I am a bit unglued.
I have lived "geographically challenged" for the last nine years, since moving to our four acres on County Road 23. Before that time, for the first almost fifty years of my life, I lived in cities: Philadelphia, PA; Grand Rapids, MI; Elkhart, IN. But I still don't FEEL like a belong on CR 23, still don't know my neighbors, still feel like a rural visitor.
Add upon this layer a year of travels to cities and rural areas from Paraguay to Cambodia to Costa Rica and back, and it leaves a lot of sorting to do.
Where DO I live? How vibrant is my life and the life around me? And what invitations have come to me in this sabbatical year? As a part-time pastor, I have some time and energy to spare, to sow. I am "planted" in Bristol, IN and in my Florence parish. Where will I bloom?
(And I realize this can sound like the question of "the little rich girl." Even asking the question is a luxury. An ego indulgence.)
So, you are getting the feeling. This wave of sabbatical re-entry is bouncing me around. Therefore, on Tuesday after spiritual direction, I needed some steadying. So I went walking along the millrace in Goshen.
(1) Sadly, there was no water in the millrace.
(2) There was a new "underpass" for walkers and bikers, dipping under Plymouth Avenue by Shanklin Park. Cool! But that's why the water had been dried.
(3) With camera in hand, I got caught. Flowers, bugs and butterflies became, once more, my visual meditation.
I stopped.
I centered.
I looked and took...photos.
I delighted in WILD VIBRANCY!
(4) Then I was drawn into the Reith Interpretive Center by the pathway to find a fabulous community resource for learning about and stewarding the natural world.
BUT...
I found out what I had fallen in love, like the cabbage white butterfly, with. PURPLE LOOSESTRIFE. There was a large poster with the same gorgeous blooms the butterfly and I had just adored. And here is what I found out:
Purple loosestrife (Lythrum salicaria), a beautiful but aggressive invader, arrived in eastern North America in the early 1800’s. Plants were brought to North America by settlers for their flower gardens, and seeds were present in the ballast holds of European ships that used soil to weigh down the vessels for stability on the ocean. Since it was introduced, purple loosestrife has spread westward and can be found across much of Canada and the United States….
However, when purple loosestrife gets a foothold, the habitat where fish and wildlife feed, seek shelter, reproduce and rear young, quickly becomes choked under a sea of purple flowers. Areas where wild rice grows and is harvested, and where fish spawn, are degraded. An estimated 190,000 hectares of wetlands, marshes, pastures and riparian meadows are affected in North America each year, with an economic impact of millions of dollars.
http://www.seagrant.umn.edu/ais/purpleloosestrife_info
Hmmmm....
This reminded me of a story I heard my last day in Costa Rica. While purchasing a batik card of my favorite bird, the blue crested motmot, also known as the BOBO, the collector at Galeria Namu in San Jose told me this story:
In the villages it is said that the Bobo entices people. We are attracted to its beauty, its colorful feathers, and as it sits perched nearby, we creep closer to catch it and make it our own. But then, as we near, it flies just a bit further on, into the woods. And of course, we pursue. We have come so near! But again it moves, and we follow. We follow and follow, deeper and deeper into the woods. And then the Bobo disappears. And we are lost! Trickster, Bobo! You lead us into these depths only to make us lost!
"But," said the collector, "isn't it interesting how we blame the Bobo, when all the time it was human greed that was in pursuit, trying to capture the beauty of the wild?"
I am on alert. While I consider new decisions, I may be deceived. Ego may lead me to love the Bobo or the Loosestrife. But either of these may be false lovers. Seeking Wisdom, I am humbled on the Way.
That is a good thing.
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