“Dad, there’s a baby raccoon in the middle of the road, it was hit by a car,” that’…

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There’s one category that is left out of our niche analysis. It’s a really important category from the perspective of ecological restoration and biodiversity but it may seem unimportant or counter-productive for food production. In permaculture we’re committed to both restoring ecological systems and growing the food we need. Because of this twofold commitment we can’t ignore this category of plants that primarily supports biodiversity, though I’ll also show how these plants support our food production too. While some plants support pollinator populations and other plants attract predatory insects there’s another category of native plants that provide the vegetative food at the base of the ecosystem food web. For now I’m using Douglas Tallamy’s term, “keystone plants.”

I recently heard Tallamy talk about the problem of planting only pollinator plants. Its great to support pollinators, and in permaculture this helps us get more fruits from our trees, shrubs and garden plants. But pollinators are not the only insects that need support in our degraded ecosystems. Some insects need certain plants so they can eat those plants. The relationship between milkweed and monarch butterflies is a great example of a plant and butterfly relationship, but there are many hundreds of species of moths and butterflies that all need the right plants.

Our guilds (the plant communities that we create) are often designed to repel the insects that eat plant leaves, and yet, from an ecological perspective, these insects, especially moths and butterflies, are crucial to the food chain. Lepidoptera (moths and butterflies) eat leaves and then are eaten themselves by birds, larger insects, bats and many other creatures. Moths and butterflies and the plants that they eat are the foundation of our food web. The consumption of green plants by moths and butterflies move the energy in those plants up the food chain and into the air via birds and bats.

So, how do we grow lots of food and support Lepidoptera species? If we do this are we just inviting pests into our gardens? Or are there benefits to having a diversity of moths and butterflies in our gardens and among our fruit trees? For me, there is no question that the right thing to do in our day is plant things that will feed moths and butterflies. Biodiversity is decreasing at alarming rates, especially among the Lepidoptera species. According to a research article in Science:

“Between 2000 and 2020, total butterfly abundance fell by 22% across the 554 recorded species. Species-level declines were widespread, with 13 times as many species declining as increasing.”1

That’s a decline across the board, affecting almost all species of moths and butterflies. And we see it, there are fewer and fewer fluttering wings around us each summer and therefore fewer bird species.

The good news? As Bill Mollison, the co-founder of the modern permaculture movement, would say… “the problems of the world are increasingly complex but the solutions remain embarrassingly simple.” He was right. I could research and write all day about the complexities of both ecosystems and human destruction of those complex ecosystems but I think I can explain the solution in just a few sentences. Plant native plants to create a balanced ecosystem. Ok, it just took one sentence.

There are actually huge benefits to attracting native Lepidoptera to your food forest, your orchard and your garden. We need not worry that we’re attracting insects that will eat our food crops, we’ve already done that by planting the food crops themselves! Cabbage worms eat cabbage, apple maggots eat apples and so on. What we’re not doing is supporting the beneficial insects that eat those pests if we’re not supporting a balanced ecosystem that supports other species very similar to the pest species. For instance, we plant “beneficial insect attracting” plants around our apple trees at the farm. But, those beneficial insects that parasitize moth larva need moth larva every year and in high numbers. When the pest species show up we want the populations of the beneficial parasitic wasps to be healthy and ready to pounce. We create this kind of dynamic ecosystem by attracting all sorts of native moths and butterflies into our permaculture landscapes. Then, when the pests show up there’s already an ecosystem ready to keep them in check. At least that’s our goal in permaculture design, creating managed and balanced ecosystems.

When our landscapes are diverse with native flora we can rest assured that balance of beneficial and “pest” species will be kept in check. We should also remember that apples, pears and peaches aren’t native trees. The moths that attack them are not native species. The plants that support native Lepidoptera are not plants that attract the invasive pests that consume our beloved fruit trees!

At Garfield Community Farm we’ve planted two native plants that have both begun supporting native moths and butterflies. The first are our fifteen or so pawpaw trees spread throughout the food forest. We’re now sharing our tree with the very rare Zebra Swallowtail butterfly! That means these butterflies are eating some of the leaves of our trees and we’re more than ok with that. Another species that we've planted a lot of for its ability to fix nitrogen is Amorpha fruiticosa, aka wild indigo shrub or river locust. These shrubs also host the larva of California & southern dogfaces, Silver-spotted Skipper (Epargyreus clarus), Gray hairstreak and Hoary edge skipper. Just last week my co-worker, AJ, found our first Gray hairstreak fluttering around the farm.

According to Douglas Tallamy there are “keystone species” in every eco-region. These are the plants that support the high diversity of native Lepidoptera. According to the National Wildlife Federation “The research of entomologist, Dr. Doug Tallamy, and his team at the University of Delaware have identified 14% of native plants (the keystones) support 90% of butterfly and moth lepidoptera species.”2 In the north eastern United States some of the species of plants we should plant, or just encourage, are some of the easiest plants to grow! They include:

1. All species of native goldenrod, Solidago

2. All species of native strawberry, Fragaria (this was very surprising for me to find!)

3. Native sunflowers, Helianthus

4. Joe Pye Weed, Eupatorium (a beautiful native plant that is easy to grow).

The above plants are the top four keystone species according to the National Wildlife Federation. I called this article “The Forgotten Plants,” but these four species aren’t really forgotten at all, they’re just not used enough or appreciated for their amazing ability to support ecosystem health. There are many plants that support lepidoptera species, so plant a diversity, but don’t forget goldenrod. According to Tallamy, goldenrods support 126 different species! The next best native plants are the strawberries which support 77. Beyond these four herbaceous perennials there are certain native trees that also support a much higher diversity of munching moth and butterfly larva. The best tree to plant is unquestionable… oak.

