Bringing Nature Inside

This week I had minor surgery on my face—18 stitches—to remove a spot of basal cell carcinoma. I thought I would be able to return to routine activities within 24 hours, but this was not so. I felt thickheaded and unable to perform simple tasks like washing laundry or taking walks. So I had to make do with contemplating natural objects inside the house. As I wandered from room to room in a mental fog, I realized nature was all around me, from artwork I’d made to stones I had collected on the shores of Lake Michigan.

One day I discovered a tiny mummified snapping turtle while I was walking along the Fox River and thought it was so poignant and delicate, that I needed to honor it by including it in a piece of art. “The Path” has become part of my meditation process. I see the turtle as beginning a path beyond life, accompanied by fossils, pine cone “petals” and other things that are not considered to be alive in the traditional sense. Yet they live in a new way as natural icons.

Shed antlers decorate buffets, bureaus and a dollhouse whose chimney spouts a plume of prairie grass “smoke.” Bird nests abound, fashioned of twigs, yarn, even shimmering milkweed seed parachutes. Fossilized corals, pine cones and bones are plentiful, as are stones and dried plants. Papery snakeskin encircles an ostrich egg behind a glass-doored cabinet. A lampshade of lichen-covered birch bark and another crafted from limpet shells glow softly. Nature is everywhere.

Not only have I brought nature into our house, but it’s also dwelling inside me, drawing me closer to God. When I can’t go outside for a walk and observe nature, I can simply look around our home, or turn my mind’s eye inward and find it there.

Artwork “The Path” © Sondra Sula. All photos © Sondra Sula.