and white. Lying on my back watching the clouds shapeshift is still one of my favorite pastimes.  

Most of the pastimes of my youth were solitary games, but they could also be shared with one or more others. Playing hopscotch entailed a degree of exercise and learning to balance. Jumping rope was by far the most exhilarating and was also good for the heart. The game of foursquare required at least four players, so it was usually played at recess. Tetherball involved upper body and arm strength along with some stretching, especially if you were short. When I was confined indoors, jacks and pick-up-sticks were games that I played on our hardwood floors. These both required quickness, dexterity, and eye/hand coordination. The more leisurely pastimes were generally playing with paper dolls by myself, or playing board games with my brother. We had only one TV and it was black and white. We only received five or six channels and had no control over what was being aired, so it did not become an addiction as it has for most people today. 

Few children spend any time out of doors in this modern age. Watching clouds would not appeal to them. When they are not at school, they are on their phones or other devices, or glued to the television while consuming junk food and sodas. A few years back, I purchased jacks for three of my granddaughters. They were not interested in them and I could no longer enjoy playing jacks as I once had, because of the arthritis in my hands. From time to time, the vintage games of my youth are brought back by my nostalgic peers; but they never catch on or grab the interest of the current generation. If their phones are taken away, the youth of today do not know what to do with themselves. Those of my generation; however, could always find something to do and if nothing else interested them, they would read a book. The children of today do not know what they are missing.

Since my return to Wyoming in July, I have seen only two or three butterflies, two praying mantis, and thousands of house flies. The grasshoppers have not been as bad as in the previous summer. The flies are a given due to the numerous cattle ranches in the area, as well as the large number of dog owners that do not clean up after their pets. Most of the people around here hang up sticky fly traps throughout their homes and businesses. These are not only disgusting, but unnerving when the flies continue to buzz for several minutes after getting stuck to them. I dislike house flies too, but the torture of any of Earth’s creatures is wrong. I prefer to allow the admittance of the black jumping spider (Portia fimbriata) because they live exclusively on flies and other insects.

Last week when I was walking in the cemetery, there was a Monarch butterfly flitting about frantically. It was either looking for food or a place to lay its eggs. My heart was breaking because I knew that all of the flowers that it would light on, were artificial. Its energy reserves would soon be depleted, if it could not find any real, nectar laden flowers. Monarch butterflies, being host specific, must seek out milkweed in order to lay their eggs. Their larvae, once hatched, must have milkweed to eat because it supplies the nutrients that they require. If the caterpillars do not hatch on milkweed, which will feed them through this stage of growth, they will not be able to develop into  butterflies. This is the time of year when Monarchs are migrating south to spend the winter in Mexico. They travel as much as 3,000 miles on their bi-yearly migration! As we continue to destroy habitat, we decrease the possibility of their survival. It is estimated that their numbers have decreased 80% over the past 25 years – in spite of those caring individuals who have planted more milkweed for them. The worst part is that Monarchs are not the only butterfly that is disappearing. The number of butterflies in the U.S. has decreased by around 50% overall.

When I was growing up in the 1950’s, my parents would take us to spend weekends at a lake in northern Colorado. I remember the numerous insects. I was frequently bitten by deer flies and horse flies, not to mention mosquitoes. There were dragonflies and damselflies and bumble bees and beetles. I have visited a lake nearby where I am currently living, a few times over the past three years. There has been a strange absence of insects. It is eerily devoid of life other than the humans in their motor boats and jet skis. 

Today, people are consumed with concern about racism and immigrants, about the rights of LGBTQ’s, about the right to bear arms, about women’s rights, and the right not to be vaccinated. In the whole scheme of life; however, these things are trivial. We need to be concerned about the lack of insects, because ultimately, we are destroying ourselves. We need to sound the alarm. Other species are dying all around us. When they all disappear, so will we.

What if alzeimers and dementia are simply the means by which a soul prepares for its transition into the next life? When we are born we have already forgotten everything from our previous lifetime(s) except for the unconscious memories that have travelled with us, perhaps in part, via DNA. I was thinking about my mother who passed away from dementia a few years ago. She had forgotten that she had two daughters and she had forgotten that I was one of them. She never forgot; however, that she had a son (her favorite). This led me to believe that perhaps this “disease” of old age and memory loss is merely the process by which “forgetting” begins. It is necessary to forget the previous life in order to be truly present in the current one, just as it is important to be present in this moment if we are to experience it fully. While the majority of people waste their precious lives escaping into the past, or worrying about future events that may or may not come to pass, their lives are, so to speak, passing them by.

