Showing posts with label nature. Show all posts

Saturday, December 6, 2025

The Wheel Keeps Turning

What is "Phenology" anyway?! I stumbled onto the video below and fell down a rabbit hole on and off, for days and days! You all probably know me by now and know that all of the looking, researching and thinking is really what gets me excited. But, not always the doing it...or doing it in such a structured, consistent manner. This is why I truly love my little journal-drawing book so much - there is no timeframe, order, requirements and so on. Anyway, in my discovering, I did really like the idea of doing them with children. Their drawing/paintings were so charming to see. Plus, I like the idea of helping them get tuned into the earth, as they will be here long after we are gone.

I could have added dozens and dozens more links below, but stopped myself. Some are to read/look at and some are videos. Use them or not.

I'm still considering if I will do anything of this sort or not. The hardest part for me is the commitment...there are so many variables each day to consider. Maybe this exploration will touch what I do in other ways than doing exactly as demonstrated. No matter what...there are some seriously good artists out there just truckin' along - doin' their thing. Love that.

I've Made a Tiny Painting Every Day for 675 Days!

LINK 26:29 minutes

Do you feel inspired to make one with young children? A bit more HERE, HERE or HERE

more inspiration HERE...or HERE for a Moon Phenology Wheel!

Or maybe you want to make one that is an accordion book instead: HERE - very interesting, even if a bit long and specific!

There is so much out there about 'wheels' and books and journals all having to do with 'nature' in one way or another. I thought about what I would want to do, if anything, and how I'd want to do it - if at all. But, I also thought of all of you with your grand/great-grandchildren, specific art making (what would a wheel of Old Bird King look like through a year's time?) or...??? Since one of the videos I came across was embroidering for each month on white cloth...what if it was naturally dyed pieces appliqued as triangles onto a wheel?

My brainstorming brain just takes off. My follow-through does not! haha So, of course I'm just going to go spinning along now...

Have a nice evening.

Kate Wolf - Medicine Wheel

LINK 3:52 minutes

What starts your wheels turning?

May you discover new ideas

May you act on them however you like

May you creative wheels spin with ease

Monday, June 16, 2025

Belonging

belonging

noun [ U ]

a feeling of being happy or comfortable as part of a particular group and having a good relationship with the other members of the group because they welcome you and accept you:

A sense of belonging is one of humanity's most basic needs.

It's a book about humanity, loyalty, and belonging, and about the ties that bind us to places and to each other.

CREDIT: Cambridge Dictionary

I've been sitting with this word for some time now.

Das Schwanenküken-Quartett - auf Fähre Mama /The Cygnets Quartet - take a ferry trip on Mom

LINK 3:52 minutes

We were back over at Placerita Nature Center Sunday. I wanted to check in on the pollywogs and walk in the shade. Our last visit was May 30th. Upon arrival, we both noticed a PRIDE flag hanging alongside the United States, California, and Los Angeles County flags and commented on it at the same moment. This inclusivity made us feel so good.

Belonging...

I tried out the new bench, discovered on our last visit. The wood was so smooth and warmed from the afternoon sun. Stopping to sit, rather than just a quick photo as I went by, gave us time to notice the encased golf ball in the bench's backrest. I guess Mark Thompson was a golf lover.

Belonging...

What we noticed in the trees this time was how compatible the different species of trees were. This grand Oak and grand Sycamore look practically grafted together. I marveled at how this could take place, on its own in nature. No humans needed, eh?

We began to see places where the Sycamores grew up around the Oak stumps, their trunks close and their leaves entwined in the bright blue sky.

Belonging...

We found a large group of pollywogs in the second pool we observed. Still trying to figure out where in their lifecycle they are. The first pool we'd discovered them in last time was empty. Had they moved on? Had they become frogs? Mmm? I noticed how this group stay very close together, as a large orange dragonfly zoomed back and forth above. Was this a protective behavior, so a dragonfly nymph could not catch one so easily?

Belonging...

Because I had recently considered and then added "belonging" to the Word Cloth...I saw everything in the surrounding days as groups, teams, tribes, species...ways demonstrating belonging. From trees that communicate with each other to two crows hopping from branch to branch, clacking to each other to a group of flags representing people and place to very large groups of humans coming together to stand for common beliefs..."belonging" has been everywhere.

The old Sesame Street song came to mind..."One of these things is not like the others, one of these things doesn't belong"...

If I hadn't seen it land, I'd have never seen it.

Did you see it? Isn't it beautiful?

The biggest 'acorn caps' (?) I've ever seen!

I'm grateful for a good time outside on Sunday...for the sights, scents, movement, breeze, discoveries...a good day with great company.

I added 'belonging' where it would fit (spaces getting pretty full now), using a bright and happy yellow to symbolize how good one feels when they feel a sense of belonging (and to show up on the darker background). It ended up near "Good Trouble", which seemed quite fitting.