Shannon, your writing here is maybe the best I’ve read (and I’ve read a lot of your work!) Thank you for crafting this piece. And thanks to Mr. Owl for the inspo 🦉 🙏🏻
Katie, this means so much to me. I'm really trying to grow in having patience with my writing, spending more time on it, rearranging bits, more editing, etc. I'm glad to hear it's paying off! (Even though once I published this I caught things I wish I had changed first. Still a ways to go!)
I’ve decided to get to know more trees this year. Already found an oak apple and several oak galls (made by wasps). I might make them into ink or I might just look at them (the galls look a bit like Sauron’s helmet).
Ok this goal is everything. This is what resolutions be. I have woefully far to go in learning trees, but I used to be so oblivious I didn’t know an oak from a maple. Small progress is not nothing.
I’ve just remembered , while out walking, that it was a hazelnut that Julian of Norwich held in the palm of her hand. I lived in Norwich for a while - but I was not an anchoress!
Yes it was! That's one of my favorites from her book. I think about it every time I see a hazelnut. (though not every time I smear nutella on something for my kids to eat, because that would be... really really often)
I’m not sure. I’m in the UK. We have several hazel trees in our garden, the squirrels get the nuts before we do, but they are welcome - Nutella is the only way I like to eat hazelnuts. The catkins are so pretty though, and the tiny pink female flowers (a third the size of my little fingernail).
I’ve read both reflections of the heart and essays of the mind, siblings of the soul those two; but more rarely has a narrative, simultaneously, spoken to me intellectually and emotionally. Yours just did.
Love this. I keep having encounters with wild Barred Owls. It’s simultaneously a comfort and a challenge when I see them. Like locking eyes with my coach.
Shannon, your writing here is maybe the best I’ve read (and I’ve read a lot of your work!) Thank you for crafting this piece. And thanks to Mr. Owl for the inspo 🦉 🙏🏻
Katie, this means so much to me. I'm really trying to grow in having patience with my writing, spending more time on it, rearranging bits, more editing, etc. I'm glad to hear it's paying off! (Even though once I published this I caught things I wish I had changed first. Still a ways to go!)
Love this. Owl encounters are the best!
Aren't they?! One of those animals that feel like they've been beyond the veil.
I’ve decided to get to know more trees this year. Already found an oak apple and several oak galls (made by wasps). I might make them into ink or I might just look at them (the galls look a bit like Sauron’s helmet).
Ok this goal is everything. This is what resolutions be. I have woefully far to go in learning trees, but I used to be so oblivious I didn’t know an oak from a maple. Small progress is not nothing.
I have a long way to go too. I know maple, oak and hazel, and Christmas tree 😆
I don’t know Hazel! Are they local to you?
I’ve just remembered , while out walking, that it was a hazelnut that Julian of Norwich held in the palm of her hand. I lived in Norwich for a while - but I was not an anchoress!
Yes it was! That's one of my favorites from her book. I think about it every time I see a hazelnut. (though not every time I smear nutella on something for my kids to eat, because that would be... really really often)
Yeah, and I don’t think the Nutella form was what Mother Julian had in mind…
I’m not sure. I’m in the UK. We have several hazel trees in our garden, the squirrels get the nuts before we do, but they are welcome - Nutella is the only way I like to eat hazelnuts. The catkins are so pretty though, and the tiny pink female flowers (a third the size of my little fingernail).
I've never seen the flowers. I'll have to come visit sometime ;)
Anytime!
I’ve read both reflections of the heart and essays of the mind, siblings of the soul those two; but more rarely has a narrative, simultaneously, spoken to me intellectually and emotionally. Yours just did.
Gotta keep all engines firing!
Our church group in Champaign, Illinois begins our study of your book this Tuesday!
Yay, that's so cool. Thanks for letting me know!
Love this. I keep having encounters with wild Barred Owls. It’s simultaneously a comfort and a challenge when I see them. Like locking eyes with my coach.
I like that way of putting it. I had to look up wild barred owl to see what it looks like. What a haunting beauty.