I’m loving the 15 degree temperature drop.  It’s 61 degrees as I sit out at the firepit with a cup of hot kava, sweat pants on and hair down.  I love 60 degrees! I’m a 50-72 degree gal, anything in that range and I’m digging it.  Watching the waxing moon overhead through the oak canopy, I can see the little dipper to the east over the treeline. I turned the fans off about midnight and took a walk around the hood as a walking meditation.  It felt good to wander around the ‘hood in the midnight hours again.  When the weather is warm and humid, it’s like walking underwater but with misquitoes added.  As soon as temps drop, though, I’m ready to be outside.   

I’ve been cutting the new trails and rerouting grapevine. I love living where I can shut out the workaday world and go back to nature when I want to reboot my energy system.  Even overnight sleeping on the ground, making a small fire for tea and a sweet potato, a day spent pruning the summer growth, rerouting grapevines and opening a new path, only going into the house to shower, feed kitties and bring supplies outside: even 24 hours of that is recuperative and healing. Wandering the trails and paying attention to the nature around me.  The woods are filled with birds, raccoons, squirrels, opossums, armadillos, bunnies, bats, lizards, snakes, spiders, butterflies, dragonflies, the occasional hawk or eagle. Every time the wind blows, branches or leaves fall from the trees.  The acorns haven’t appeared yet but when they begin to drop, the animal activity increases and the deer and fox may come on the scene.  The bluejays and squirrels signal each other when the hawk is near.  When the sound of the crickets stop momentarily, everyone is on alert to discover why.  At night and early morning hours, whether doing yoga in the garden or sitting with boots up on the brick firepit, watching the flame dance under my little teapot, night sounds in the air, I begin to feel my center once again. These are the times I have the most fruitful meditations.  These are the times that I reconnect with that Inner me and remember who I really Am and what I’m really here for.

RELATED: My other posts about my woods