A wild love for the world

Bright lavender wild geranium (Geranium erianthum) and buds at the Wynn Nature Center, Homer, Alaska. Photo by Betsey Crawford

I go out into nature, I told him. Every day, I am grounded, enmeshed in the Earth I rose from. Reminded of the deep love I feel for the growing, rustling, blooming, singing life around me. Reminded that there are mysteries my being both flows out of and into. 

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Beauty: the great interrupter

All people everywhere possess an innate hunger for, and right to, what is sustaining, good, and beautiful.~ Bill Strickland ~ Many years ago, I was hiking through a forest in upstate New York with my 5-year-old son. He had skipped ahead around a curve and came running back, wide-eyed. He took my hand, hurrying me,

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The enchanted boy

White iris douglasiana with ferns on the Baltimore Canyon Trail, Larkspur, California by Betsey Crawford

Inside, that’s where I store these moments, accumulated in a cabinet of noticings and happenings, brought out when I need them most, to illuminate. I must go into the world to find new things. They are always there. Always.~ Dara McAnulty ~ Faced with devastating news from every direction, I have been reading an incandescent book.

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Tending the wild

Leopard lily (Lilium pardolinum) Sierra Nevada, California by Betsey Crawford

On a clear blue and gold fall day in seventh grade, I stood on the shore of the Hudson River. I was with a group of classmates, contemplating the oyster shell fragments at our feet. That was the year we learned about our town, Croton-on-Hudson, in southern New York. The instructor for the day told

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The mystery of blue flowers

Western hounds tongue (Cynotglossum grande) bright blue along the Hoo Koo E Hoo Trail in Larkspur, California by Betsey Crawford

Blue is light seen through a veil.~ Henry David Thoreau ~ I have tens of thousands of photos in my files, the vast majority flowers. They are often of the same flowers, taken in different years and at different places. So, the numbers don’t reflect the number of species. Even so, of all those thousands,

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