Still and Calm
October 2, 2022
Beautifully still. Calm. Fog rises from warm water into cool air. Pelicans gently awaken. Osprey flies over my head. Franklin's gulls swirl over the lake disappearing into the newly brightened sky. Chimney swifts dot the landscape appearing and disappearing in a soft swirl of their own. Tiny feathers left by roosting geese glimmer in the sunlight. My late September home is quiet but alive welcoming those who travel through.
Hello friends! I know this week has not been still and calm everywhere and my prayers continue to be with all those impacted by storms, fires, wars and all the other challenges of life. Here it has been extremely calm and I thought I’d share a moment of my mornings with you, maybe bringing a little peace and calm where perhaps it is harder to find.
I realized last week that over half of the subscribers here are new since mid-summer! Welcome to everyone, those who are new and those who have been here a while. I’m so glad you’re here, venturing with me around my neighborhood and our local county park in southeast Kansas City.
We are at the beginning of fall migration here, when the blessings of being a “fly-over state” usually start to appear. I never know how conditions (storms, our current drought, etc.) might impact the migration. Usually, there are a variety of migratory visitors and then our winter residents start to appear. It’s a time of anticipation and patience as I remind myself again and again that fall migration is a long, drawn-out affair.
It’s a time of anticipation and patience with my body as well. I am grateful the sciatica I have been dealing with since July seems to be getting better again (I had a setback Labor Day weekend). I am doing everything I can to heal so I can be out with my feathered friends. I find myself anticipating being able to sit on the ground again but needing to stay in the moment with where I’m at and what I can do today. Bringing gratitude for what my body can do seems to help more than complaining about what it can’t.
Speaking of gratitude for my body, today I found myself marveling at the wonder that is our eyesight and how grateful I am for something that is not a given. No matter how good cameras have gotten - and they are pretty amazing! - eyes still do so many things they can’t. My eyes can see tiny chimney swifts up and down the lake when my camera can’t get them in a video no matter how hard I try. My eyes can focus at multiple distances at once where my camera focal range is small. My eyes can handle the huge contrast of light and shadow in a sunrise where I have to edit the photos to get close to what I see. So much gratitude for vision!
The winds this week brought a lot of turkey vultures. We have turkey vultures that nest here in the summer but their numbers swell this time of year before they all depart around the end of October for their winter grounds. Every once in a while I see very large numbers. On 9/28/22 I estimated 60-80 “kettling” overhead and managed to get a video to share:
It’s been almost a year since I started publishing weekly and seven months since I added the additional photo posts for paying subscribers. Recently I’ve been posting for paying subscribers 2x/week. If you’re curious about the paid subscription, remember you can always try it out for one month and see what you think. Once you opt-in you can see all the past subscriber posts as well and you can cancel anytime and revert to free.
Migration is just getting started!
Wishing you all some still and calm in your week, whatever life had thrown at you right now.
Beautiful words and images, Karen. So peaceful. Anticipation is the word this time of year--love the migration, though it's both about loss and expectation. Thanks for sharing!
Beautiful 😍