Many people, once having reached retirement age and beyond, suddenly realize that they will never reach that elusive destination of wealth, security, happiness, and success that they had spent a lifetime striving for. It is simply too late because if they have not taken care of their health, they are now besotted with health problems. If they haven’t reached their financial goals, they can no longer compete in the workforce. If they have failed at relationships, or had two or three divorces, it is fantasy to believe that they will find true love in their 80’s or 90’s. At this point, they “lose” themselves in their memories of long ago, which they can recall quite vividly. At the same time, they often forget what they had for dinner, or even if they had it. This, I believe, is the beginning of “forgetting”. In many ways, they become children again (wearing diapers and requiring care). My mother became the flirty teenager of her youth. 

Once the forgetting is complete, like cleaning the hard drive of a computer, the memories are uploaded to the archives of existence (the Akashik record) and the brain begins to shut down along with the other organs of the body. The soul is at last ready to make its transition. 

Modern society, with the push from pharmaceutical giants and the AMA, continue to insist that they are “saving lives”, when in fact, they are merely extending them. They pride themselves on their ability to keep some body parts functioning, to replace body parts either with borrowed or artificial ones; but they have no control over the soul, or the memories that have been kept there.

There are an astounding number of cracks in the pavement in the cemetery where I walk. Most of these cracks are filled with grass and other plants. Their seeds have miraculously tucked themselves into these tiny places where they are able to germinate and flourish. Is it random after all, when seeds appear in those places that provide them with the ideal conditions of sunlight, water, and shelter? I have spent a lifetime observing plants and I have concluded that their intelligence far surpasses our own. 

Regardless how much concrete and asphalt and tar, regardless how many herbicides and weed-eaters we employ to destroy these plants, they prevail somehow. Abandoned fields and buildings – even neglected gardens – are covered in vegetation in virtually no time at all. I spent countless hours pulling Convolvulus (bindweed) from gardens. Their vertical roots can grow as deep as twenty feet below ground! The lateral roots grow intertwined, creating thick masses of roots anywhere from one to two feet deep, beneath landscape fabric that has been put down, in the erroneous belief that it can be stopped. The vine works its way tenaciously to the edges of the fabric until it merges out into the sunlight. This plant’s vines use anything and everything available (even each other) to climb on for support.

There is evidence that some species are already adapting to climate change. Some may not be able to and will join the ranks of those that have already become extinct; but many will succeed. Some corals, Sockeye and Pink salmon, Mediterranean thyme, Tawny owls, Red squirrels, and fruit flies are a few of the species that are evolving to deal with our warming climate, according to an article in the Smithsonian.  

Even if we are entering what many scientists believe to be the Sixth Extinction, a few species have always remained, to kickstart a new era. Will humans be able to adapt? Insects and viruses are pros at adaptation. I do not believe that humans are willing to. This would require letting go of our stubbornness, our selfishness, our arrogance, and our ignorance. It would require giving up the need to dominate, to control, and to manipulate. As long as we continue to fight our perceived enemies by concocting toxic chemicals and other weaponry, we fight only ourselves. The viruses, the insects, and many plants will adapt; but we will create more illness for ourselves and others. Unless we too, learn to adapt, in the end we will lose.

Since returning to Wheatland, I have resumed walking in the cemetery. Some people find this strange, but I welcome the solitude. The residents there are very quiet. Mostly, I walk there in order to be in the presence of trees, which are few and far between in this arid landscape. I easily relate to them as I stroll along the cemetery “streets”. I am saddened by the exposed trunks of the evergreens. Their lower branches have been removed from the ground up to at least six feet. I presume this is done in order that lawn mowers can move easily beneath them and/or to prevent their growing over the tombstones. Sap drips from the wounds created by the more recent severing of limbs, like blood and tears. There are mainly Blue Spruce, Ponderosa Pine, and Western Red Cedar interspersed with deciduous Green Ash. At least a third of the trees have dead and broken branches caused by the severe wind. Most likely, much of the damage was a result of the brutal snowstorm that arrived here in mid-March dumping over 30 inches of snow on the area. I love the sight of a full grown Blue Spruce with its lowest branches gracefully sweeping the ground beneath it; but this is not to be found at the cemetery. Many homeowners too, spoil the natural beauty of these evergreens, ignorant of the wrong that they are doing. 

As I walk among these broken, damaged trees, I often feel it is I who am the ghost, walking silently among the dead. I, too, have been broken in many places. Like the trees, I am still standing, still breathing, still enduring this thing we call life. Walking in the cemetery also helps me to remember each and every day that life is impermanent. The trees will eventually die and go on to become something else. Perhaps they will remain as a snag, offering shelter to numerous bird and insect species. They may be cut into boards and become the frame for a home, or be made into furniture, or shredded into mulch where they will become nutrients for other trees and plants. I have recently been comforted in knowing that I can be composted when I pass on. I will request in my will to be wrapped loosely in a simple cloth – no coffin or embalming fluid for me! Then I can still exist among trees, offering myself to them as nutrients. I want an entire forest to be planted around me. I will return to the earth, to give back in some small way, all that it has given to me.

