Own Your Breath - nurturing wellness & mindfulness one breath at a time

02/12/2025

Thoreau tells us:
'Live in each season as it passes;
breathe the air, drink the drink,
taste the fruit, and resign yourself
to the influence of the earth.'
Yesterday's howling wind whipped the treetops into a frenzied dance.
Rain lashed the land, forming gushing muddy puddles alongside winding country lanes.
Wildlife huddled in dark burrows or snuggled on blankets of pine needles beneath towering trees.
Embrace the energy.
Yet today -
Today the vast blue sky stretches overhead.
Today wispy clouds drift gently.
Today there is no breeze to disrupt the water's stillness.
Embrace the calm.

02/12/2025

23/11/2025

Immerse yourself in the forest.
No matter the season, make time to pause: listen; watch; breathe.
Connect.
From your feet to the tips of your fingers, feel part of the universe.
🙏🏼🌳🌿

There’s a strange thing that happens when you slow down in the woods. Not just walking for the sake of getting somewhere, but actually being there, letting your footsteps soften, letting your breath match the pace of the trees as you pass.

Most of the time, the world is loud. Our heads are sometimes louder. But out here, if you give it a moment, the woods begin to speak in their own way.
Not with words, it's something different, the shift of leaves, the creak of old roots settling, the calm that falls when you finally stop rushing.

It’s in those quiet stretches that you realise nature doesn’t need to shout. It just waits for you to listen.

-Woodlarking

22/11/2025

Simply beautiful 🍂🍁🧡

Artist - Gustav Klimt
The body is like a November birch facing the full moon...reaching into the cold heavens. In these trees there is no ambition, no sodden body, no leaves,
Nothing but bare trunks climbing like cold fire...
It is a joy to walk in the bare woods...The moonlight is not broken by the heavy leaves.
The leaves are down, and touching the soaked earth,
Giving off the odors that partridges love. - Robert Bly

10/11/2025

Nature's endless wonders - waiting patiently for our senses to sharpen so that we can appreciate them 🙏🏻

I find this wisdom so profound. It challenges some of my beliefs. I like that. I love seeing things from new perspectives.

How to Be a Lichen: Adaptive Strategies for the Vulnerabilities of Being Human from Nature’s Tiny Titans of Tenacity
~The Marginalian by Maria Popova~

When I was a child, little delighted me more than the magical green garlands draping from the pine trees, which I made into wreaths and mustaches to roam the mountains of Bulgaria as a miniature Orlando. I had no idea that Usnea longissima is just one of more than 20,000 known species of lichen — almost twice as many as birds.

In the lifetime since, I have collected and photographed lichen all over the world, from the spruces lining the wild shores of Alaska to the stone walls lining the rural roads of Ireland, from Basquiat’s grave in Brooklyn’s Green-Wood Cemetery to my oldest friend’s young husband’s tombstone in London’s Brompton Cemetery. And because anything you polish with attention will become a mirror, I have come to see that lichen knows many things we spend our lives learning — about adversity, about belonging, about love.

Here are some instructions for living gleaned from nature’s tiniest titans of tenacity:

1. Contain multitudes without inner conflict. Linnaeus classified lichens as plants — a notion no one questioned until Peter Rabbit creator Beatrix Potter undertook her little-known scientific studies and made the revolutionary discovery that lichens are part algae and part fungus, with a sprinkling a bacteria — three kingdoms of life in a single organism, not warring for dominance but working together to make it one of the most resilient life-forms in nature and a keystone of many ecosystems. They are what that the German microbiologist and botanist Heinrich Anton de Bary was studying when he coined the word symbiosis, which is the technology evolution invented for unselfing.

2. Roots are overrated — invent other structures of belonging. Lichens don’t have a root system to draw nutrients and moisture from the ground. Instead, they alchemize sunlight into sugar, using their plant part to photosynthesize and their fungal part to grow root-like rhizines that allow them to attach to nearly any surface — house walls and tree bark, dead bones and living barnacles — drawing moisture and nutrients from the air. This allows them to thrive across an astonishing range of environments — from tide pools to mountaintops, from the hottest deserts to the iciest tundra.

3. Cultivate healthy attachment that doesn’t syphon the energy of the other. Contrary to the common misconception, lichens do not parasitize the organisms on which they grow but only use them as a substrate and often contribute to the overall health of the ecosystem.

