Celebrating summer
Summer is in full bloom here on Narragansett Bay. It is a lovely time to celebrate nature, the utter beauty and awe it hands us. The shortening daylight means we catch the coyote(s) who use the beach as their path. They pause to see if Conner is watching for them. Yesterday in the same early morning pre-light a bat was hunting.
Volunteer sunflowers have sprung up here and there in our yard, thanks to the birds visiting our feeders, then perching on a branch or the fence. Every evening this week a bright yellow goldfinch buries his heads into the center of a flower or two to feast on the seeds.
We monitor Osprey nests for Audubon Rhode Island. The chicks are practicing their hunting skills this week. Ospreys dive an average of four times for a successful fish capture, perhaps a useful reminder for life. This week I checked three nest locations that didn’t have a regular monitor and found thriving Osprey families: one on a light post in the center of soccer field, and another on a cell tower in an industrial park near the highway. Three more were located in a preserve called the Great Swamp, the former site of a fierce battle in which King Phillip and the Narragansett tribe suffered fatal blows, so much for their kindness to the pilgrims early on. It was a hot, muggy and buggy trek, and Conner had a few dunks in the water among the lily pads, emerging muddy and happy. Every other electric power line had an active nest. Joy! Ospreys have adopted to our modern structures.
These finds sustain me during these challenging times as nature reminds of her power and we witness the suffering of so many.
In Scared Nature Karen Armstrong reminds us: In nature we have a harmony in which violence and beauty, terror and serenity, mysteriously coexist, defying our own restricted categories.
Dr. Armstrong is a former British nun, turned theologian. I was introduced to this, at St. Joan of Arc in Minneapolis, that Catholic church that walks the edge with the bishop and pope. Now in her eighties she penned a wonderful book that explores our sacred connection to the natural world.
May you find your own path forward and the connections to sustain you during these violent and yet beautiful times.