Oak trees support over 500 species of Lepidoptera! So even better than planting your keystone species in the herbaceous layer of your food forest maybe plant an oak tree if you have the space. There are over a dozen native oak species in the north east, each species supports a huge variety of moths.

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I used to be a mountain biker. I loved the speed of downhills and I was a pretty good climber too. When descending, the faster you’re moving the further up the trail your eyes have to be focused if you want to respond to the objects on the trail. At a slow fifteen miles an hour I would be looking fifteen feet ahead of my front tire, anticipating the roots, rocks and mud that my tire would hit in just a fraction of a second. At twenty five miles an hour I’d be looking much farther down the trail to try to anticipate the right moves I’d have to make to keep my bike on the trail and my body in one piece. Any faster than that on a rocky, muddy, single-track trail and you’re unable to make directional changes for smaller objects. Basically, for the downhill to be really exhilarating, you’re descending in a way that allows the rocks, roots and mud to come and go without ever adjusting for them. You can only do this on trails that you’ve ridden before and have an mental map of in your head. Those are the best, my favorite, the trails that aren’t too technical and you can descend as fast as you can, letting your bike and your body float over the terrain.

The problem with mountain biking is that I didn’t notice anything beyond the trail itself. It is a lot of fun, but if that’s our only experience of nature we’re really only experiencing our own adrenaline and testosterone. We live our lives a lot like a mountain biker experiences forest around them. We are moving so quickly and trying to get so much done that we just pass over much of the terrain. We fly through our lives without noticing what blessings are on our left or our right. The contemplative path requires that we slow down, a lot.

Today I was driving from Paul Smiths College in the Adirondack Mountains to my friend Rich’s little cottage about fifteen miles north. Fifteen miles is nothing. And yet, fifteen miles contains everything, whole worlds of living organisms, micro-climates, ponds, bogs, fens, swamps, hills, valleys, homes, cabins, moose, bear, bats, deer, millions of trees, hundreds of types of trees and so many tiny plants with tiny flowers and hundreds of thousands of tiny pollinators specific to the job of pollinating all those different flowers. John Muir once said that every tree of the Sierra Nevada mountains deserved our amazement and appreciation. Every tree. But how is that possible?

This morning on Rich’s property I took my sketch pad and my dog and found a “sit spot” about fifty yards into the woods. It was in a really interesting spot. A few years ago a fire had come through the area, started accidentally by a careless neighbor. The fire nearly burned the cottage to the ground. Many trees did burn, opening up a gap in the white pine and balsam fir forest. In that opening hundreds of fire cherries sprouted up in the first year. Raspberries are now growing along with bearberry and hundreds of tiny pine and fir seedlings. Mountain maple and red maple are also finding their footing where the sun now shines a bit more directly. I sat down to see what I might see. The thing about a sit spot is that it doesn’t have to be a “special” spot or the “perfect” spot. A sit spot in nature can be literally anywhere that invites you to to sit and pay attention. I sat and noticed the big white pin at the edge of the canopy opening. Then I noted the texture of the pine bark. Then I noticed a little beech seedling growing just in front of the trees root flare and also a red maple a few inches from the beech. There were so many other things to notice. If I’d sat a few inches in any direction I might have notices something completely different. In that moment I sat in that spot and took time to draw in as much detail as I could the leaves of those little seedlings. I found tiny lichen mushrooms growing out of a patch of moss growing out of a small piece of bark that had fallen off the trunk of the white pine. The mushrooms looked like tiny trombone horns extending upward, announcing some special celebration for some tiny forest creatures.

Every square inch of the Adirondack forest deserves and invites this kind of loving attention. The forest has so much to teach us about movement, speed, change and resilience. The trees are all growing, changing, moving in the wind. But the trees are also rooted and growing so slowly that we cannot even see their growth. The mosses and lichen are all growing and changing at a pace so slow we can’t perceive the change. And all of those species, whether plants or animals or fungi or bacteria, they’re all changing, evolving and becoming stronger and more resilient in their DNA. All of our speed and need to get stuff done seems so small, so unimportant, compared to the work of the forest, its evolving nature, its ability to respond to its environment and continue on, generation after generation.

Today, you’re called to pay attention to just one square inch of this amazing earth that we have. What does your square inch have to teach you? Do you have the ability to slow down for even a couple of minutes or is your dopamine dependent brain letting you to keep hitting the refresh button, keep moving, keep working or keep thinking about your problems? There is time in your day to pause, to listen and to learn from our original teacher and the first testament of revelation from Creator.

Question… Do you feel a desire to slow down? Do you feel a longing to know and love more of God’s creation through your own attentiveness?

In permaculture design we follow ecological design principles that help to create ecosystems that are productive and bring about restoration of biodiversity. Both of these goals, production and restoration, are equally important and interconnected. We cannot do one without the other, at least not for very long. Ecosystems are nature’s balancing act of biodiversity. The healthiest ecosystems support huge numbers of living things from all the kingdoms of life. Those healthy ecosystems remain in balance and in perpetual regeneration, until an outside force disrupts the equilibrium. Those outside forces include major disturbances like volcanos, asteroids, ice ages, or… human beings. The guilds that we create, the food forests that we manage, are our attempt to correct the damage that humans have done to nature’s balancing act. In permaculture we strive to become a beneficial part of our ecosystems, bringing potential for healing and restoration. We arrange and manage natural and native ecosystems so they become more productive for our needs and more restorative for more native creatures. These managed plant communities are often called guilds.

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There are categories that help us understand the ecological niche of a plant. These categories define what a plant provides to the rest of its community, including the human community.

