Nature Meditation and Creepy Crawlies

I just wrote an a quick n dirty guide about nature awareness on my dream studies blog. Really I should publish it here on my ecopsychology blog, but Blogger disallows pages outside the blog hierarchy. So it goes!

Spending time at my secret spot outside (a la Jon Young) is kicking my butt because the ticks are getting brutal. There's not a lot of lyme disease around these parts, luckily, but still I have to be vigilant about making sure none of the buggers are tapped in for longer than 24 hours.

It's all about: take a hike, sit for half an hour, hike back home, strip down, throw clothes in the hot wash immediately, body check, shower, body check, get dressed and then proceed to have the heebie jeebies (or more accurately the creepy crawlies) the rest of the night as imagined ticks swarm all over me.

And, inevitably, I find one the next morning, sunk in and kicking back.

Repelling mosquitoes is easier. I admittedly have gone the Deet route, but it creeps me out. Skin-so-Soft? Not-so-much: it doesn't works for long against the serious mosquito clouds I encounter in the North Florida forests. Recently I found this great advice about natural bug repellent on the Fabulous Forager. But I'm lazy, and haven't concocted my own homemade bug repellents yet.

However, something that does work is lighting a stick of incense or two around me. The incense smoke keeps the mosquitos away and also reinforces my own meditation practice. Purists may argue that this is making too much of a human footprint. My goal is not to be invisible in nature, but to be recognized by the non-human others and accepted. And, by way of verification, the squirrels haven't alarmed me in over a month.

Anyone got more advice? My skin will thank you.

It's all about timing

I've been obsessing about bars these days. As in, "you better get used to these bars, kid." I suppose it's some kind of imaginal metaphor for my ego's desire to transcend the addictions of thought, or something, as I remain unrooted this year.

It's no secret that I'm itching to nest. But I'm gearing up for another big move. The transition continues.

This ole oak tree is not imprisoned though. From its perspective, it is momentarily snuggled up with its piney brethren. In thirty years, the oak will be in the clear again, and again, and again. This old oak has seen some things. The bars flicker in and out, and there's plenty of air to breathe.