15-Day Sit Spot Challenge - Days 14 and 15 - November 21, 2018

15-Day Sit Spot Challenge

Days #14 and 15

Both on November 21, 2018

The last days of the Challenge (except for an extra to come).

To see what it's all about, check out my first entry in this series.

Day #14

November 21, 2018 (same as Day #15)

Sit Spot seen from the southeast and the Deer Trail

Prompt for Day #14: Move as silently as possible to your spot. Take time getting there. Move slowly, pause often, and drop into your senses. What is happening around you? At your spot, notice any differences in how wild beings respond to you.

Bonus: Pay special attention to the moon during these last few days.

It was a sunny, clear day with a blue sky. Our days had seemed to keep alternating between this and dim, gray, overcast days. I enjoy them both, and each brings different kinds of experiences. Today was cold (but not as cold as before) and there was a light wind.

I most often enter the woods from the edge nearest our house, then go down the slope, across the woods' bottom, and up the far slope to my Sit Spot on top.

On this day I entered the woods from the roadside, via the Deer Trail, all on the far top edge of the woods. I knew I would create much less sound there, instead of negotiating changes in elevation and vegetation. As I entered the Deer Trail from the road, I heard water gurgling into our creek, via the culvert that is under the road.

As I carefully, slowly walked up the Deer Trail, I heard more bird calls and songs than I had during other Sit Spot visits. Was this because I was quieter than usual, or because of the milder weather?

Old Tuliptree next to the Deer Trail and near my Sit Spot – it now serves as a “woodpecker tree”.

"Krampus", near both the Deer Trail and the Sit Spot

I heard the raspy call of a White-Breasted Nuthatch, the musical calls of Northern Cardinals, and other bird chatters. Some sounded like warning calls. Were those directed at me?

Well, maybe at someone else who had arrived from the other side of the woods to share my spot with me:

Pester arrives

Remember Day #1, when a squirrel sat on this same spot, and Pester went to investigate it?

Woodpeckers were tapping. But, some of those sounds could have been a Squirrel working on a nut.

I heard Crows in the distance, over open areas across the road.

I also heard my dogs bark, announcing the arrival of neighbor Fred coming up the driveway with another load of leaf mulch. There was the chug-chug roar of his little tractor, then silence.

Views from my Sit Spot:

Looking east from the spot and the Deer Trail

Looking south

Looking north, toward a “ghost tree” Sycamore on the other side of the crop field

Looking west, toward our house

The ridge top to the northwest – the only place in my woodland that is open, dry, and flat enough to pitch a tent (though I never have, yet)

While at my Sit Spot, I realized that I had been paying more attention to the Oaks in my woods, and getting to know them better. I had been learning more about both the striking and subtle differences between them – their leaves, bark, acorns, their general look and ways of being.

All of the Oaks were hanging onto their leaves, as they are wont to do. The long-oval, dark green glossy leaves of Shingle Oak, at the edge of the woods, were still green, though fading. The leaves of Red and Chinquapin Oaks were still mostly green, in contrast to almost everything else in the woods.

Chewed Red Oak leaf 

Next to my Sit Spot lies a Red Oak branch that had broken and fallen prematurely earlier in the year, sporting immature acorns.

White and Chinquapin Oak leaves on the ground

The White Oaks, however, were resplendent in their thick canopies of maroon, russet, and brick red.

The Great Oaks. Throughout the seasons, I will pay even more attention to them, getting to know as much as I can about these trees and all of the beings who depend on them.

Day #15 – last day

Also on November 21, 2018

Prompt for Day #15: Do your best to visit your spot when you can view the Moon. Once there, take some time to think back through this challenge and look for any patterns in your energy levels, mood, creativity, motivation, well-being, etc.

The Moon is a powerful influence on many patterns and biological systems here on Earth. Take this time to consider your relationship to, and the impact from, the Moon.

I could stand to take time to think about this.

The truth is, like many people I go about the busy-ness of my life, not noticing the moon often enough. One night I look up and see it, and realize that I never even pay attention to the phase of the moon.

And I often think that I would love to live a life that is more attuned to the sun and moon, a life where I can't help but be aware of the phases of the moon, and a life where I conduct my daily activities according to where the sun is positioned at the moment.

So, this particular Sit-Spot challenge, even if I could not fully participate, brings me back to that idea. The whole Sit Spot Challenge began on the New Moon and ended on the Full Moon. 

I was not able to go out to my actual chosen Sit Spot that evening. But, from outside the house I looked east to where the full moon was rising, shining whole and bright through the woodland trees. The direction I looked was the same direction I would look to see my Sit Spot over there on the far ridge of the woods. I imagined myself sitting there, on the log, surrounded by the full moon's glow. How would the trees look, the ground, each fallen leaf, each twig? What sounds would I hear as crepuscular and nocturnal animals would begin to move about? Would I see their glowing eyes?

I need this pattern in my life. I need patterns … period. But, life is often fractured, the way the moon was appearing through the bare tree branches.

Maybe I need to think of those pieces as being intrinsically part of a whole, and keep them pulled together that way. Change my perception of “fractured”. Things aren't necessarily split apart, even when they may first appear that way. Maybe my time, my work, any of the things I try to do, are not necessarily broken up into disconnected pieces, but part of a whole, and it all works out, anyway.

When the moon rose above the trees, it was again a complete, round, glowing orb.

That's something I've always loved about Nature – what appears to be all separate pieces doing separate things are really all one connected Whole.

It would be a good while before I could get to that Sit Spot again. But, I do think of every spot I stop, or pause, as a Sit Spot.

The 15-Day Sit-Spot Challenge was over. It was time to make pies for Thanksgiving Day.