We heeded the occasion of ONE’s 10th anniversary as a call to action, and we envisioned a living blueprint for our vibrant future.

Together, we move to rededicate ourselves to Earth and all her beings and renew our commitments to a thriving co-creative partnership with all life.  We come together in the present to tend to the future. 

This document is a summary of highlights from each of the four questions posed to the panel and community.  Responses have been edited for length and clarity.  Thank you for contributing and participating in this vital conversation. 

Inspired by Nature - Winter Story with snowflakes, icles, wolves, and caves. Enjoy!

Mother Tree

Above, her canopy of leaves

touch skyward

echo the song of the Uni-verse

in green light streams, 

Birds pray to a rising sun in a respectful slip of unfamiliar silence, as the village fades away with each step towards swelling mountain peaks. Four days alone in the wilds embark. No watch, phone or company by my side. Solo, free, timeless solitude. A quest for vision and meaning. A walk without destination. It is the build up to Samhain, warm air and cosy glows of crispy colour.

The ancient wooded path, sharp with afternoon summer light, was arduous and rewarding to walk as always. Draped with edgy stone shadows, lined regally with grass as beige and crispy as bailed hay, adorned with red clover, daisies and dandelion…

Laura Margosian writes with lush lyricism about the month of May and formative visits with her mother on Martha’s Vineyard. She conveys the wistfulness and longing which many of us feel as we approach Mother’s Day and the season of summer. While doing so, Laura illustrates the concept of Motherhood through our surroundings of the natural world.

Pollinator Love Notes and Stories. Sharing our Gratitude ceremonies.

“Your days are reassuring
stretching slightly longer
like our spines as we expand
within the walls that hold us
swallowing yearning seeds
germinating in dusk magenta wisps like henna-stain
across the sky”

Lone Tree on a Hill

- a poem by Rachel Baird about a new friend she recently met-a tree, high on a hill near Inverliever, Argyll. Enjoy!

This story, “The Girl Who Loved the North Wind” came to me through the wonderful book Body Eloquence by story-teller-teacher-author-healer Nancy Mellon. This special book not only affirms the healing, life-giving power of stories and story-telling, it also offers specific stories for particular body organs and systems. “The Girl Wo Loved the North Wind” is given as a medicine story for the Lungs.

These poems are prayers ~ words of honor and thanksgiving ~ to the myriad beings seen and unseen, with whom I share life in this still-healthy Virginia woodland. I write for my other-than-human friends who speak in languages I, only now, am learning to understand.

A young woman receives her father’s dying blessing, but is violently chased from home by her greedy brother. Maimed and wandering one-handed in the forest, she is temporarily rescued by a Prince. But fate and her brother send her into exile in the wild again. And then, the Snake magic begins!

And so I’ve come to appreciate lasts, and maybe not cling to them. Honoring them, instead of hoarding them. Slowing down to pay attention and anticipate them, rather than living at a blinding, consumptive speed.

Honestly, it is ridiculous how nature spoils us in abundance. There is really no way to ever be sufficiently grateful for all we have been given. The heaviness that starts to gather on the land at this time rises up in one last push of expansion. We hear the Earth whisper: “I nourish.” At the same time, we feel that same heaviness begin to sink, decline, and fall back to the ground, the fall winds rustling, “I transform.”

We all have innate sensory abilities that link us directly to the natural world. I recently taught a two-session Zoom class on plant communication. There were twenty-two students in the class from all parts of I’ll the world, all with different types and levels of sensitivities and experience. In the class, I gave a wide variety of ways to open up to nature and the plant world to receive information, messages, and lessons.

When you see animals grazing, they’re not just stopping in one spot and eating a whole bunch. They take a few little nibbles of the tips and then move on to the next plant, and in the process receive enormous amounts of information about adaptation and how to best physiologically prepare for coming events.

When the princess, Rose, uncovers the secret of her lost brothers, she embarks on a journey to find them, vowing to undo their enchantment. Her quest relies upon the help of wise elders, the length of the summer Solstice days, the guidance of dreams, the potency of nettles, and her own innocence, persistence, and skill in handwork.

Whenever I am guided to plant a seed in my garden and watch it sprout, grow and bloom, I feel as though I am witnessing one of nature’s many miracles. This is alchemy in action - the transformation of one small thing (a seed) into something much larger (a root, a flower, a medicinal herb).

The gateway of moving into heart space with nature is gratitude, and we can decide to bring more gratefulness into our lives and experience more joy. An excellent place within our daily rhythms to cultivate a steady stream of gratitude and to grow our connection with nature is in our relationship with our food.