The Church of Forest Joy® - Find Good in Everything

Meditation One:
It's not that I'm starting my own church and expecting anyone else to join. I'm an Apatheist: I don't care what religion I am and I REALLY don't care what religion you are. But I get a reverent, church-y feeling while sitting in the back yard and watching sunlight passing through the trees, turning grey bark into yellow, orange and then gold.

Wrens yell "Cedrick! Cedrick! Cedrick! (Is HE their creator?) Owls are more questioning: "Who Cooks for You? Who Cooks for You-Allllll?" They don't have definitive answers. Neither do I.

No doubt you noticed the ®. Too bad that Cedrick, God, Yahweh, Moses, Christ, Buddah, Mohammed and the rest didn't have an ®. Didn't they know about keyboard option-R to create ®? Would have prevented a lot of confusion if we knew exactly what they said without interpretation and/or hijacking by middlemen. Knowledge of this simple keyboard trick allows me to state for the ages my feeling that if we all searched for answers in the forest, there'd be fewer wars over whose Belief is Bigger.

The Church of Forest Joy is about being with nature and finding personal inspiration. Shakespeare said it best:
"And this, our life, exempt from public haunt, finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in stone, and good in everything."

Cheer! Cheer! Cheer!

Parkville Nature Journal - Blue-Black Spider Wasp

Gracie dog stopped short to sniff the pavement. A sleek, iridescent black wasp was crossing our path, laboriously dragging an immense Wolf Spider.

The metallic-armored warrior stayed focused on her task - until Gracie’s nose intruded. The wasp released the spider and flitted in fast circles around our feet. The spider aimlessly waved one leg over the hot cement. I stepped back, mesmerized. Was the spider anesthetized?

The wasp returned to the spider, bit onto a hairy leg and escorted the drunken figure over the curb and into the grass.

Encounters with nature often lead me to search for answers in an Audubon Society Field Guide. What I found was interesting but not comforting:

The Blue-Black Spider Wasp, usually female, digs into soft sandy soil to prepare a nest chamber for her larvae. Searching rapidly on the ground and around tree trunks, the wasp locates and stings a spider - preferably a meaty Wolf Spider - to permanently paralyze it. With focus and determination the wasp drags the spider to her chamber and lays an egg on its live body. She leaves, sealing the “nursery” where the larva hatches and eats the spider before spinning itself into a silky cocoon.

I immediately thought of my favorite poet in fifth grade, Mr. Ogden Nash.
The last word of this poem popped into my head:

The wasp and all his numerous family
I look upon as a major calamity.
He throws open his nest with prodigality,
But I distrust his waspitality.

To offset potentially disturbing facts about nature, I strongly recommend keeping The Golden Trashery of Ogden Nashery next to your Audubon Society Field Guide…