Pamela Leavey

words and pictures....

Browsing:

Category: Nature

Reflections: Finding Comfort in Nature

To look for solace in nature has been a part of my life as long as I can remember. Growing up as a small child in rural Massachusetts, the youngest of older parents who had me as a change of life baby, I learned first-hand from my parents about the importance of the land and the wildlife around us, supported by the land. To walk the field next to my parent’s home, or better yet, skip down the dirt road just past our house, to the river, was pure bliss when I was a child. I watched my mother talk to the birds, and feed the chickadees in her hands, this was all part of my childhood and the impression it made has never left me.

Merrimack River
(more…)

Related Images:


Food For Thought: Wonder

Sandy Point, Plum Island, Massachusetts

Without the state of wonder that blossoms when graced with the vision of nature we would surely be lost, for as I feast my eyes each day upon the river that fluxes with the tides afore my eyes, I am touched by the grace of the universe. The greatest gift to humankind is the world in which we live, the nature around us. The rivers and the seas, the mountains and the beaches, the sacred places, are where we must all go to unburden and renew. Wonder is what heals us. Wonder brings us joy. Wonder, that sense of pure awe that touches us in the midst of nature is the primal conduit of joy.

Related Images:


Food For Thought: The Bend at Eagle’s Nest

Here at the bend in the river, at eagle’s nest, is where the sun glimmers on the water casting its shimmering light in such a manner that it illuminates my mind with both queries and answers simultaneously, for that beam of sun is so brilliant that I am blinded by its presence.

A million words race through my mind ricocheting off the water and tumbling down the river, running off to the sea. It is here in this curve of the river that I let go of a little pain and let in the glorious glow that I seek. I stop, I soak in the sun, and I turn back, warm and renewed, lighter, and brighter. I know the words I spilled down the river will return to me on the page. For it is here, I draft the questions that need answers. And, it is here, that the answers come to me. The light converging on the water, even in its palest or darkest glow, speaks to me, all knowing.

Related Images:


Tiny Tender Tendrils

Tiny, tender tendrils of trees reached tenuously to the sky in askance for love and light on a raw fall day. The wind blew fiercely shaking the tiny tender tendrils of trees all about me, as I walked along the river. There were layers upon layer of colors and textures laying beyond the naked trees like soldiers standing steadfastly along the river. I saluted the shivering tendrils shaking in the brute wind and I walked on, seeking the sun, where the tiny, tender tendrils of trees did not stand saluting the cadmium sky.

Related Images:


Food for Thought: Fear is a Subjective Emotion

Fear is a subjective emotion. We can choose to be ruled by our fear or we can choose to reach beyond our instinctive, individual emotions that drive our fear and look outside of ourselves and all of the things in the world that drive our fears, and see beauty in world.

Everyday the news is subjecting us to the latest stories that fill us with worry, concern, outrage, and fear. Constantly following the news, feeds our fear and plays on the subjective aspects of fear because we a choosing to let our fears control our lives. Not long ago the communication industry was not a 24/7 industry that played so heavily on our psyches.

Step back. Spend less time on social media. Disconnect. Turn off your devices. Free yourself from the outrage machine. Take a break from the news. Get outside. Take a walk. Breathe in the fresh air. Listen to the bird song. Connect with nature. Do anything that is not connected to following the latest news that pummel our senses and leaves us senseless and sometimes riddled with fear.

You can control your fear by replacing it with healthy thoughts and emotions. Be in the moment. Choose happiness over fear.

Namaste

Related Images:


Hawk Breakfast

There is a small Hawk up in the Shagbark Hickory tree just outside my desk window. I was looking out the window gazing at the River, as I am often wont to do, when it flew onto the lowest branch a few minutes ago and settled in. The sun is behind it and as such, it is hard to make out its coloring and markings, but I knew it was a hawk by the shape of its head when I watched it land.

What I did not see, when it landed, was that it landed with a small bird in its talon. Ah… Breakfast.

Hawk has been busy, sitting there on the tree limb shredding the Small Bird, sending its delicate little feathers to flutter and tumble-down to the ground below the tree.

Given the relatively small size of the hawk, I am thinking it is the same Sharp-shinned Hawk that I have seen in the yard in the past. A Sharp-shinned Hawk is America’s smallest hawk. It has a long tail, long legs and short wings. They are very agile fliers who easily zip in between trees to grab they prey.

One day a few months ago, I looked out the window in front of my desk, to see a hawk sitting in the yew bush right in front of the window. It was quite the surprise for the two of us, actually as I looked out saw the hawk staring in the window at me. “Oh,” I exclaimed, as the hawk ducked back down in the bush and then made its exit through the front of the bush.

A Crow landed in the Maple tree to the left of the Hickory that Hawk sits busily eating breakfast. Now Crow is shrieking at Hawk, demanding that Hawk leave it some dregs of Small Bird. However, Hawk has been up there so long with Small Bird I can’t imagine that he has not stripped the bones clean. There seem to be no more feathers fluttering to the ground. There is just Hawk and his breakfast. He is fastidious in making sure he does not leave a morsel behind.

Finished now, he hops to another branch and sits facing the sun. Pleased as he is to have had a healthy breakfast. Perhaps not as hearty as he liked or needed, his wings lifted and he flew off in the direction of the bird feeder on the other side of the yard. The cycle of nature and life itself, never ceases to amaze me.

Related Images: