Take a walk with me at Jug Handle State Natural Reserve. After we’ve ducked under Route 1 and descended a hundred steps, we’ll enter a boardwalk, shambly and mysterious. The Cloud of Unknowing. 
We’ll crouch down in wonder at ferns growing from the very planks at our feet. Life always finds a way. 
Stop to admire a tiny mushroom emerging from a mossy handrail. Even our brief lives are magnificent. 
Look down to make sure we don’t fall through a hole. Vigilance is helpful. 
Rest our elbows on the rickety rail and note kelp wrapped around a tree trunk poking out of the river. How did it get there? Questioning is good for us. 
We can’t walk this trail without help from the trail keepers. This tree had fallen over the bridge. Thank you, others, for tidying up my life. 
Nature has created an abstract piece of art. Let us enjoy the little things. 
Don’t forget to observe the lichen. Recognize the patterns. 
Let’s lower our eyes to see the sky. Reflection often turns our well-worn assumptions upside down. 
Our path is so much more complex than we originally thought. Textured with life’s experiences. 
It’s time to step off the boardwalk and onto solid ground. Rooting ourselves keeps us steady. 
But we can still move upwards and onwards towards the Light. Solid footing is a springboard to The Divine.
Photos © Sondra Sula.
Take a walk with me by reading my most recent daily devotional book, Meditations on Mendocino by Sondra Sula. Available on Amazon in paperback or Kindle versions.
If you’d prefer a daily river walk, Reflections on the Fox River and Beyond by Sondra Sula, might just be the book for you.
This wood has seen many years and weathered many storms. Its bark has worn away to reveal complex grains and textures.
Do you ever feel lost? When something—like this furry keychain—is lost in the woods, a passing hiker will put it in a prominent place to be more easily found.
Instead of burying my head in the proverbial sand,
or curling up into a ball to mope,
I can try to connect with the light all around me—even though I seem lost in the shadows.
Feeling broken doesn’t have to be eternal.
I can express my dark feelings safely, perhaps through art or writing, then let them go.
Soon, I may be willing to bud.
Which surely leads to blooming. And fully open, I can more easily be found.
I’m on “foot rest.” Podiatrist’s orders. So I’m walking with my fingers instead—strolling through recent odds-and-ends-photos. What do the pictures have to say? This moody landscape says: even when you are “on top of the world,” clouds may still form. Incorporate those clouds into your enjoyment of the view.
Survey marker: Look up. Look down. Look around. You’re always somewhere. Perhaps where you should be.
Pretzel and gourd: some individuals will go to unusual lengths to stay connected. Are you one of them?
Chinese temple: You don’t need to occupy a lot of space to be a meaningful contribution to the world.
A dog and my mother’s cat, Giuseppe: Feel the texture of who we are. As you let your love flow into us, it flows out to the world.
Crab claw: Grasping will only get you so much; letting go brings lasting peace.
Chard and cypress: Grow into what you are destined to be. You know deep inside that the design was always there.
Wood: Respect the rings. Every year you live makes you more complete.
Dogwood: Celebrate every season, for there is delight in each stage of life.
I’m not sure why I’m fascinated by machines. My father was an engineer and perhaps that is why I’ve always respected people who are able to take apart something complex and put it back together again.
When a mini excavator was brought in to clear twenty-six fallen trees in our back woods, I have to admit it gave me a thrill to watch it advance through our side yard and galumph its way into the back woods.
The sad part was what had happened to the woods—tall bull pines and cypress were victims of high winds and soaking rain.
The root balls of many trees had been pulled up, too. These roots, now vertical, towered over my head.
But the claw was here to help.
After the first day of work, the excavator was left in the woods overnight, which enabled me to absorb its powerful charm up close,
as well as inspect its pedals,
bolts
and bucket.
After most of the trees were cleared and the creek cleaned up, I felt a sense of transformation. This portion of woods now had the opportunity to become something else. A meadow? A place of light?
Just a few years ago in Aurora, Illinois, October meant flaming sugar maples, frost-edged grass and chartreuse Osage oranges clinging to barren branches. But along the Mendocino coast it means flaming ice plants licking the edges of bluffs.
Or dripping down ocean rocks like lava icing.
Pale praying mantises fly through the air, then land in fields as if gleaning.
Pines remain green. And acrobatic trunks, such as this one, endure each season as it passes, with little change.
I feel closest to the flowers that bloom, then create winged seeds to float away on westerly winds. For they hold the promise of adventure and new perspectives before taking root in unfamiliar soil, where they will grow and expand, becoming fresh versions of themselves.
