August 14th, 2007 – An black eagle landed on a branch 20
feet below an adult in our “eagle” tree. 

It fell off while still holding on with its talons.  Yikes!
 

It flapped and screeched to get back up on top of the
branch, barely succeeded.  Woof!

Because of her clumsiness and her complete blackness, I
suspect she is a newly fledged bald eagle that I heard
begging for food at the nest last week.  – fancy version of
my entry in my Duwamish Head Nature Log.

Do you keep a nature log? 

I recommend it.  It is part of your Simple Is Sophisticated
plan and part of your deliberate living program. 

When you pay attention to the rhythms of nature, invariably
you engage in life more completely, with more presence.
Your engagement will immerse you into your heart-felt life.
 I promise.

To pray is to pay attention to something or someone other
than oneself.  Whenever a man so concentrates his
attention— on a landscape, a poem, a geometrical problem,
an idol, or the True God— that he completely forgets his
own ego and desires, he is praying.  – W. H. Auden

Here’s What You Do

Just make notes in log weekly or daily.  It tunes you into
the seasons.  I am just completing my first year in the new
home. 

I am keeping my log in MS Word so I can keep entering
things in the rhythm of the year.  What I mean is, as the
seasons repeat, I can insert the new information inside the
month of January cyclically and not sequentially.  All the
January notes will go together.  All the September entries
likewise go together.

Are you with me?

I am not just tracking events and cool sightings but
wanting to feel into the rhythms of place.

Then I can say things like, “The purple martins will be
back any day now.” 

Or with a sigh, “The ospreys will be leaving soon.”

I want to feel the presence of these events and rhythms in
my marrow. 

Notice the ordinary and the glamorous.  Admittedly,
fledgling Bald Eagles impress, but all of nature is
potentially as amazing if you only see rightly.
 
• The spider webs dripping with dew on cool sunny September
mornings catching the light in ways that make you say,
“Wow!” 
• The osprey flying with his prey back to the nest.
• The last leaf blowing away in the winter storm. 
• Unidentified scat on the rocks below the seawall
fascinated me for months.
• The first crocus.

Keep your entries simple enough so you’ll be inclined to do
it regularly, and detailed enough to be useful.  I still
have the nature log I kept in 1980 in our underground solar
home on the edge of a forested ravine in Ohio.  The
one-line notes still bring back the smells and the light of
those woods.

I make entries on Sundays trying to recall the week.  Some
seasons stay fairly stable for weeks so I skip some weeks.

I challenge myself by seeing if I can tell when the
swallows or the ospreys leave.  I find it hard to notice
when something is gone.  Much easier to notice the arrival
of the swallows in May.

Watching nature this clearly trumps the old suggestion to
stop and smell the roses wouldn’t you say.  Stopping and
smelling the spiders doesn’t sound as good though, does it.

Keep a log.  Dive into presence.  Feel the rhythms.  Fall
in love with it all – that’s the promise.

If you want to see my Duwamish Head Nature Log, let me
know.

***
Paradigms engaged in this article:   

• Simple Is Sophisticated
• Presencing
• Spaceship Earth
• Upgrade Your Right Brain
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