Guild Niches

1. Primary Producer - The plant or plants that we humans want to harvest food, fibre or something else valuable from. Often times in the older permaculture books the primary producer was an apple or pear tree, a single and central tree that would receive support from its surrounding plant community. Primary producers don’t actually have to be central or the largest element in your guild, but often they are.

2. Secondary Producer - A plant that fills another nutritional need for humans but is of secondary importance. These plants almost always have a second and maybe third niche they fit into in addition to being a producer.

3. Beneficial Insect Attractor - Beneficial insects often are predatory, meaning they kill other insects and often the insect that damage our fruits and vegetables. Most of the food we like to eat are also the favorites of plant eating insects. We’ve bred many plants to taste good to us, to be sweet and not bitter, to be smooth, to have low tannins and even lower harmful compounds. All of these make our garden and orchard plants more tasty to insects too. In every guild there must be plants that support native predatory insects like parasitic wasps, hover flies and praying mantis. Thousands of other exist. These plants often have very tiny flowers like those of wild carrot, yarrow and many in the aster family.

4. Pollinator Plant - Pollinator plants support native bees, butterflies and other insects. They also support honey bees that may be a part of our permaculture system. Pollinator plants often have larger flowers that support larger insects than the beneficial insect attracting plants. These plant can and usually should be native plants to your part of the world. In the north eastern United States some excellent pollinator plants to put around a fruit tree guild might include bergamot, milkweed, anise hyssop, New England aster and there are hundreds more. By having these plants near our primary producer, assuming it is a fruiting tree or shrubs, we are promised that the spring blossoms will be pollinated. If our fruit trees are the only thing blooming around our yard pollinators will not be living in the area. Pollinators must be supported throughout the year, not just when we need them to do our work.

5. Nitrogen Fixer - Every plant needs nitrogen but only a few plants can put nitrogen into the soil for all the other plants to use. Through a relationship with a bacteria found in the soil the roots of leguminous plants are able to draw nitrogen from the atmosphere. These plants use the nitrogen and also release extra into the surrounding soil. When nitrogen fixing plants are cut back or mowed the release larger quantities of the fertilizer into the soil for the other plants of the guild. Nitrogen fixers come in all shapes and sized, from creeping ground covers to tall trees.

6. Dynamic Accumulator - This is an interesting category! There are some plants that absorb more nutrients than others. They usually accumulate certain nutrients in their leaves and stalks. Herbaceous perennials such as stinging nettles and comfrey absorb nutrients in the spring but return their leaves to the ground surface in the fall. Comfrey is great at pulling calcium up from deep in the soil. When we mow the comfrey in mid summer the large leaves cover the soil and decompose quickly, becoming mulch and food for the other plants of the guild. There is much research to be done for us to better understand and identify dynamic accumulators. One way to identify a probable accumulator is by its root system. Dynamic accumulators often have large and deep roots, especially tap roots, that go deep into the ground, absorbing minerals that other plants cannot reach. Some of my favorite plants for this niche are comfrey, nettles, burdock, dandelion, chicory, red dock and yellow dock.

7. Mulch/Ground Cover - While many dynamic accumulators can fit into the ground cover category, not all ground covers are accumulator plants. Some of those plants do an even better job of covering bare soil and preserving nutrients already there. Ground covers also preserve moisture in the soil, one of the most important functions within the guild network. Ground cover plants may include strawberry, creeping thyme, creeping raspberry, sweet potato, pussytoes and many more.

8. Pest Confusers - For many of us this is a very important category. There are certain plants that taste very bad to pests. Those same plants often smell very strong and even produce poisonous parts. Some plants can confuse insects by releasing strong smells, deterring them from finding the fruit growing only feet away. Some pest confusers might deter larger creatures like deer (though this is always a challenge). A secondary producer and plant that deer don’t like is red currant. These small shrubs can be planted closely in a circle around an apple tree, which deer will destroy, to deter the deer to more favorable plants. Pest confusers can often be native plants like mountain mint and anise hyssop, two plants that deer hate but pollinators love. They also confuse pesty insects like aphids and certain caterpillars.

When we design plant communities using these categories we’re sure to fill many of the niches needed for a balanced and self-supporting mini ecosystem. Its important that we don’t just throw any old plants into the mix. We should use as many native plants as possible. We should use plants that with similar water needs so we’re not trying to keep certain plants wet and others dry. We must consider shade and sun requirements and adjust placement of the plants. We should consider how much nitrogen, organic matter and other nutrients our soil already has and what the needs of our producing plants might be. We should observe natures hyper-local plant communities to see what is already happening around and near the areas where we’ll plant. Are there deficiencies we can observe? Are there pollinator plants already at work? Is there a lack of moths or butterflies? Finally, are there natural plant communities that we can learn from and mimic? Our pawpaw guilds at Garfield Community Farm were designed with an understanding that pawpaws are often found in low lying areas and with nitrogen fixers very near by. This observation has proven very useful as we now harvest hundreds of pawpaws every year.

There are many other questions we could ask ourselves before we put plants in any order within a community. But, we’ll never have all of the answers. The most important questions will only be answered through our own relationship with the communities that we construct. Just go for it! Get started and know that “change is constant and your designs will need to evolve.” In fact, that’s one of my favorite principles of permaculture. Stay tuned for next week’s article that goes deeper into creating a Serviceberry Guild.

Moss greener,
Lichens spreading.
Heavy drops falling from oak leaves.
Sliding in clay soil underfoot,
I saw a deer my dog somehow missed.
She looked me in the eye as we walked right past.
Trees dripping, 
We could smell the spruce that fell in the storm.
A Norway Spruce far from its ancestral home.
Native white pines stand tall, 
Chestnut oaks and shagbark hickory too.
Spicebush and milkweed growing at the edge.
The edge, that’s where I like to be.
To my right is a field with a whole herd of deer.
To my left is the forest, wet and radiant. 
Everything growing…
After the rain

The above audio is not me reading this text, its a recording I created a while back called After the Rain.

I’ve always loved rain. I especially love a rainy day in the summertime, the kind of day that forces you to slow down, maybe even change plans. Rarely am I disappointed because rain “ruined” the day. I know I’m in the minority here. Yesterday a big storm came through western Pennsylvania. Knowing it would rain kept me from doing very much of anything. I thought about going for a bike ride or doing work outside, but found the oncoming storm to be a perfect excuse to lay low for a Sunday afternoon. That’s allowed, right? When the rain came it wasn’t a light rain, it was a heavy torrent of rain, the kind that comes with wind that whips and lashes at the trees pulling leaves and twigs from the tops of the oaks across the street from my house. The rain continued on for an hour or so before I started to feel a need to get outside.

It’s rained a lot here in Pittsburgh over the past month. We’re almost six inches above our normal rainfall for this point in the year with over thirty inches. And yet, just a few years ago in 2018 Pittsburgh had 57 inches of rain total, we probably won’t break that record. All this rain in Pittsburgh has fallen while in London, England it hasn’t rained in over fifty days. Southern England is in the throws of a severe drought. Even Scotland is suffering from a lack of rain. In Melrose, the town where we began a pilgrim walk last month, they’re six inches below their average rainfall for the year.

As I sat on my couch my dog was lazily sleeping on a pile of blankets in his crate. Each evening he and the other pup will get together and plan how they’ll get my attention to take them on a walk. While I have very few daily rhythms that are consistent the dogs have decided that an evening walk should happen around 7pm every night. But last night they were out cold without a care in the world, rain gently falling after the downpour relaxed its intensity. It was walk time but this night I was the one feeling called to get outside.

The whippet named Archie and I sneakily got ready to leave the house without setting off the alarm that the other two dogs would be left behind. We got in the car and drove north to Hartwood Acres, the same woodland that I wrote about a few weeks ago, where a mostly intact oak and hickory forest has grown for millennia.

The rain had mostly stopped but the air was still thick with moisture. In the past I remember thunderstorms almost always brought cool temperatures. If it were in the 80’s before the rain one could expect the temperature to drop into the 60’s afterwards. That doesn’t seem to happen as much anymore. Our atmosphere doesn’t allow heat to rise and escape quite as quickly and easily as it used to. It was in the upper 70’s as we entered the darkness of the old woods. I wore my rain jacket but was already feeling sweaty inside. Everything seemed to be the deepest of green, from the ferns and Japanese stiltgrass on the forest floor to the huge old black and red oak canopy high over head. Dusk would be coming soon but we hiked deep into the woods, feeling a call to the silence and stillness left by the storm. There wasn’t a single person in those woods, only the deer and other creatures that we didn't see.

As we hiked in from trailhead the woods got darker and quieter. The storm had left a misty fog throughout and a stillness in the thick, humid air. The consistent summer rain had brought a flush of mushrooms to the forest floor, including bright orange boletes and orange oysters. Oyster mushrooms grow on dead wood but boletes grow up from the soil where their mycelium connects with the roots of oak trees. They form a beneficial connection with the oaks, both giving and receiving through the relationship. These mycorrhizal relationships have fascinated scientists and the general pubic since their discovery by Suzan Simard and others in the late 1990’s. The research continues and is still very young. Simard has proven that trees not only give and receive through the fungal network but also communicate to other trees also in the network. It was Nature magazine that coined the term Wood-Wide-Web in their story about Simard’s work. With this much rain the mushrooms are more abundant than I’ve ever seen, and more diverse as less common fungi send up their strange looking reproductive organs.

As we walked, the quiet in the woods began to change. It sounded like a party was happening somewhere close… or a concert… yes a concert. Hartwood Acres hosts some big musical acts throughout the summer and this night a band that sounded like a cross between the Gin Blossoms and Matchbox 20 was doing their thing. I didn't recognize any of the songs but the sound was pure 90’s, I liked it, in that nostalgic kind of way. The crowd was obviously small but the music loud as we got closer. Soon we were turning away from the music and looping into a different arm of the park, an arm where some open fields host deer and milkweed. We continued on as darkness began to fall more completely onto the forest. The last tenth of. mile was on a dirt road leading toward my car. Suddenly, and I mean suddenly, wind ripped through the tops of trees releasing marbles of water drops down on our heads. With that gust of wind the emotional state of the woods seemed to go from calm and peaceful to dark and foreboding. We walked from that darkness and into my fogged up 2013 Nissan Leaf. Archie’s wet paws leaving prints on the seats.

We’ve been lucky here in the Western Pennsylvania, we’ve gotten a little more rain than usual. West of us there have been massive floods. We remember what happened in Western North Carolina two years ago when flooding ravaged whole towns. And further west there isn’t enough water. Colorado’s future is literally in the balance. It’s really bad. And when rain does come it seems to always come with intensity, flooding towns and eroding soil. Water is life and water can bring death. A lack of water means a lack of life. With all of our rain I’m celebrating the life that it brings.

Today, I’m thankful for the rain. I’m thankful for the pull of the Spirit to get out and find the peace in the woods that exists after the rain. I’m thankful for the mushrooms and lichen that grow more quickly and shine more brightly in their post-rain glory. I’m thankful for the 90’s pop band creating joy for their listeners. I’m thankful for the stillness and silence we found as we walked far from the 90’s pop band. After the rain.

