{"id":124,"date":"2010-11-27T02:39:00","date_gmt":"2010-11-27T02:39:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wellnessandspirituality.net\/?p=124"},"modified":"2011-01-07T12:46:37","modified_gmt":"2011-01-07T17:46:37","slug":"union-with-nature-home-sweet-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wellnessandspirituality.net\/?p=124","title":{"rendered":"Union with Nature–Home Sweet Home"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

I’m\u00a0back home in\u00a0West Virginia today. From 1979 to 1985, I lived in a root cellar of stone built into the side of a hill in a shady, narrow hollow in the Mountain State. No electricity or running water for six years–bailed the water from a hand-dug well; wood heat; \u00a0kerosene lamps. Wood cookstove.\u00a0 Canned venison. El Camino. Sarah Palin has nothing on me.<\/p>\n

Nature has always held me in thrall since my early years in Pennsylvania where my backyard was the high corn fields and grassy meadows filled with ring neck pheasants, toads and Scott, Tod and Brett.<\/p>\n

Winter, summer, spring or fall, I was breathing in the scents that nowadays conjure sweet memories if I catch a fleeting whiff of the same aroma.<\/p>\n

Love and fear were the two primary reasons for \u201cgoing back to the land.\u201d First of all, I wanted to have a chance at survival of any number of apocalyptic scenarios. Honestly, I think of myself as \u201cahead of my time.” I\u2019ve been fearing doom and gloom and the end of the world since 1974 when I read a book that made many dire predictions for the turn of the century and beyond. The gist of it was that a tenth of the world\u2019s population would survive major geophysical catastrophe.<\/p>\n

To this day, I\u00a0take talk of apocalyptic scenerios quite seriously.\u00a0 2012 looms and I envision surviving one way or the other.\u00a0 Actually, I\u2019m convinced it\u2019s my destiny to help to usher in a Golden Age for humanity.\u00a0 As such, I have to be prepared for every scenario, apocalyptic or otherwise. So, I am a survivalist, but not fanatically.\u00a0 \u201cBe Prepared\u201d is what the Girl Scouts taught me!<\/p>\n

A bright vision of a life in the Garden of Eden with the man I loved was the flip side to my fear. My guy was an outdoorsman.\u00a0 We shared a very powerful common passion, the love of nature; \u00a0to be self-sufficient and sane, living outside the \u201crat race\u201d; to live in balance and harmony and as gently as possibly on the Earth; to leave her better off than we found her.<\/p>\n

My husband and I collaborated on a poem when we were married.\u00a0 I told him what substantive content it should hold and he put it into verse. He did a great job, I do believe.\u00a0 So today I return to my land in WV\u2014from which I am mostly absent now as I care for my parents in PA.\u00a0 Here, in honor of my return to my land and my husband and one of my son\u2019s, is the poem.<\/p>\n

Union With Nature<\/em><\/p>\n

Before creation, naught had stirred;
\nThen God spoke forth His holy word;
\nAnd worlds responded. the cosmos heard;
\nIt felt His mighty hand.<\/em><\/p>\n

He formed the breadth and depth of space;
\nPaths of planets, the starry trace;
\nThis world of ours fell into place;
\nThe seas, the sky, the land.<\/em><\/p>\n

And when all finally came to rest;
\nThe Lord was pleased, and man was blessed;
\nIn nature god is manifest;
\nTo those who are aware.<\/em><\/p>\n

Woodland and meadow sing glad refrain;
\nSeasons emerge, and seasons wane;
\nNature’s mysteries themselves explain;
\nTo those who truly care.<\/em><\/p>\n

To nature the two of us shall go;
\nTo work, to worship, learn and grow;
\nAnd reap the bounty it may bestow;
\nUpon us, day to day.<\/em><\/p>\n

“Unite with nature,” noble theme;
\nThat dreamers hold in high esteem;
\nIt’s here we’ve gone to find that dream;
\nAnd here we plan to stay.<\/em><\/p>\n

It’s here in nature we have planned;
\nTo have our life and love expand;
\nTo love each other and the land;
\nOur intimate desire.<\/em><\/p>\n

God grant us then, that we endure;
\nThat we may live both hard and sure;
\nAnd if we’re worthy–if we’re pure;
\nThat others we inspire.<\/em><\/p>\n

So God, when He the soil did sift;
\nThe hollows carve, the mountains life;
\nMade nature then His greatest gift;
\nThe finest He could give.<\/em><\/p>\n

No finer place to work the loam;
\nTo have our children freely roam;
\nNo finer place to have our home;
\nNo finer place to live!<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m\u00a0back home in\u00a0West Virginia today. From 1979 to 1985, I lived in a root cellar of stone built into the side of a hill in a shady, narrow hollow in the Mountain State. No electricity or running water for six years–bailed the water from a hand-dug well; wood heat; \u00a0kerosene lamps. Wood cookstove.\u00a0 Canned venison. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[24,25],"class_list":["post-124","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-wellness-and-spirituality","tag-home-sweet-home","tag-nature"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wellnessandspirituality.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wellnessandspirituality.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wellnessandspirituality.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wellnessandspirituality.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wellnessandspirituality.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=124"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/wellnessandspirituality.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":180,"href":"https:\/\/wellnessandspirituality.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124\/revisions\/180"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wellnessandspirituality.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=124"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wellnessandspirituality.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=124"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wellnessandspirituality.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=124"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}