4. Become a pioneer of possibility amid the ruins of before. Lichens are often the first organisms to grow on the denuded rock left in the wake of landslides and earthquakes. They are the life that goes on living over the tombstones of the dead.

5. When you can’t change your situation, change your attitude. When environmental conditions harshen, lichens can shut down their metabolism for months, years, even decades. They survive in radioactive environments by entering a dormant state and releasing protective chemicals that block radiation and neutralize free radicals. They survive simulations of Martian conditions and even the black severity of outer space: When a team of Spanish scientists sent the common map lichen Rhizocarpon geographicum and the bright orange wonder Rusavskia elegans aboard a Russian spacecraft to be exposed to cosmic radiation for 15 days, the lichens returned to Earth unperturbed and resumed their reproductive cycles.

6. Know that you don’t need a partner to fulfill your life. Many lichens reproduce asexually — by dispersing diaspores containing a handful of cells from each of their inner kingdoms or simply by breaking off pieces of themselves to grow into new organisms.

7. Leave the world better than you found it. Lichens enrich the soil of deserts, stabilize sand dunes, and create loam from stone across the long arc of their lives. They are part of how mountains become golden sand.

8. Have great patience with the arc of your life. Some of the oldest living things on Earth, lichens grow at the unhurried pace of less than a millimeter per year. The continent I now live on and the continent on which I was born are drifting apart more than 250 times as fast. The Moon is leaving us four hundred times faster.

9. Become a living poem. Lichen anchors one of the subtlest, most powerful poems ever written — Elizabeth Bishop’s ode to time and love lensed through the greying hair of the love of her life, the Brazilian architect and landscape designer Lota de Macedo Soares.......................................................
Article by Maria Popova published in The Marginalian

Photo: The image shows different types of lichen growing on a tree trunk. Lichens are not a single organism but a symbiotic relationship between a fungus and an alga or cyanobacterium.

Archaeology for the Woman's Soul

10/11/2025

05/11/2025

Wise words of Thich Nhat Hahn 🙏🏻

05/11/2025

Take a moment.
Breathe.
Glorious seasonal walks.
Stunning autumn foliage.
Fascinating fungi to find beside fallen branches.
Transformation.
Letting go.
Lessons and blessings in plain sight - we simply need to take time to look, listen, breathe.

03/11/2025

Dr Suzanne Simard.
Thank you for your insight.
Thank you for your determination.
Revelations like yours provide opportunity for everyone to better appreciate the natural wonders that surround us.
Indigenous people have enjoyed greater empathy with their environment for generations, but your work increases understanding for all.
🙏🏻