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Around the halfway point of day one, about eight miles in, we saw a town on the map called Boswell and figured that would make a good place to stop to eat some lunch and maybe even buy a coffee. The town is like all the towns in the Scottish boarders that I’ve seen, they’re made of stone. Literally, the roofs are slate, the walls are massive sandstone blocks, the streets are cobblestone or pavement and the many miles of property walls were stacked a hundred years ago and contain thousands of stones gathered from the surrounding fields. As we walked into this very old little town the road curved around the edge of the oldest stone buildings. Soon a newer looking building came into view, nothing like a new building in the States, it was still made of stone but had big front windows with brightly colored books of all sorts on display.

I haven’t had time to research this yet, but I wonder if Borders Book Store at home was named after the Borders region of Scotland? I’m not kidding in my question, there are so many book stores in the Scottish Borders. There are used book stores, travel book stores, antique book stores, book stores that have coffee shops, book stores that have restaurants, and book stores within many other kinds of stores. And of course there are libraries. This particular book store was a big one with sooo many books. And they were featuring a new one by one of my favorite authors, Robert McFarlane. We all wandered around the store and into different sections depending on our mood. Rob was probably in the international travel section. Alyssa probably found a book on dog breeds or puppies of Northumberland. I think I saw some of the others in our group searching out Irish poetry, both modern and classic. I found a photo book called “The Art of Climbing” and snapped a picture to send to Micah and Lyle, my sons. Further inside we found an espresso bar and restaurant with a few small tables strewn about. I had a wonderful curry split pea soup and fresh bread that I took outside to the large patio, so as to not bother other customers with the likely potential that I didn’t smell or look very good after eight miles in the woods and moorlands.

I tell about the book store because it was an unexpected blessing in the middle of a really hard day of hiking. We were tired already. Some of us were honestly worried about the big climbs coming up later and we all were a little daunted by the mileage. The book shop felt like a gift to me, a place where we were supposed to rest, relax and… well… maybe read.

Another day included the exploration of an abandoned castle near a town called Kelso, still in Scotland. The sign said we could look from a distance but entering the castle was not permitted. Fortunately Johanna is in our group and she confidently proclaimed that Saint Brigid didn’t follow the rules and neither should we! Plus there was an easy way in and it was very obvious many people entered by the worn grass. The castle was amazing. There’s something about being in a very old and historic building that has no crowds, no signs or tour guides. We marveled at the amazing architecture and the 13 foot thick stone walls. It was another pause in the middle of a long day that gave us rest and energy to continue on.

Another memorable pause along the way was on our last full day of hiking. We entered into a dense conifer forest with tall Scotch Pine, orange berried rowan and thick ferns. We knew that somewhere in this patch of forest was Saint Cuthbert’s Cave. After the Viking siege of Lindisfarne the surviving monks found that the two most valuable things in their abbey weren’t destroyed or plundered, Cuthbert’s undefiled body and the Lindisfarne Gospels. The monks decided six men could carry Cuthbert’s casket and the books off the island to find a safety. Their journey took them over the sands at low tide and up into the hills of Northumberland, probably the same route we took to get to the island. They must have known about the cave only a few miles inland where they could rest and hide the casket. As we rounded a turn in the trail we wondered if we’d find the cave. Was it hidden? Was it tiny? It was neither, the cave is a gaping hole in the side of the hill with a granite overhanging roof. We too rested in the cave as rain came down. It had been raining nearly all day and we’d become separated on the trail. We all paused in the cave, bundled up a bit to stay warm and I made coffee.

Making coffee as my mid morning or lunch time ritual on the trail has been happening for at least ten years. Even on day hikes I’ll bring my backpacking stove and make a pot of hot water for a boost of energy and a reason to just sit for a while. I don’t like to stop on the trail when I have my eyes set on an end point on the map. But I’ve learned there are much better reasons to hike than to just get to the end of a trail. Making coffee helps me pause, wait, pay attention, have some conversation, even pull out my sleeping pad or backpacking chair and take a break. We did that several times along our 62 mile walk.

The final rest spot along the way that remains ever so memorable was a public house just before that big climb on the 43,000 step day. It wasn’t a pub, but a real publicly owned and operated storefront. Oh, but it did definitely have a pub and good food. We weren’t too far from the end, problem was the end would include a long climb. I ordered the local English bitter from the pull cask. There is nothing like these beers in the US, low ABV but lots of flavor. They’re not full of carbonation because they’re not on tap, rather they’re on cask, the old way of pumping beer from a barrel. Rob and I got just a half pint. The calories seemed to give us the energy we needed to finish strong. Even more so, the old man getting on his motorcycle have us what we needed, as he pull away he waved and proclaimed, “may the road rise up to meet you and the wind be ever at your backs!” What a way to be sent into the hills!

I pray that along your journey, even your day tomorrow, you’ll find intentional times to rest, reflect and just be. The meaning is sometimes in the destination, and sometimes its in the journey… but other times the most meaningful moments of life happen it the pauses we take that were not even planned. May God meet you in your journey and in the moments of pause, the mid-afternoon sit under a tree or even in a few intentional deep breaths to ground you in the here-and-now.

The Sissal and Pendunculate oak are also huge trees in the white oak family. It was wonderful to see others, and not just myself, captured by the presence of these giant living plants. Later, as we continued along the path, we found a massive tree in the middle of a small forest patch, a tree that looked quite unique and even out of place. It’s trunk seemed impossibly wide and it’s pointed crown rose far above the oaks and beeches. I knew what it was right away. This particular tree isn’t native here, but it thrives when planted on the British and Irish Islands. It grows only at high elevation in the Sierra Mountains of California and can live for 3000 years. If you’re thinking giant sequoia, you’re right. Sequoia gigantium and Sequoia sempervirens both can grow amazingly well on these islands. The high rainfall, low summer temperatures and high winter temperatures make this place a perfect home away from their natural home. This tree must have been about twenty feet in circumference, which is smallish for a sequoia, but hey, it can only be a maximum age of about a hundred years, probably less. People didn’t bring sequoia’s here until the late 1800’s. Ryan gave it a big huge to see just how far his arms could stretch.

