What are green meditations?

Green meditations are multi-media expressions of the natural world, created to inspire your own meditation practice.

What you can find here:

• Information on beginning meditation
• Ways to expand an ongoing meditation practice
• Inspirational quotes, writing, videos and artwork
• Tools to relieve pressures of 21st century life
• Ideas on becoming green on the inside

I share my green meditations on nature with you--in writing, artwork, videos and podcasts--and I hope they inspire you to further contemplation. Choosing to live as a recluse, I have devoted my life to connecting with nature and expressing that joy. I am blessed to live in an inspirational setting on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington state in the far northwest--where land and water meet in magical, spectacular ways.

Come, walk the beach with me...wander through the woods and unwind.

Click on any of the following links for more information:

What Is Meditation?
How To Meditate in 5 Easy Steps
Setting the Mood to Meditate
Benefits of Meditation
Expanding Your Current Meditation Practice
Why I Meditate and How It Affects Me

I’ve joined the haiku group on Twitter and it has revived a former passion for the form.

Deep in the dark woods,
sunshine suddenly appears:
big leaf maples gleam.

Storm slams, surprises—
tall firs swoon into the gale,
branches embrace crows.

Wild winds whip waves white.
Giddy gulls glide gleefully.
We watch, wait, worry.

Pumpkins plump and glow;
wisteria wilts, withers;
ochre grass regreens.

Crow chases eagle,
but eagle flies much higher
and becomes the sky.

Nine crows congregate
in an old oak, each focused
on a young acorn.

Dusk: two heron stalk
the mauve low tide for dinner;
only the sea moves.

Lone eagle zips by,
clutching sturdy bare branches—
fall windstorm repair.

Fog falls, flows downward
cascading into the lake—
slo-mo waterfall.

Get your Zen on; see earlier group of haikus here.

An old friend died yesterday, someone whose company I had enjoyed every single day for more than five years.

A soon-to-be new neighbor hired a crew of eight men to scalp the property below me in order to build a house with a better view. Now I’m no eco-snob—I already enjoy a lovely water and mountain view, and trees were surely axed before this house was built.

And I have mixed feelings about the result. I now have an even better view of the bay, and now I can see Mt. Baker from the other end of my house, too.

But what I don’t have is a meadow where the deer herd congregate, sheltered from stormy weather. What I don’t have is a row of alders where mobs of crows sat to chat and wait for the dawn. What I don’t have is the magnificent, ancient madrona tree who anchored my view to the east. If I got to choose between new neighbors and an old tree, it’d be no contest. Madrona wins every time.

The full truth, though, is also more complex. Most of the distinctly beautiful madronas, whose red bark glows in the early morning light, are sick and dying. Something similar to Dutch elm disease is eating away at these wonderful beings. I took a walk down the hill this morning to visit with the tree as she lay scattered where she was felled, her trunk in a hundred pieces like the vertebrae of a dinosaur.

Deer wandered around in the rubble looking a bit dazed, yet delighted to have a buffet of green madrona leaves laid on the ground. I couldn’t shake the image of vultures picking over a fresh kill. I suppose the good news is that the leaves won’t go to waste.

I tried to count her rings at the stump, which is easily four feet in diameter, but I soon realized that accurate ring counting is beyond my abilities. This tree was surely 80-100 years old; of that much I’m sure. As I touched her dismembered limbs, I said goodbye and thanked her for the countless moments of beauty she gave to my life. I picked up one leaf to press and save and one small branch that caught my eye. It’s a classic Y-shaped branch, but one of the upper stems is long dead, with coarse peeled bark, while the other stem is smooth and strong and was clearly thriving yesterday. I will keep this branch as a reminder that when one avenue in your life comes to an end, another route can head off in another direction.

As I stood on the bare land where soon a new house will rise, I had to agree that they will have a magnificent, sweeping view. I hope they really, really appreciate it. Someday I may invite them over see photos of my old friend, Madrona.

