If you are new here to my podcast Wildwood Wandering, welcome! This is an irregularly posted podcast where I take a walk in the woods and share nature observations and reflections from my life as a naturalist and cyclical being.

I have been finding it really difficult to write these days, so I thought recording a podcast would be easier. Well, it was! And then I realized that I needed to write a description to go along with it, that was the hard part, but here it is now.

I recorded this on August 1st, the day you might call Lughnasadh or Lammas. I did find and eat my first wild blackberries this season! But I feel really disconnected from the energy of abundance and harvest. There is enough food in this world for all of us to be fulfilled, yet so many go without, whether by force, by design, by systems rooted in greed and control. How do we celebrate abundance while others starve?

I feel more fear and hopelessness, than I do abundance at the moment. After recent ICE raids in my community (literally 2 blocks from our house), I’m on edge and not even slow walks through the woods seem to be easing my nervous system.

Here are some of the things I process in this episode:

* musing on why making this podcast is easier than writing a post

* my cycle check-in from day 16, inner late summer

* feelings of discouragement with my body

* a hillside of baby trees (which I totally misidentified!), I now believe they were northern spicebush

* annoyance with the mosquito buzzing in my ears

* how I feel spiritually disconnected

* all the dried up crusty mushrooms

* the ICE raid in our community with large support by the local police

* the fear and nerves I feel for my spouse when he goes out everyday

* learning from the mushrooms how to decompose

* my experience at a recent forest bath

* forced disconnection from the Land

* the starvation in Gaza

* reflecting on trees that blew down

* how life feels the opposite of simple

* what it means to have a high reward food system

* talking about the book I’m absolutely in love with right now!

* musing about how much I’ve learned being a naturalist over the last two years

* a sad fern story

* first blackberry harvest, fitting for this Lughnasadh season

* holding on to hope

Photos from recent wildwood wanderings…

Thank you for witnessing me today and being open to slow walks in the woods. I would love to hear what you are noticing around you these days? What are the stories nature is telling you?

holding it all, together, with you

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