Ten Things So Lit

I found the Divine in Nature, but not the $45 million birthday parade

There are magical and wonderful things everywhere. I’ve been especially attentive¹ to them lately, leading up to an epic trip to Yellowstone National Park. Here are ten things so lit (some more literary than others) and worthy of a share…

1. Last month I led a workshop focused on how being still in Nature can help us feel and hear the Divine .² The best part was how much I personally got out of it by preparing and reading. The next best part was learning from the audience. "Our family went on a national park tour last summer and observed the devastation of massive forest fires, but also learning how necessary they are; later that year my husband was diagnosed with an illness that literally felt like our lives were burning down…I remembered that forest and how it recovered and even found healing, regrowth and strength from ashes. Not a dry eye.

2. Yellowstone³: Coincidentally(?), I read THE BURNING SEASON on the plane⁴ while traveling to our family reunion (my parents, four siblings, and their families). It was incredible. Not only did everyone get along(!) but the park was stunning. Old Faithful was still smoking (on average, it sends burning hot water into the sky every 92 minutes). Did you know that the Yellowstone fires of 1988⁵ is the largest wildfire in the recorded history of National Parks in the United States?

   

   Can you spot the moose that took it’s time crossing the river we were paddling down?

3. We saw BUFFALO(and moose, elk and wolves + so much more…)

   

4. Gorgeous and hot Thermal Pools and Mud Pots with lots of warnings to stay on the boardwalk lest you be scalded to death (as many as twenty people have been boiled…). Can you imagine walking along in the 1800s and coming across hundreds of different-sized pots and lakes and holes filled with colorful boiling water that occasionally smell like rotten eggs? (sulfur!)

   

5. SAVE AND FUND OUR NATIONAL PARKS! When President Theodore Roosevelt visited the Grand Canyon in 1908, industries wanted to mine it — but upon seeing the landscape’s unparalleled beauty, he announced in a speech, “leave it as it is… The ages have been at work on it and man can only mar it. What you can do is to keep it for your children and your children’s children and for all who come after you, as one of the great sights which every American, if he can travel at all, should see.”

6. On a Summer Reading Note: if you’re looking for a “McNifficent” summer read-aloud, READ THIS! Lord Tennyson, the dignified miniature schnauzer and his six unruly charges will surely make you smile and maybe even laugh out loud 😃 you can get a pdf preview HERE! BONUS if you like SIBLING SHENANIGANS like

   Julie, Books for Kids
   and I do. Thank you, Julie!

7. The National Endowment for the Arts⁶ has been defunded by about $27 million at the time of me writing this. Thousands of small and underfunded organizations desperately depend on this funding for ART AND DANCE AND WRITING PROGRAMS FOR KIDS and small press literary magazines.

   Meanwhile Trump celebrated his 79th birthday with a $45 million dollar military parade (appallingly reminiscent of Hitler’s demand for his own birthday military celebration). Friends, our taxes funded this while our community programs are being defunded.

   However…

8. DO YOU HEAR THE PEOPLE SING? While visiting family in SLC, we got wind of a No Kings protest happening at the University of Utah, so off we went with our free, homemade signs to march and mingle. It was amazing to be with so many peaceful protesters, estimating around 10,000! "Somewhere I read of the freedom of assembly. Somewhere I read of the freedom of speech. Somewhere I read of the freedom of press. Somewhere I read that the greatness of America is the right to protest for right."⁷

   

   

   I love that in America you can be this creative at a public presidential protest

9. In America, we have no Kings, no Queens, no nobles, no dictators, and no emperors. We have no slaves, no serfs and no subjects.

   Just us—‘We the People.’ -Jamie Raskin

10. Fathers. I don’t know when I was last with both my father and husband on Father’s Day. How lucky I am to be surrounded by the best men. Enjoy some wonderful fatherly books drawn by writer and illustrator

    Jane Mount
    …

    

I’m flying back to New Hampshire in the morning where the peonies are about to burst and the strawberries are making their appearance. We’re back to where we started: there are so many magical, wonderful things...

Keep Going. Find the Divine. It’s out there.

READ. And Keep Writing.

Amy 💖

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The Unforgettable Guinevere St. Clair is part-mystery, part understanding of the human heart 💖

Ten Thousand Tries is Golden’s quest to save his dad and the soccer team ⚽

The McNifficents is one summer with six rambunctious kids and their miniature-schnauzer nanny 🐕 New Hampshire’s 2024 Great Reads for Kids selection!

1. “Attention is the beginning of devotion”

2. I focused on my own experiences, the brain on nature (endorphins, serotonin, cortisol), Naturalist writers (Thoreau, Walden, Robin Wall Kimmerer), women in the bible (Eve, Sarah, Hagar, Deborah, Ruth, Mary), and Jesus himself who was taught by his mother and used the natural world to teach in parables (mustard seed, lilies, sparrows) and also went off by himself when he needed to pray, meditate, and recharge.

3. Yellowstone (roughly 400 miles) is mostly located in Wyoming, but a few parts extend into Montana and Idaho.

4. THE BURNING SEASON is a MAGNIFICENT book by author Caroline Starr Rose. Completely riveting and so compulsively readable that I finished it by the time we had flown across the country. It’s SO GOOD!!!

5. Why is the government website down on this event???

6. This is not “so lit” news but massively important to know about

7. Maybe my favorite MLK jr speech, I Have Been to the Mountaintop, given on April 3, 1968, one day before he was assassinated at age 39.