Category: Nature
Posts on the natural world — what the seasons teach, what the garden asks of us, and the small daily encounters with wildlife that turn into spiritual practice if you let them.
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Gecko Totem: Renewal, Resilience, and the Gift of Adaptation
The geckos that flourish around my century-old house feel like more than neighbors. They’re survivors who’ve mastered the art of renewal—shedding what no longer fits, regrowing what was lost, and clinging even when the world shifts beneath them. The gecko totem has a lot to teach.
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When the Black Butterfly Totem Appears: Hidden Change
Every once in a while, a totem animal or insect shows up carrying a secret. Imagine a large, black butterfly drifting into your life. At first glance, it may not dazzle with bright colors, yet its dark wings edged in gold carry a deeper kind of beauty — mysterious, profound, and edged with light. This…
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The Wisdom of Playing Dead: Lessons from the Opossum Totem
There’s something about the hours just past midnight when the veil between ordinary and sacred grows thin enough to step through. Last night, I heard a noise outside my office window, sharp and unsettling, the kind of sound that makes your spine straighten and your mind immediately catalog potential threats. Someone trying to force their…
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Sacred Spaces: Bathroom Makeover, Kitchen Touchup
Part of making my home into a “sacred space” has been putting my personality into the walls, floors, ceilings, with my latest inspiration room being a small bathroom makeover with a touchup in the kitchen. The unusal feature I had not seen before was the use of PVC Backsplash tile bought from Home Depot. The…
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Advice to Brides: How to Get a Man OUT of Bed
So many of my younger women friends are getting married for the first time, and quite a few of my female peers are getting married again, so I thought I’d offer a little “bridal advice” I was offered in my early 20’s. It still holds true, but you should be prepared for the consequences. And…
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Keeping Savings Accounts vs Paying Off Debt
This post on savings accounts vs paying down debt is post #4 in my series on financial freedom and spirituality. Once I had paid off my monthly bills and the ones due in the next month that were on my Capital One card, I was ready to take a stab at paying off my car,…
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Trading Credit Cards with Rewards Programs for Cash-Flowing Bills
This post on cash-flowing vs credit cards is post #3 in my series on financial freedom and spirituality. When I decided to pay off the car, then the house, I sat down and came up with a plan…naturally…and found a few chinks in the plan right away. First of all, I didn’t have extra cash…
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Bullies, Outcasts, and Suicidal Thoughts: Why 50 Is Better than 14
In the last couple of years, blogging about victims of bullies–particularly those that result in suicides or “merely” suicidal thoughts–has become downright trendy, and perhaps that’s why I’ve resisted. It’s not an area of my life I talk about much, because I’ve discovered that being 50 is a hell of a lot more fantastic than…
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How a Pagan Goes to Church – You Can Go Home Again
You can go home again, regardless of how much has changed. Your energy is forever in your footsteps, left on that land, & the energy of that place is forever in you. No matter where I travel on this planet or how many fascinating things I witness in other cultures and lands, “home” to me…
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How a Pagan Goes to Church: Steel Yourself for Magnolias’ Surprise
With the decor of the Cathedral of Nature turning autumnal, I’m looking back at the spring and summer months and all their beauty but especially thoughts of magnolias. A Childhood of Tree-Climbing I grew up in a remote area of South Georgia with huge Southern Magnoliatrees in my yard and in my childhood friend’s yard.…
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How a Pagan Goes to Church: September Spiders
This week in the Cathedral of Nature…. Here in hot, sunny Florida, the temp has suddenly cooled. This is why I love September and October so much–that feeling of abundance and harvest, yet the stifling heat is gone. September seems to be full of spiders! Somehow, I always associate September with hurricanes, golden orb spiders,…
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Hurricane Isaac Evacuation and Lessons from the Camino
Hurricane Isaac evacuation time? Yes? No? I’ve lived in the Niceville-Destin Florida area of the Gulf Coast since 1983, so I’m accustomed to making decisions about tropical storm and hurricane evacuations. By the time any tropical storm is at the door of the Gulf of Mexico, I have to start thinking about whether to stay…