Today I want to share some thoughts that I had randomly written down over the past year. Back in May, I noted that life is kind of like a mirage on the highway. I remember watching mirages as a child, when I rode in the car from Denver to visit my grandmother and her husband in the mountains, more than 200 miles away. There was a long stretch of highway through a valley known as South Park, where the road was straight and long. I always visited my grandmother during the summer break from school. It was hot and it was before cars had air conditioners; so we rode with the windows down. I do not recall my grandma turning on the radio when she drove, or if in fact, there was any reception. Certainly there were no cell phones back in the mid-1950’s. Communication was done by handwritten letters and the occasional long distance phone call which was very costly. 

During these long road trips, there was little to do while sitting in the car except view the scenery as it passed by. I loved watching the mirages which looked like a large pool of water in the road ahead of us, but they always disappeared once you got closer. They would then reappear far off in the distance. I think the mirage is a great metaphor for how most people live their lives. We work and dream and strive and hope to reach some elusive goal. Maybe that goal is to make a million dollars, or to own a Lamborghini, or to buy a mansion or a boat. Maybe our goals are not so grandiose. Some people simply want to attain that PhD, or that coveted position in their company. Maybe they dream of owning their own business, or attaining that dream job. Some people might simply want to find the perfect partner, or lose weight, or have improved health. Quite often, these goals are never reached. The highway of life merely takes them to another bend in the road around which they cannot see. In actuality, many goals are attained; but in a short time, dissatisfaction sets in. 

Those of us who have been exposed to what are known as New Age ideas, have been admonished with the warning “Be careful what you pray for – you might get it.” The mirage can be enticing. It draws us towards it, alluring, shiny and bright. We believe that it will be there, if we work, drive, run fast enough, but like a rainbow, it will disappear because it is not real. It lives in the future, which does not exist. Only this moment exists – and only for a moment before the next one comes along. If we keep trying to reach the mirage, we miss the present moment and before we know it, our life has passed us by.

It has been said and mostly agreed upon, that if you are not writing every day, you are not a writer. I always honor commitments that I make to myself – whether it is a commitment to walk every day, or to exercise every day, or any other promise that I make to myself. I even honor those  commitments that I have made to someone else. When I began writing this blog, I committed to writing it without fail, which I did – until I moved to Arkansas – which was a major adjustment. I began again once I felt settled there; but just when everything seemed to be falling into place, my world turned upside down again. My life has turned topsy turvy so many times that if I was a compost pile, I would be pure black gold by now.

I am dubious about beginning this blog which will now be for the third time. Do I dare hit the restart button on my writing career? Am I doomed to continue wandering through my life like a nomad, where I am constantly subjected to being replanted in a different garden? I am like an explorer on a journey with no clear destination. Since I left Arkansas, now more than two months ago, the clarity and direction that I continue to seek has remained elusive. I am failing the test for which I cannot provide the answers. I am hanging as though from a ledge. Will I fall into yet another abyss, or will I find a foothold where I can stand on solid ground once again? Or, will I return to that great unknown, from which I came almost 7 decades ago?

When my job was terminated, I headed straight back to Wyoming. I did this, not because I like Wyoming, or had the slightest desire to return; but nearly all of my personal belongings are still in storage here. My youngest daughter lives here and the other two live in Colorado. Remaining in Arkansas did not even feel like an option, because I had rent coming due and my income had just vanished. It crossed my mind that since I was halfway there, perhaps I should return to Virginia, where I had left my heart and soul nine years earlier. But, I did not go there. I felt intuitively that I should return to Wyoming, and I believed that I would find a place to move into within a couple of weeks.  

Two months have now slipped by and we are quickly heading into autumn. I am no nearer to the answers than I was back in July. I have had plenty of time on my hands, so I should have been writing instead of just sitting here spinning my wheels like a tire that simply digs itself deeper into the mud. I have felt emotionally paralyzed and this is not conducive to good writing. I have also been grieving over a loss that I cannot yet speak about. I know that once I hit “publish” to resume this blog, I will force myself to remain committed to it. At some point, I may be able to write about those things that right now, are far too painful to verbalize. I know that the possibility remains, that life may get crazy again, leaving me precious little time to write. I will continue to write; however, because if nothing else, it is good therapy. I will continue to write in hopes that I can lift up another person who may be feeling down. I will continue to write because it is my nature to do so. If life has taught me anything, it has taught me who I really am and to love and honor the gifts that have been given to me.