{"id":19948,"date":"2014-11-06T00:01:59","date_gmt":"2014-11-06T08:01:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/barbarafalconernewhall.com\/?p=19948"},"modified":"2014-11-06T00:01:59","modified_gmt":"2014-11-06T08:01:59","slug":"san-juan-islands-flora-i-cling-therefore-i-am","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/san-juan-islands-flora-i-cling-therefore-i-am\/","title":{"rendered":"San Juan Islands Flora: Or, I Cling, Therefore I Am"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"The<\/a>
To get to Washington’s San Juan Islands, you have to take a ferry boat. Photo by Barbara Newhall<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

By Barbara Falconer Newhall<\/em><\/p>\n

The Buddhists have a name for it\u2014clinging. Westerners call it greed, getting attached to the earthly at the expensive of things eternal and divine. Greedy clinging is not good for you, the wise folks say. It\u2019ll make you suffer.<\/p>\n

Some of us do it anyway. We cling. We cling to stuff. We cling to moments in time. Last summer while vacationing on one of the woodsy, marshy, rocky San Juan Islands, I found lots to get greedy about, starting with the San Juan Islands flora:<\/p>\n

\"Pickle<\/a>
Pickle grass, bright green algae and foam waft in the shallows of a bay. Photo by Barbara Newhall<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Rotting logs coated with moss. Tall stands of fireweed waving pink-to-purple blossoms over my head. Granite boulders painted orange with sunburst lichen. Slimy strands of kelp tossed ashore to dry on the beach. Eagles nesting overhead, their scat splattered across my path, fertilizing the bunchberry.<\/p>\n

\"Granite
Granite rocks with lichen and pickle grass. Photo by Barbara Newhall<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The truth is, of course, nothing lasts. Especially not four days spent in a cabin in the woods with husband and friends. There\u2019s always a plane to catch.<\/p>\n

You can\u2019t sit on this fallen tree trunk indefinitely, stroking the furry moss growing out of its rot. And, no, you can\u2019t keep walking around and around that same patch of fireweed studying the petals as their colors shift in the sunlight from pink to violet and back to pink.<\/p>\n

But you can take photos. That\u2019s one way to hang on to the moment.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>
A bald eagle returning to its nest . Photo by Barbara Newhall<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Also, it helps to get the names of things. Name a thing and you\u2019ve pinned it to your brain; it doesn\u2019t slip off into oblivion quite as readily.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s getting dark. It\u2019s dinner time. People will be setting the table. It\u2019s time to let go of this moment and move on to the next. A pretty good moment is on its way, come to think of it. It\u2019s going to involve a glass of wine and a pot of fish stew.<\/p>\n

But the blazing moment with the pickle grass is over. No two ways about it.<\/p>\n

\"Yellow<\/a>
Verbena blooms along the shore. Photo by Barbara Newhall<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"Granite<\/a><\/p>\n

We cling. We cling to stuff. We cling to moments in time. On vacation last summer I clung to the verdant San Juan Islands flora. Read more.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":19955,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[34,1348,88,91,1349,1350],"class_list":["post-19948","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-my-rocky-spiritual-journey","tag-dont-miss","tag-flora","tag-nature","tag-religion-and-spirituality","tag-san-juan-islands","tag-vacation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19948","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19948"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19948\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19948"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19948"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19948"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}