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EarthWays LLC
Summer 2019 Newsletter
Summertime Summertime
Slowin' down
Look at the big picture this summer. Watch the stars, get away from the city lights, find a place where you can view the wide-open sky.

In these lazy days of summer let your shoulders drop, your mind go free, find yourself hummin’ a tune for no reason, dreamin’, hearin’ sounds of crickets, the music of the spheres.

Looking upward on a warm summer night in August you could see the wondrous spectacle of the Perseid meteor showers. Best viewing times are predicted to be in the early morning hours of August 11, 12 and 13.

Bring your body to a lounge chair, a cool place in the meadow or even a slab of granite in the mountains will do. Support yourself to lie down. Allow the chair, earth, rock to hold the weight of your cares.

Learn more about the night sky by listening to a Ted Talk by Avi Loeb, Head of the Astronomy Dept at Harvard. Click on his talk

Loeb talks about our lack of humility as human beings in our assumption that
we are the only intelligent beings in the universe. Astronomers have a way of



Getting To Know Us...


Continuing our conversations with EarthWays guides:


Cazeaux Nordstrum
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Cazeaux Nordstrum
Being on the land awakens truth


Cazeaux grew up in the Sonoran Desert of the Southwest. It seemed to her that there was nothing but wide-open space. She lived close to the Spanish, Mexican and Native American cultures. Alongside the two-lane road from Tucson to Nogales were sacred rock-built markers to the lives lost on that stretch of highway. It became a reminder to notice the path while traveling it.

"My parents loved the outdoors and took us on road trips most summers throughout the West, often camping," Cazeaux said. "My father taught us how to put up a tent, secure the stakes for support and dig trenches for rain runoff. Leaving No Trace was a teaching from my parents out of respect for the land. When we weren't camping, we often stayed at the grand lodges in the National Parks."

As a child, Cazeaux remembers walking at twilight with her younger sister from camp to the outhouse with their dad. He said, "When you get lost, remember to stay put." He went on to say "You will want to try to get back to the campsite, but it will only make it harder for you to be found. Stay still. I will find you." It is a lesson that remains.

For a time in adolescence, her father was clearing land in southern Arizona for cattle ranching. The family would spend summers on ranches living in a line camp cabin with its hard-packed dirt floor and wood burning stove. These are good memories of working the land during the day and gathering around the campfire at night. It was simple living. Everyone with a job to do.

Celebrate solstice

Listen to the aria composed for
the opera
Porgy and Bess






Summer
Favorite Recommendations 
from
EW Guides




Take your dog to the beach along with your favorite book
 The Night Wages
by Martin Shaw

Enjoy walks in Ragle Ranch Park, Sebastopol, Sonoma County
The Earth Has A Soul
by C. G. Jung

Travel to the deserts on the planet
Where Do The Crawdads Sing?
by Delia Owens

Learn about trees and how far we will go to save them
The Overstory
by Richard Powers

View Documentary about Aretha Franklin
Amazing Grace

Fall in love with the earth
Our Planet
Documentary narrated by David Attenborough on Netflix

Support local, good food, farmers and beauty 
Farmer's Markets

and

by Ann Linnea of Peer Spirit







The Booby Prize

by

Rebecca del Rio






My friend Jana tells me "knowing
Is the Booby Prize." 
Once known the answer ossifies into Certainty.
Can we know Life
Without wanting
To trap it, cage it?
The heart’s rhythm arrives -
Constant waves carrying
The rich soup of the soul.
Each wave, each beat, its own universe
Each one its own gift, its necessary
Step in Creation’s dance.
We, who are frozen in ideas
And answers
Crave change, but belief
Blocks Life’s insistent responses.

Has our terrible
Demand for certainty caused
This chaos, this burning planet?
Is our home dying to free herself from
Our Absolute Knowing?
Every day our only habitat baptizes us
In Fire, winds and floods. 
Every moment our planet pleads and punishes.
Her heart breaks, whispers, “Listen. If you must be sure:
Be certain of Change. 
Cherish Wind, Water, Air, Love all your living Companions. Here are
The only gods, the one
Absolute you need.”


What I Stand On:
The Collected Essays of
Wendell Barry
1969-2017

The indispensable writings of our foremost voice on the current ecological and cultural crisis, more relevant now than ever, in a special two-volume edition prepared in consultation with the author.

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