Some of the other trees along our walk were hawthorn, hazel, larch, alder, scotts pine, several willow species, sycamore maple, and lots of North American species planted for timber harvests. It seems that forests here in these border lands of Scotland and Northumberland are highly valued by the people who live here. New forests are being planted. Old forests and being cared for and appreciated. It seems every village has a few dozen acres of forest very near by that’s protected and has trails where people walk regularly. That said, the vast landscapes of the British Isles have been deforested by humans starting thousands of years ago. It was during prehistoric times that the trees were first removed from many of these hills. The people here seem to be developing a new appreciation for trees, forests and the habitats they support.

Trees definitely bring a sense of wonder and even connection, a feeling like we have companions on this long walk. Much of it would also be in vast landscapes with few trees, I’ll post on those lands next time. In the mean time, find a tree that you can sit with for a while. Take a book, or a journal or your lunch and just appreciate the significance of that tree.

I am personally close to almost everyone who ended up on the journey. Of course it’s an amazing gift to plan and lead this trip with Alyssa. One of my best friends that goes back to middle school is with us. Rob and I have done dozens of hikes and backpacking trips together over the past twenty or maybe even thirty years. BJ and I planted a church together and worked together for sixteen years. BJ’s wife Katrina was along for all of those years of leading worship and developing The Open Door into the church that it still is today. I’ve done several trips with Johanna before and love the joy and humor she brings. Chad and I are both pastors in Garfield/Stanton Heights and have been good friends for two decades. Ryan is a new friend and fellow contemplative who is helping us develop Wild Indigo Guild and our Centre Guild community. Jeff is a leader in the PCUSA and fellow church planter, he started Hot Metal Bridge Faith Community and now coaches leaders in the denomination. And I can’t leave off Fred who I’ve only met a few times but is the father of Johanna and a fellow cyclist and follower of Jesus.

But, our first day didn’t end with the joy with which it began. Sadly, we received tragic news from home about a young person eight of ten of us are connected to through our decades of ministry in Pittsburgh. I won’t share details here as those aren’t for me to share, but the news struck us all pretty severely and in different ways. Our evening prayers and sharing took a very different focus as we comforted one another.

By Wednesday morning we were able to move into our first small journey, a bus trip to Melrose Abbey. We’ve all been studying about Saint Cuthbert and the early Scottish Celtic saints who founded the Abbey on Lindisfarne, the Holy Island, as well as one in Melrose. There are two monastic sites in Melrose, one that is grand and has a museum attached where monks lived and worked during the 11th - 15th centuries. But, that one doesn’t go back to the days of Cuthbert. I wanted to find the original location of the old Melrose Abbey. After some internet sleuthing it seemed the site is tucked away on a peninsula of sorts, a deep bend in the River Tweed two miles form the 11th century abbey. And it also seemed the bus could get us to within a mile of the site. We soon found ourselves on the side of the road looking at a sign for Old Melrose Estate, the land where the abbey once stood.

We walked a hundred yards or so where we found a walking trail that led into the woods. Signs explained the ecological restoration being pursued on the site. Dozens of young trees and un-grazed pastures defined the landscape. We headed down hill into the deeper woods where huge European Beech trees and English oaks dominated the canopy. The trails were marked really well, but nothing mentioned how to get to the site of the 7th century ruins. From what we could tell it would be a single large stone marking the spot and some graves.

As we walked the curiosity of our crew grew and as curiosity grows joy is always close behind. We heard birds high in the trees and a possible owl far off in the distance. We found more bumblebees with their white tails and a beautifully striped snail crawling on the leaves of cow parsley. Then came the raspberries. First Johanna found one and gave it to Chad. Then we saw a plant with dozens. We walked a little further and the trails were lined with hundreds of ripe berries, thousands actually. All the middle aged adults in our group (that’s all of us) ate and ate with red fingers and smiles on our faces. It was a picture of pure delight that reminded me of the kids I once led on a hike who experienced raspberries with the same exuberance.

At the bottom of the trail we came to the River Tweed, a shallow but wide flowing stream where Cuthbert and his fellow monks would have fished, washed and probably collected water for cooking and drinking. We continued along the trail.

“So where are these ruins we’re looking for?” Asked one of the group.

“I don’t know, hopefully there’s a sign or something, remember this was a last minute idea.” I replied.

A few minutes later there was a mowed, grassy path on our left and a much more walked path on our right. Alyssa asked which way we should go. Without thinking too much I said right must be the way, since it was so much more worn. We hiked along and soon the loop was over. We were back at the road that would lead to the bus stop. We never did find the spot where the old monastery once stood. I know there’s practically nothing left of it. As we finished the walk there were plenty of sarcastic comments about me not finding the abbey, and yet there was also a sense that we did find it. The abbey was not a building anymore. We found the essence of the abbey in the trees, the forest, the Tweed River, the wild flowers, the raspberries and within ourselves.

We all hopped back on the bus and made out way to the 11th century abbey where hundreds of monks lived, worshiped, worked and prayed for several centuries.

Right now Alyssa and I are on a ferry somewhere in the Irish Sea. Just yesterday we hiked along the cliffs of Howth. As we walked we got messages about thick smoke blanketing the northeastern United States. In Pittsburgh our kids are at home where residents are being told to stay indoors. The air quality is as bad as it gets, the “hazardous to all people” level. I’ve only known something like this to happen in Pittsburgh once before… last summer. This is the climate crisis.

Lord, Jesus Christ, have mercy on us… God, please get us out of this mess we’re in.

