I can't sleep…
The moon drops one or two feathers into the field.
The dark wheat listens.
Be still.
Now.
There they are, the moon’s young, trying
Their wings. […]
I stand alone by an elder tree, I do not dare breathe
Or move.
I listen.
The wheat leans back toward its own darkness,
And I lean toward mine.
— James Wright, Beginning, Above the River: The Complete Poems
Credits: Photo: HJK Photography with Under the Harvest Moon; Quotes: nemophilies
“I’d like people to start to look at animals as individuals,” she said. “If everyone did a bit more, if they fell in love a little bit more, so much could happen. It doesn’t have to be going vegan. You can advocate for them. You can show tenderness. You can play music for them. I really hope people can connect with animals the way most of us did as children.”
That’s the thing about animals we grow close to, Ms. Stewart added: “We talk about taking in ‘rescue animals.’ But the truth is, just as often, animals rescue us.”
~ Judith Newman, Tracey Stewart’s Animal Planet
Tracey Stewart is the editor-in-chief of the website Moomah, which provides parents and kids with fun, easy, and effective ways to contribute to varying kinds of nonprofits. A passionate animal advocate and expert (she’s a former veterinary technician), she lives on a farm in New Jersey with her husband, Jon Stewart; two kids; four dogs; two pigs; one hamster; three rabbits; two guinea pigs; one parrot; and two fish—all rescues except for the kids.
Don’t miss Judith Newman’s background story on Tracey Stewart: Tracey Stewart’s Animal Planet
Tracey Stewart’s book will be released on Amazon on October 20, 2015: Do Unto Animals
How small
How perfect
The feathered
Chest of
The Sparrow
Ruffled and ready
If I could
Hold her in my palm
Feel her courage
Through her hollow
Bird bones
I might be able
To fly
Find Kim Beyer Johnson on WordPress here: 10,000 hours of play.
Sometimes the natural world takes your power, as it does deep in February, when every fiber of your being wants to hibernate. Sometimes it bestows you with power you never imagined you could possess, as it does during the peak of summer, when you don’t need much sleep, and you feel like you’re riding along with all of the motions of the universe. Sometimes it terrifies you with its awesome brutality, as when you are driving alone on a mountain pass and encounter a blustery springtime blizzard. Just as there are receptors in the brain for drugs—like THC and psilocybin—I like to think we have receptors for nature as well. We may believe we are run by our thoughts and anxieties, our urges and our choices, but come to a place like Montana and you will be reminded that the moon is running you. The sun is running you. The light or lack of light is running you. You are the full moon. You are the rushing river. You are the animal, moving and being moved.
~
Image via Your Eyes Blaze Out