CONTEMPLATIONS

• Have you ever had to say goodbye to a special tree?
• Are you ever conflicted about conservation and progress?
• Does a dying tree still deserve to live?
• Is a view more valuable than a tree?

See my madrona friend in winter, here.

Point Wilson just after dawn: it’s oddly warm and still on the bay, while gulls wake the day.

The ferry glides off into the fog, and the sun slices through clouds and shimmers the silver waters. Then cotton batting separates to reveal blue quilted sky. Comic crows scavenge for breakfast in the tide’s leavings, and the rising sun stripes the pewter bay with bands of gold. The night’s work is over for the lighthouse, but it sends its red-then-white beacon across the waters anyway, as the curve of this beach holds me in its embrace. I am safe here, and my heart opens to the wholeness of the day. Circling gulls make a ruckus near the dock and a heron adds her voice to the gentle touch of the bay upon the sand and upon my soul.

Some alchemy with fog and light and water mixes green rays of sunshine slanting down to Whidbey Island. A few gulls prefer the bay to perching on the dock, and they bob up and down with the subtle push of the tide. The sun flirts with me, now gilding my face and arms, then darting back behind a dense cloud. Mooring buoys sit empty; most wandering sailors have gone for the season. The woods behind me release their night scents—the over-ripe berries and decaying leaves—that unmistakable pungent perfume of autumn.


Marrowstone Island emerges from the fog, its serrated profile a celebration of its tree line. Bell buoys are silent; the fog is subtle and high and torn apart enough to sustain the quiet morning. A throaty heron call spooks the gulls and they all fly off at once into the sun. A few wisps of fog do cling to the bluffs near Chetzemoka Park, while songbirds sing in the day from big leaf maples on the hill.

This is my very own beach this morning, as I sit leaning against a log and dig my feet into the sand. The remaining clouds have rearranged themselves into orderly pleats of gray, navy blue, pale gold and pure cerulean. The heron finally shows herself, swooping noisily out from under the dock and gliding majestically out over the bay.

A bold crow hops along the sand right in front of my dog and I. He eyeballs me with first one eye then the other, hoping for a handout. But I am empty-handed today, feeding only on this son et lumiere.

A tugboat tows a barge across the horizon as the ferry reemerges on one of her many round trips from Keystone to Port Townsend. I love this sort of morning even more than an all-out clear-sky day. The clouds push and play with the light and create an ever-changing drama. Just now we are encircled by a half dozen pushy crows who think perhaps I have underestimated their hunger and/or their winsomeness. They must know I am a kindred spirit, a fellow crow at heart. I must remember to bring them offerings next time.

As another tug and barge duo pass by in the shipping lanes near the point, their impact sends ripples of small waves onshore. I can see the tide is coming in as rafts of shiny brown kelp float in from the Strait of Juan de Fuca. The ferry crosses through a brilliant stream of sunlight and momentarily vanishes in the powerful glare. As she returns to port, so must I.

It’s a Friday. Another day in paradise.

CONTEMPLATIONS

• Have you been up to watch the dawn lately?
• Do you make enough quiet time for yourself?
• Have you fed a bird recently?
• Have you fed your soul lately?

Visit the beach on Marrowstone Island here.

The arrival of fall lures me away on a day trip by ferry from Port Townsend to Fidalgo Island.

Waiting to depart, I lean over the railing on the upper deck and watch blasé gulls sleeping on pilings below, despite the roar of the massive engine. My favorite thing is to be in the water swimming, but after that, it’s to be on the water in a boat. I love the sway of the boat, the churning of the waves as we push across the bay, then the escalating wind as we gain speed. I feel hyper-alive at such times.

Perhaps we never tire of the magic of crossing water in any sized vessel. There is always that desire to see what’s over there. But for me, the journey itself is every bit as important. I have taken this round-trip ferry ride as a walk-on passenger just to enjoy the sunrise above the Cascade Mountains that flank the east side of these waters.

