nature Archives

Notating Nature’s Delicate Song

By Rachel Dacus | October 23, 2016November 9, 2017 by Rachel Dacus

The evanescence in British artist Andy Goldworthy‘s work is what first caught hold of me. (Click the link for Artsy’s wonderful Goldsworthy pages.) He works with nature to make sculptures of the moment, or perhaps the hour, using all natural elements. Ice, water, leaves, twigs, wind, rain are the easel, palette, paints, and media he sculpts with. It’s as if he’s having a conversation with nature and time, an intense wrestling almost. His work seems…

#amwriting bird egret Gods of Water and Air nature poem spiritual poems

As Yearning Is Red – Visions with Waterbirds

By Rachel Dacus | July 13, 2016November 9, 2017 by Rachel Dacus

This weekend we drove to Sebastopol, over the top of the San Francisco Bay, through marshlands filled with waterbirds. I’m lucky to live near a creek where egrets hunt and nest. I take walks alongside this miniature waterway and appreciating the ducks keep an eye out for that white, upright stillness near the shore, often half hidden by tall dry grasses. When I come upon a lesser or greater egret, I stop at the pure…