The trees were talking. And no one had been listening.For decades, foresters believed trees were competitors—silent giants fighting for sunlight, water, and space. Cut down the weak ones, they said, and the strong would thrive.But Dr. Suzanne Simard, a Canadian forest ecologist, suspected something else was happening beneath the soil.So she did an experiment that would change how we understand forests—and life itself.She discovered that trees aren't isolated individuals. They're part of a vast, intelligent, underground network—a "wood wide web" where they share resources, warn each other of danger, and care for their young.The forest, it turns out, isn't a battlefield. It's a community.Suzanne Simard grew up in the forests of British Columbia, Canada. Her family were loggers. She spent her childhood among towering trees, watching them fall and new ones planted in their place.She became a forester herself, working for the logging industry in the 1980s. But she noticed something disturbing: when forests were clear-cut and replanted with a single species—usually Douglas fir—the new trees struggled to survive.Foresters blamed the birch trees growing nearby. "They're competing for resources," they said. "Cut them down so the firs can grow."But Suzanne didn't think that made sense. In natural forests, birch and fir grew side by side, thriving together. Why would they compete in replanted forests but not in natural ones?So she designed an experiment to find out.In the early 1990s, Suzanne planted birch and fir seedlings in a forest plot. She covered some with plastic bags to isolate them from each other. Others, she left uncovered.Then she did something radical: she injected tiny amounts of radioactive carbon into the trees—different isotopes for birch and fir—so she could track where the carbon went.If the trees were truly isolated competitors, the carbon would stay inside each tree.But if they were connected somehow, the carbon would move between them.Suzanne waited. Then she used a Geiger counter to measure where the radioactive carbon had traveled.The results were stunning.The carbon didn't stay in one tree. It moved. From birch to fir. From fir to birch. Through the soil. Through their roots.But not directly. The trees were connected by mycorrhizal fungi—thread-like organisms that attach to tree roots and extend for miles underground.The fungi act as a living network, linking trees together. In exchange for sugars the trees produce through photosynthesis, the fungi provide trees with water and nutrients from deep in the soil.But Suzanne discovered something even more remarkable: the fungi weren't just passively transferring nutrients. The trees were actively sharing resources with each other.In summer, when birch trees had full leaves and were photosynthesizing, they sent carbon to the fir trees, which were shaded and struggling.In fall, when birch leaves fell and they could no longer photosynthesize, the fir trees—still green—sent carbon back to the birch to help them survive the winter.The trees were cooperating. Helping each other. Balancing the ecosystem.Suzanne called these networks "mycorrhizal networks"—and the largest, oldest trees in the forest became known as "mother trees" or "hub trees."These mother trees act as hubs in the network, connecting hundreds of younger trees. They send nutrients to struggling saplings. They share information about drought, disease, and insect attacks through chemical signals.When a mother tree is cut down, the entire network weakens. Younger trees lose their support system.Suzanne's research showed that clear-cutting forests—removing all trees and replanting a single species—destroys these networks. The new trees are isolated, vulnerable, and far less resilient.Her work was revolutionary—and controversial.Logging companies resisted her findings. Some scientists were skeptical. The idea that trees "communicate" and "help each other" sounded too anthropomorphic, too sentimental.But Suzanne's data was solid. Other researchers replicated her experiments. The evidence mounted.By the 2000s, the concept of mycorrhizal networks was widely accepted in ecology. Suzanne's work had fundamentally changed how scientists understood forests.In 2016, Suzanne gave a TED Talk titled "How Trees Talk to Each Other." It's been viewed over 6 million times.She explained, in simple terms, how forests are cooperative communities—and how cutting down mother trees damages entire ecosystems.She also warned: as we lose forests to logging and climate change, we're not just losing trees. We're losing the networks that sustain them—and us.In 2021, Suzanne published a memoir, Finding the Mother Tree, which became an international bestseller. It tells the story of her scientific journey, her struggles in a male-dominated field, and her personal connection to the forests she studies.Suzanne's work has inspired changes in forestry practices. Some companies now leave mother trees standing during logging operations. Conservation efforts focus on preserving forest networks, not just individual trees.But the fight continues. Old-growth forests—the ones with the strongest, oldest networks—are still being cut down.Suzanne continues to advocate for their protection.For decades, scientists believed trees competed for resources.Dr. Suzanne Simard suspected they cooperated.She injected radioactive carbon into birch and fir trees to track where it went.The carbon moved between trees—through underground fungal networks.Birch fed fir when fir was shaded. Fir fed birch when birch lost its leaves.The trees were sharing. Helping each other. Communicating.Suzanne discovered "mother trees"—the largest, oldest trees that act as hubs, supporting younger trees.Her research changed forestry. It changed ecology. It changed how we see forests.The forest isn't a battlefield. It's a community.And when we cut down one tree, we damage the entire network.Her name is Dr. Suzanne Simard.And she taught us that trees don't compete. They cooperate.Balance, not dominance, is what keeps nature alive.

