Ed’s Corner

I hope this newsletter finds you and yours safe and healthy after the battering from Hurricane Sandy. I’m glad to report that The Nature Place, Green Meadow School and the Threefold Educational Foundation weathered the storm pretty well. Trees did fall, however, so it looks like we’ll be using quite a bit of wood during this coming summer’s earth art and craft activities.

The weather people tell us that the powerful storm was an unusual convergence of the hurricane, a northeaster storm system coming in from the west and the more northerly flow of the jet stream at that time.

Another convergence is also happening now. Some people, as a result of the storm, are reporting feelings of vulnerability, anger, and worry. This is also the time of year, with shorter days and less sunlight, when some people start to exhibit SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder) symptoms: lethargy, depression, malaise, and, you guessed it, sadness. Putting the two together can make for some challenging times.

It may seem contradictory to get out into nature, as events in the natural world are or were the cause of these feelings. But nature offers us many faces and many moods, and while a hurricane can be destructive and decreasing amounts of sunlight can bring us down, nature also offers us healing.

A walk outside will reveal that yes, an unusual storm did uproot many trees, but it will also show that the seasons are on track, just as they were a year ago, and a year before that and ….you can depend on them.This November into December time sees night coming early, more and longer shadows, hitch hiking seeds on pants and dogs’ coats, the bright stars of winter beginning to make their appearance, misty-moisty foggy mornings, the first snow flakes, gray tree trunks against steel-gray skies, the autumn sun honoring us with occasional warm caresses.

Go out and feel the familiar, explore a little bit further through a landscape that is no longer hidden by trees, that invites you to be open, to be in the moment, to feel once again that we have much to be grateful for.