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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How a Pagan Goes to Church: A Carpet of Green Moss
A carpet of green moss If a pagan goes to church in the Cathedral of Nature, then there’s no finer carpet than this beautiful green moss under my bare feet on a Sunday morning. Sweet Gum tree above the light As a child, I always loved finding this kind of moss on the ground, thick…
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How a Pagan Goes to Church: Elephant Ears and Roses
In today’s visit to the Cathedral of Nature, the morning raindrops were still on the elephant ears and roses in the garden. When I first moved into my house, the former tenants had planted shrubs in the front garden, punctuated by elephant ears. Each leaf was wider than my chest and brought to mind some…
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How a Pagan Goes to Church: The Surprise Lily
This week’s visit to the Cathedral of Nature as always brings wonder and joy to my heart. Last year, I picked up an unusual lily in the supermarket, brought it home, and let it bloom out. When the lily had died back a bit, I planted it at my front door, half-convinced that I’d never…
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How a Pagan Goes to Church: The Cathedral of Nature
I worship in the Cathedral of Nature, the Church Not Built by Hands. Years ago, a Christian friend who had left the Lutheran church and later the local Methodist church remarked to me that she’d started “going to church” every Sunday morning. That was a surprise to me, mainly because she was very ill and…
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Romance of Nature
Copyrighted by Lorna Tedder. Originally published in Third Degree Rising. How strange it is, this juxtaposition of nature and technology. It is midnight on the last day of March, and I am sitting at the top of a green and grassy hill, alone, with my laptop and a great wireless connection. The moon is almost…
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After the Fire
Copyrighted by Lorna Tedder. Originally published in Third Degree Curves. A lite colonel I used to work with looks me up about once every 5 years. This time, he waited about 6 before emailing me out of the blue. I met him back about 1988 or so when we were both working on our Masters’…
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Juggling
I’m pretty good at juggling. In fact, it’s one of my strengths as an employee and a human being. I juggle. I always have a lot of work, a lot of projects, a lot of irons in the fire, pots boiling— whatever you want to call it. There’s always something going…
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You Can’t Go Home Again… Or Can You?
Copyrighted by Lorna Tedder. Originally published in Third Degree of Freedom. I haven’t spent much time on the farm in Georgia this year. It’s harder now that I’m divorced. I’m really not allowed to go there alone. Really. If I showed up without the girls, my parents wouldn’t be too thrilled, but I have the…
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Hurricane Gustav and Mother Nature’s Animal/Insect Warnings
I’ve been through many, many hurricanes, and Hurricane Gustav has made me feel anxious since it was a blip in the Atlantic that no one but the online meteorologists were talking about. It’s as if something energetic, something in the Ether, gets all worked up, as if the energy of an area is preparing for…
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The Joy of Hurricanes and Tropical Storms
See that light blue dot in the panhandle? That’s me. My relatives are all pink and purple. I have to be careful about admitting this because people will throw rocks at me. There’s something about hurricanes that I just love. Two somethings. First of all, there’s the raw power of Mother Nature. For all the…
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My Garden Gives Me Little Surprises (Or Is It the Fairies?)
” Will you dance with me, Mother of the World?” — Sharon Knight Sometimes, you find things in your garden that you’d forgotten. Mother’s Day was a little strange to me this year. The girls gave me some terrific presents, and afterward I took the girls to the farm to visit my mom, which was…
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Where to Find Real Fairy Dust this Spring
The last book of the quartet (Spring!) has been a long-time coming and will soon be available at our website. During the time it’s taken to finish what was started years ago, the girls have grown up, my marriage has ended, and the family unit has moved forward in a different form–definitely more matriarchal and…