On our way back from Howth a family from the States stood next to us on the train. Dublin has a great network of public transport including both busses and trains. We bought a three day pass that gave us free transportation. Immediately Alyssa and I could hear her southern family, especially her mom, in the voices of the Americans next to us. Alyssa’s mom has the sweetest southern accent, the kind that lands somewhere between southern Bell and Appalachian hills.

I looked at Alyssa, “what state do you think they’re from?” I whispered.

“South Carolina, maybe Florida or Georgia.” She replied a quietly as she could.

“No, Tennessee.” She surmised as she looked at the dad’s golf hat with the outline of Tennessee emblazoned on the front.

I couldn’t help but start a conversation, they seemed friendly enough, as southerners almost always present themselves. I’m not sure they’re actually friendly, if not they’re really good at faking it, I thought to myself.

“You all from Tennessee?” I asked, already knowing I had a 75% chance of being right.

“We are! Could you tell by the accent?” The man asked.

“And the state of Tennessee on your hat.” I replied.

“Where else ya’ll traveling?” The father of the family asked in his distinctive southern drawl. “We were just in Paris, hot as hell down there. No air conditioning and we had to walk everywhere. It was 100 degrees!”

“We’ll be in Northern England and Scotland next week.” I replied.

“The weather here is perfect, 75 degrees.” The man’s wife said. “It was miserable in Paris.”

He’s right, 75 degrees feels amazing after dealing with multiple 95 degree days at home. But, 75 is about 10 degrees warmer than Dublin should be. We’re in the midst of a drought and heatwave in Ireland. And the reality in Paris and all over Europe is dire… thousands of people have died from the heat. Climate change is not some far-off threat anymore, I think we can all agree, it’s literally killing people all over the world… every day… with fires, floods, heat and even disease.

Our hike along the coast we beautiful. The rocky coast of the Irish Sea on our left and fields of purple heather and yellow goldenrod on our right. The steep hillsides were covered in ferns, blackberries and nettles. I, unfortunately, found the Irish nettles to be much more potently painful than the nettles we have at home. Oh, and there’s lots of gorse bush along the trail too. The cliffs and sea reminded me of the Cutler Coast in Maine, just without the dense forest leading to the cliff’s edge.

“Looks like we can’t get close to the lighthouse.” Alyssa said as she noticed the sign on the gates.

“No, but look down there!” I said reaching my neck to see over the edge of the cliff. “There’s a trail, lets go down to the bottom.”

“I’m not going down there and neither should you.” Alyssa stated with confidence.

At the bottom of the “trail” the ocean lapped against jagged rocks and gathered into crystal clear emerald pools. To the right I could see water flowing into the cliff, as if there were a cave. Now, I put trail is quotes because something this steep shouldn’t be called a trail, it was really more of a small rock slide. But it lead down and others had obviously gone down before me, and presumably they’d come back up too. I agreed with Alyssa that she shouldn’t come down, she wasn’t wearing the right shoes. But I disagreed with her that I shouldn’t go down. I began moving down hill very slowly, controlled on the rocks but soon started sliding on the dusty chalk soil. It wasn’t a long way down, thankfully, as I slid on my butt part way. Soon I was hopping on boulders with saltwater rising and falling between the rocks. At the edge of the cave I sat, just for a few moments. The cave opened up and led about one hundred feet toward the open sea. I could see light at the end of the tunnel. The water was deep and dangerous look with sharp rocks and waves of cold north sea waters. Just in front of me was an old fishing net, stuck on the rocks, the heal of someone’s boot and a green plastic bottle that I picked up.

There was a literal light at the end of the cave. But that water… there was no way I could reach that light, or make it through the cave.

Last winter my mother-in-law had open heart surgery. It didn’t go as planned. The surgeons did just fine but afterward one of the wires that they pulled from her chest tore a tiny hole in her heart. She didn’t even know what happened. Neither did the nurses or doctors. Alyssa was with her when she fell unconscious and her heart stopped. And then it happened. She saw a light and began going toward it. She describes it as very peaceful and calming. At that same moment a small army of nurses and doctors were rushing to revive her back to the land of the living. Alyssa was pushed aside as they shocked her heart and attempted CPR. Meanwhile my she was feeling pushed away from the light… being told it wasn’t time yet. She didn’t die. Almost… but not quite. Her recovery would be long and slow because of the complications after surgery. My mother-in-law is a serious fighter, a cancer survivor that should have taken her life… it was a form of cancer that is rarely beaten. And then this heart issue. She saw the light… tried to go toward the light… but was pushed away… told it wasn’t time yet.

A few minutes later as Alyssa and I walked up the paved pathway toward a bus stop that would take us to the town we found another passageway. This one was walled on both sides and covered in thick ivy. The walkway led down hill into a deep and dark corridor toward the sea. We could have walked it, but didn’t. It would have been and easy walk, but it was the wrong way and seemed to be someone else’s property.

As we sit, looking out the window at the waves of the Irish Sea, I’m feeling ready to walk. Soon we’ll be walking farther than I’ve ever walked before in five days… 100km. And what will my prayer be? Unfortunately I already know, it’s the same as it always is… “Lord, Jesus Christ, have mercy on us” or “God, please get us out of this mess we’re in.”

Every foot step is a prayer. Every breath is a prayer. Back at home my work at Garfield Community Farm and Wild Indigo Guild is all prayer… “Lord, Jesus Christ, have mercy on us, God, please get us out of this mess we’re in.” The work that we do with our hands is our prayer, especially the work that I’m so fortunate to do. Through permaculture design and organic gardening we’re sequestering tons of carbon every year. We’re also feeding our neighborhood and demonstrating a different and very hopeful alternative way of being in relationship with the earth. This walk is a sort of timeout for me, a pausing of the normal working with my hands, to contemplate the meaning of “Lord, Jesus Christ, have mercy on us, God, please get us out of this mess we’re in.”

