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Your faith was strong but you needed proof
You saw her bathing on the roof
Her beauty and the moonlight overthrew you
Leonard Cohen
No, not that kind of a bath. The Japanese kind- “Shinrin yoku,” or forest bathing. The movement originated in Japan as a response to the tech boom and b…
I had a fan girl moment at Long Hunter State Park a few weeks ago. My friend and I went into the ranger station because she wanted to find souvenirs for some young women visiting from Israel. We chatted with the ranger about their Reading Ranger Story Trail blazed in 2016 (I described the …
The righteous bloom like a date-palm; they thrive like a cedar in Lebanon;
Psalm 92
Cedars of Lebanon State Park in Wilson County is named for the eastern red cedar trees which reminded early settlers of the cedar trees mentioned dozens of times in the bible. The cedar trees which once t…
Besides the mental, physical, and spiritual benefits of being out in nature there is the benefit to your wallet. Nature can be a very cheap date, and the over 99 miles of greenways in Nashville are certainly that. For the low, low cost of walking, biking, or driving to the nearest one you wi…
Melissa Sostrin, r, as a child, participated in a unique nature program at summer camp. Photo courtesy of National Geographic.
I think I raised my sons right: on Mother’s Day one of them called and wished me a “Happy Hallmark holiday.” I know, I know, the holiday preceded the compan…
But did you feel the butterfly in me Did you feel that my heart too is caged And fluttering and bound, and hoping for salvation And in the fringes of your coat is caught?”
Haim Nahman Bialik wrote this in a 1904 love poem titled “Tziporet” which is the old Talmudic word for butter…
Baby eaglets just hatched at Radnor Lake.
The long wait is over. On day double chai-36 days after their eggs were laid- at least two eaglets have hatched. My two young charges, L and M, were with me two days before, and as we were heading to the aviary, we found Ranger Steve Ward on a tra…
Bald eagles nesting at Radnor Lake state park
When your child returns to school next fall, wouldn’t it be great if their “What I Did Over Summer Vacation” essay included “I helped maintain a bald eagle nesting area?” They can do that at Radnor Lake State Park which is a mere twe…
Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai said, “If, while holding a sapling in your hand you are told that the Messiah is about to arrive, first plant the sapling and then go out to receive the Messiah.” Much is written in the Torah and the Talmud about trees, and we read even more carefully about the…
If ye, in search for sunlight, found but void, Go, fashion it from nought,
Hew it from crags and quarry from the rocks, In cells of the heart be it sought.
Hayim Nachman Bialik
I sought sunlight at Hidden Lake twice in late November - once with my niece Kyla, a college freshman, the sec…
Scene from Deerwood Arboretum and Nature Center
“Grant me the ability to be alone; may it be my custom to go outdoors each day among the trees and grass - among all growing things and there may I be alone, and enter into prayer, to talk with the One to whom I belong.”
While these word…