Today as I drive onto the boat I enjoy the intense glints of light dancing in ever-changing patterns on the bay. As we surge across the shipping lanes that head down the Strait of Juan de Fuca toward ports in Seattle and beyond, we encounter all manner of ships. There is always a steady parade of freighters and tankers bringing in oil and taking out trees. A hardy tug blowing smoke tows an impossibly huge barge like an ant dragging a leaf thirty times its size. On this fine day, white triangles of sailboats cruise the shorelines.

Then I spot what I hate to see: two Coast Guard cutters escorting a nuclear submarine on maneuvers. This is a fairly common site, even from my house, as there is a sub base in the area at Bangor on Hood Canal. The image of the black sub—only partially exposed—moves through the water like some sinister whale. I hate to think of the destructive capabilities contained in that dark shape. It’s a vivid reminder that we are at war, and that I live on the very edge of the country whose borders need patrolling.

So I walk to the other side of the ferryboat and settle in on a sunny bench to savor autumn, my favorite, the season of transformation. I love watching the alchemy of greens going yellow then ochre, orange and overnight to scarlet. I collect leaves in every hue and scatter them across all the altars in my house.

It’s not enough that fall is decorating the landscape in flaming color—I need to bring the evidence inside where I can marvel at it hourly.

But out here on the water the signs of fall are subtle, even as we near the island there are simply suggestions of gold and amber on the hillsides. Back down on the car deck, I poke my head out a porthole to watch us glide into this shallow bay at Keystone. A sandy beach strewn with driftwood is just a few feet away as we slip easily up to the dock.

Later, on the return trip, the Holland America cruise ship Zaandam cuts across our path and dwarfs us, its black hull and many stories blotting out the setting sun. I can see passengers in the glassed-in boxes settling in for their trip to Alaska. During the summer and early fall on Friday, Saturday and Sunday evenings, several ships each day head out on this same voyage. I don’t envy them—it’s as if a small city follows them wherever they go. I need quieter, smaller scale modes of travel. Still, it is an interesting perspective on one of these ships which I usually watch from afar. It makes me wonder exactly how it stays afloat, so huge and boxy is its shape. Of course it’s all mathematical calculations of tonnage and displacement of water that I’ll never understand. To me it’s just another example of the magic of crossing water, of being able to go where our own bodies were not designed to take us.

Rosario Beach, Fidalgo Island

It is unmistakable—it feels different up here. Vignettes of picture postcard perfection morph and delight every few feet of path I walk. The sound of Rosario Strait tumbling small stones into roundness is bliss. A pair of squirrels frolicking in upward spirals around an ancient fir makes me laugh out loud. There is a sense of peace in this remote place.

But even more, it is the allure of all these San Juan Islands—hundreds of them—from tiny verdant dots of rocks and trees to the four largest which are served by ferries. All of the other inhabited islands are accessed only by plane or boat, which is a romantic notion in itself. As a hermetic type, the appeal of rooting way up here detached from the mainland is magnetically attractive. I think it would be easier here to remain apart from most of the madness of the 21st century, to turn back in time and live more elementally. To relate primarily to sun, rain, earth and sea, to have as next door neighbors eagles, orcas, seals and gulls. To turn inward and upward to make sense of it all.

Of course what would make that possible for me is the technology of the 21st century—my invisible uplink to the Internet. More magic—connecting to people around the world with a few clicks and keystrokes. My own refuge on the bay, while not an island, still feels like one. I see water from all my windows and these very islands across the Strait. So I already have the isolation and the views, just not that sense of total separation. Time will reveal if I need that, too.

CONTEMPLATIONS

• What are the islands or magical places in your life?
• Is there some place you fantasize about?
• Do you need some sort of refuge right now?
• Do you need to slow down, maroon yourself somehow?

Take other special trips here.

Storm slams, surprises—
tall firs swoon into the gale,
branches embrace crows.

Wild winds whip waves white.
Giddy gulls glide gleefully.
We watch, wait, worry.

A knot of starlings bursts from the tallest fir tree and explodes like fireworks across the pale morning sky, fluttering back to ground like fallen black stars.