Some things are hard to size up without comparison—especially in photographs. In most of the pictures I took in Sequoia National Park the trees didn’t look gargantuan on their own. I needed scale.
Otherwise the sequoias just looked like cinnamon-colored trees in a forest.
The immensity of the behemoths really came into focus as I sat on a small log backed by a fallen tree’s root ball.
And again, when my husband posed on top of a downed trunk where cars parked for photo ops decades ago.
Even the sugar pines dropped enormous cones. Without Rob’s hand, they looked pint-sized.
Seeing one sequoia was amazing, but seeing a forest of them was almost overwhelming.
The largest tree in the world, by bulk, is the General Sherman tree. When I saw this photo of me in front of it, I was astounded by how tiny I looked. But when I think of the capacity of God’s love for us, that tree is miniscule by comparison.
We have a hard time comprehending immeasurable love because it is so vast. Being loved by one person is enthralling—so to be loved by a God who is larger than the cosmos is, well, mystifying, yet also thrilling. Why not allow yourself to imagine and feel the enormity of God’s love as you look up at the sky today?
When I lived in Chicago, I would often leave the confines of the city to find an open space in nature where I could feel solitude. And even though there were many forest preserves available for walking, up to eight million other people were also trying to connect with the natural world in those spaces.
I remember that feeling, which is why it was so wonderful to fly to the small town of Glasgow, Montana from a plane that only carried one other passenger. During the hour-and-a-half flight from Billings, I excitedly looked out the window. There was barely a building in sight. As we touched down I could see our Subaru in the tiny parking lot and my husband waving from the airport window—he was the only person inside.
The next day we drove a lonely road to Glacier National Park and saw a grizzly bear within the first five minutes of being there. Admittedly, the park was crowded in some spots, but there was an overall feeling of breathing fresh, clean air.
We looked at riotous fields of flowers in every color of the spectrum.
Walked to waterfalls.
Hiked past intriguing tree trunks along dappled trails.
Sat by rivers. Noticed how clear and pure water can be.
We felt solitude—together.
I glanced down to see the bottom of a tree trunk encircled in a profusion of tiny yellow daisies, and another complemented at its base with purple companion plants. I decided to focus my camera and my mind on the place where a tree’s foundational support meets the soil. A mystery of root webs concealed from view keeps the trees grounded and nourished. I must remain rooted in God for balance, support and nourishment.
Other trunks let a few of their roots show, displaying their connection to the earth. Lord, let me know the right times to publicly demonstrate my devotion to You, and when to allow its intuitive interpretation.
I passed a tree’s base that was split, yet intertwined. When I differ in opinion with another, let me remember our greater bond of oneness, inextricably uniting us.
Diverse color and texture abounded: peeling, paper-thin rusty orange bark, gray lichen-encrusted trunks, even young bark that was red on one side and olive-gold on the other. We may look different on the outside, but our life-sustaining “sap” still comes from the same Wellspring.
Lastly, I zeroed in on a large tree’s undulating bark. It flowed down vertically in rivulets of green-tinted gray over a reddish-brown backdrop. A single eye had formed where a branch had been severed. The healed wound offered insight: We are all in the flow. We can fight it and seek to drag ourselves to dry land or we can float effortlessly to The Source and join all others who have gathered there for fellowship. I choose the easy channel to companionship.
All photos © Sondra Sula.
I unabashedly love autumn. So when I moved to a place where “color tours” (driving trips through forests in full fall regalia) were not a tradition, I worried that I wouldn’t experience the thrill of fall. One solution: create my own autumn. Part of my Little Souls Series, 
At the grocery store, I was pleasantly surprised to find a mound of warty pumpkins for sale. Perhaps I wasn’t driving by fields of orange orbs, but these specimens looked quite pretty piled up in the parking lot.
On another errand, I saw a spider guarding a strawflower. The moisture-less petals sound scratchy when touched. As a child, I made dried arrangements out of seeds pods, leaves and other November field finds. I can do the same here as an adult.
The gold and wine-hued trunks of the manzanita contain the colors I long for—a beauty unknown to New England and the Midwest. Roadsides glow with red hot pokers and coastal gardens display their taller cousins; I would never have been able to grow them in my Aurora, Illinois yard. And although there are no paper birches here, a red alder proved to be an attractive alternative.
Mendocino has its own autumn flavor, with apples, pears and persimmons aplenty. 
Sondra Sula's Blog: The Nature of Spirituality 