Community Matters
Creatives need other creatives, nature lovers need other nature lovers, and women need other women. Like the trees that share their nutrients with other trees along the mycelium network, we are made to share our resources, energy and love so we can grow together.
While driving back home from an all-day excursion to find and photograph Whooping Cranes in Rockport, Tx, (FYI, I left my house at 5am to drive for 4 hours and spend all day looking for these birds,) I was on the phone with my friend, the nature photographer, Ruth Hoyt. I excitedly described to her scenery I was passing of gorgeous wildflowers and a mix of cows, horses and Sandhill Cranes in colorful fields at sunset.
Ruth insisted I stop the car, hop out, and take some pictures. I told her I couldn’t and made excuses. She didn’t accept them. “Call me back,” she said, and got off the phone so I could do my thing. It seems silly now, but I wouldn’t have stopped to photograph this remarkably beautiful scene without her encouragement. I would have missed out, not just on some pretty pictures, but on an experience that showed me I can be brave.
Ruth is an adventurer. She is talented, creative, independent, and possesses a deep and varied understanding of the natural world. On a nature hike, Ruth once pointed out to me a cactus that had been nibbled, healed, and in response grew its thorns in the injured area even longer. It helped me to see the personality and agency of plants.
I feel enormously grateful for her friendship.
I just recently had a conversation with someone who said the women friends in her life are not supportive but are instead competitive and petty. My experience is completely different: I am surrounded- near and far- by strong, loving, spiritual, supportive, women.
In thinking of why I have such a different experience, I believe it’s the choice to first be a supportive women/person to others, then setting healthy boundaries with people who don’t share those same values. It takes time, but life is so much sweeter for it. It’s how we choose to grow in love and joy, instead of bitterness and greed.
To all the women in my life, and to all beautiful, loving, supportive people out there who choose to be generous in spirit, thank you. In a world full of pain and anger and destruction, we resist.
March 2024