"Pied Beauty:" Noticing the Dappled Things

With all our focus on Hurricane Sandy and the destructive power of nature, I hadn't noticed in these days that fall, my favorite season of all, is passing by. Today I took a walk around our neighborhood and collected leaves that had fallen. It was hard to find the kind of leaves I wanted: colorful and dry. I am planning to dip them in beeswax and make a garland. But many leaves now are brown and wet and sitting in big piles beside fallen trees. I'm grateful for the ones I did find.  It's been a long time since I took a walk like this, a slow walk where I stop to notice all the dappled things around me. When our teens were toddlers we took walks in our neighborhood all the time, slow walks, where they helped me to notice everything. My thoughts turned to poet Gerard Manley Hopkins S.J. and his magnificent "Pied Beauty."

A Different Jersey Boardwalk: Great Swamp National Wildlife Refuge

I had a few hours yesterday between the time my teaching job ended in one county and our younger son's playoff soccer game began in another. I hiked on one of New Jersey's other boardwalks: the one that run through a section of the Great Swamp National Wildlife Refuge in Morris County, New Jersey. Something about being alone in the wild speaks to my soul, to my innermost self. I always emerge refreshed and restored, as if a broken part of me has healed.