02/11/2025

What a remarkable legacy 🙏🏻

At 40, bedridden and trapped by her father's tyranny, she wrote "How do I love thee?"—then eloped with the man who inspired it. But if you think Elizabeth Barrett Browning's story is just a romance, you've only heard the greeting card version. Born March 6, 1806, Elizabeth Barrett was extraordinary from the beginning. By age 8, she was reading Homer in original Greek. By 11, she'd written an epic poem. By 14, her father had privately published her work—remarkable for any Victorian girl when most women received almost no education. She seemed destined for greatness. Then, at 15, everything shattered. A spinal injury—possibly from a riding accident, possibly from illness—left Elizabeth in chronic, agonizing pain. For the rest of her life, she would battle partial paralysis, be confined to her room for years, and depend on laudanum to survive each day. Most people would have been crushed. Elizabeth wrote. Despite being bedridden, suffering, and morphine-dependent, she produced poetry that made her one of the most famous writers of the Victorian era. By her late thirties, she was internationally celebrated, considered for Poet Laureate, critically acclaimed. But personally, she was a prisoner. Her father, Edward Barrett Moulton-Barrett, was a tyrant who forbade all twelve of his children to marry. Not just Elizabeth. All of them. Anyone who disobeyed was permanently disowned. At age 39, bedridden and financially dependent, Elizabeth seemed trapped forever in her father's house. Then, in January 1845, a letter arrived: "I love your verses with all my heart, dear Miss Barrett..."Robert Browning—a fellow poet, six years younger, completely captivated by her work. Over the next 20 months, they exchanged 574 letters. They fell in love through words before they properly met. Literary admiration became intellectual partnership became profound devotion. But Elizabeth's father would never allow it. He'd disown her immediately—especially for a younger man with less money and no social position. Elizabeth faced an impossible choice: remain trapped but safe, or risk everything for freedom and love. On September 12, 1846, Elizabeth Barrett, age 40, walked out of her father's house for the last time. She met Robert Browning at a church with only her maid as witness. They married in secret. A week later, they fled to Italy before her family discovered the elopement. Her father never forgave her. He returned every letter she sent, unopened, until his death. He disinherited her completely. She never saw him again. It broke her heart. But she never regretted her choice. In Florence, Italy, Elizabeth transformed. The warm climate improved her health. In 1849, at age 43, she had a son—Robert Wiedemann Barrett Browning, nicknamed "Pen"—a child doctors said she'd never survive carrying. And she wrote some of the most beautiful love poetry in the English language. "Sonnets from the Portuguese" (1850) contained 44 sonnets written during her courtship. The title was deliberately misleading—they weren't translations but intensely personal poems. Robert had called her "my little Portuguese," so she used it as cover. Within that collection is Sonnet 43:"How do I love thee? Let me count the ways..."Those eight words have echoed for over 170 years. Read at weddings worldwide. On greeting cards, in movies, in popular culture. But if Elizabeth Barrett Browning is only remembered for love poetry, we're missing most of her story. Because her pen wasn't just for romance. It was a weapon. "The Cry of the Children" (1843) exposed horrific child labor in British factories—children working 16-hour days in coal mines and mills. The poem was so powerful it contributed to labor reform legislation. "The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim's Point" (1848) was a searing anti-slavery poem told from an enslaved woman's perspective. This was radical—and deeply personal. Elizabeth's own family wealth came from plantation slavery. She wrote against her own economic interests because it was right. "Aurora Leigh" (1856)—an 11,000-line verse novel about a woman artist fighting for independence and recognition—addressed r**e, illegitimacy, women's work, and freedom. Topics considered shocking for Victorian literature. It was controversial. It was criticized. And it outsold almost every other poem of its era. Elizabeth Barrett Browning wasn't just writing pretty verses. She was fighting slavery, child labor, women's oppression, and political tyranny through poetry. In an era when women were expected to remain quiet and domestic, she was shouting about injustice. Her marriage to Robert remained a love story for the ages—intellectually matched, mutually supportive, deeply devoted. Their Florence home became a gathering place for writers, artists, and revolutionaries. But her chronic illness never left. On June 29, 1861, at age 55, Elizabeth died in Florence—in Robert's arms, exactly as she would have wanted. Robert never remarried. He was devastated. Her legacy outlived them both. During her lifetime, Elizabeth was possibly more famous than Robert. She influenced Emily Dickinson, who kept her portrait on the wall. After her death, her reputation declined as Victorian sentimentality fell out of fashion. But in the 20th century, feminist scholars recovered her work and recognized what had been overlooked: Elizabeth Barrett Browning was a major poet whose political writing was as important as her love poetry. She lived 55 years. For most of them, she was confined by illness, controlled by a tyrannical father, and limited by Victorian expectations for women. She became one of the greatest poets of her century anyway. She fell in love at 39. Eloped at 40. Had a child at 43. Wrote revolutionary feminist literature in her 50s. All while managing chronic pain and disability. "How do I love thee?" is beautiful. But it's not her only legacy. Her legacy is that she refused to be silenced—by pain, by patriarchy, by poverty, or by prejudice. She wrote love. And she wrote revolution. And both changed the world.

29/10/2025

Take a moment.
Inhale gently.
Exhale slowly.
Connect.