Maybe there’s a light at the end of the cave, but right now the waters are too high, too dangerous to cross the threshold. Like Moses crossing the Red Sea, maybe the seas will part, the waters recede, and we’ll walk toward a future hope and restoration for all of God’s creation

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I notice yellow and purple everywhere I go. Start looking and you’ll see it too. In Pittsburgh you’ll see goldenrod with ironweed, a dark purple. Those two, most often, will also be with some Joe Pye Weed, mixing in some lighter purple. In our food forest at Garfield Farm we see the spring blooms of wild indigo shrub alongside the yellow Cornelian cherry flowers, though many other spring fruit blooms are white. Yesterday while hiking along the coast of Ireland we saw golden ragwort (Jacobaean vulgaris) flashing its yellow flowers all over the hillsides. No less than 180 spices of yellow flowering plants make Ireland their home but golden ragwort seems to be the most common around the shoreline. Alongside the gold was, of course, something purple, heather (Calluna vulgaris) along with a bunch of others. Heather is a plant famous for the rolling hills and moorlands of Scotland and Ireland, spreading a lavender purple haze throughout the green expanse. And these two plants do the same thing that goldenrod and purple asters do in the eastern US, they attract a diversity of pollinators with their opposite colors and they reveal beauty to the human eye.

And so, the cute bumblebees are abundant. And there’s a great diversity of bumblebees here in Ireland, some twenty-four species. All those different bumblebees are grouped by the color of their “tails.” Of course, bumblebees don’t really have tails, but their bums are either white, reddish or ginger-yellow. The bumblebees were all white tailed on our hike along the Howth cliffs.

From matching clothing to creating effective permaculture designs success is found in balance. Nature’s use of purple and gold is a balancing of the color spectrum for the sake of helping bees see abundance in the land. Balance in nature leads to abundance of biodiversity. This principle is paramount in creating resilient and flourishing designs in permaculture or any agro-ecological system. On land we find balance of soil nutrients, balance of predator/prey insects, balance of sun and water, balance of light and dark, balance of so many things! With equilibrium we find abundance and biodiversity increases.

Life is all about balance and right now life on earth is out of balance. The carbon cycle is complete out of whack. The biological and slow geological processes that have created the perfect balance on earth gave rise to human beings and the incredibly diverse ecosystems of our moment on this planet. But for the past 150 years we been pumping billions of pounds of ancient sequestered carbon back into the atmosphere. Carbon that has been stored deep underground is for millions of years is now back in our atmosphere and it’s because we put it there, burning fossilized carbon in the form of gasoline, diesel and coal has put the world’s climate out of balance. There’s hope still but we’re quickly running out of time before everything on the ecological side of the balance falls into complete disorder and extinction. We can still act and we must.

My life has been heavily focused on work lately. Not out of balance but in need of some recalibration. Back in the early days of farming, some ten or fifteen years ago, I overworked for too long. I got pretty darn burnt out. At that time we had one year round staff person at the farm… me. Now we have five and they’re all amazing at they jobs. It’s been good to swing back into some more intense work, but too intense for too long isn't good for any of the five of us. I’ve been trying to get no less than half a dozen big projects done for Wild Indigo Guild and Garfield Community Farm. I’ve been working on building a new high tunnel at the farm, new eight foot tall deer/goat fencing and we’ve planted hundreds of native perennials (many purple and yellow!) For Wild Indigo Guild we’ve designed and planted gardens at four churches this spring, each one growing food and pollinator plants (supporting bumblebees!) My fellow farmers in Garfield have had similar big projects this spring and summer. I know we’re all running a little ragged.

Walking Saint Cuthbert’s Way is a much needed balance for me. We all need spiritual balance. I need time away from the overwhelming sense that there’s work to be done. I need time to just walk and pray. I’m thankful that even at this time of global imbalance I have the privilege of finding some personal balance so I can keep working to bring ecological balance in the tiny sphere of influence that I have on the planet. I pray that my fellow pilgrims who will soon be joining Alyssa and me

on this journey will also find the balance, rest and purpose that I hope to find over the next two weeks.

My first time hiking on the trails there I remember walking in the snow from the hardwood forest into a dark white pine grove, the deep fungal duff and fallen needles under the snow seemed to help dampen the far off sounds suburban traffic.

If you walk the trails you’ll have to be mindful of the many mountain bikers on the trails too. I was once one of them, zooming along, throwing mud and taking the corners as fast as I could. Some of the ups and downs of Hartwood are not for the beginner cyclist. As a mountain biker I didn't notice much except the cranking of my pedals and the spikes of my heart rate on the steep up hills. Now I prefer to go slower.

In one area of the park huge old black, red and white oaks still stand alongside even taller tulip poplars. The white oaks are my favorite with their huge trunks, sprawling crowns and gently lobed leaves. Many of the oaks have fallen in recent years. Its sad to see fallen giants, but that’s a normal element of old-growth forests. In young forests all the trees are about the same age. Loggers removed the biggest trees in those forests, or more likely all the trees, leaving few logs on the ground. In old-growth forests massive 300 year old trunks lay for another 50 or 100 years on the ground, covered in moss and lichen, nourishing the soil and fungi slowly breaks down the wood. Trees are anywhere from tiny sprouts to giant rotting logs on the ground. Those trees, when fallen, open gaps in the canopy allowing the next generation of trees to grow. Blackberries, hawthorn, serviceberry and dogwood sprout and live their best life until the young oaks and hickory shade them out.

Hartwood’s natural succession of forest ecology suffers from overpopulation of deer and invasive plants. Where oaks have fallen the Japanese stilt grass thrives, choking out native ground covers like ginger, spikenard and mayapple. The deer won’t eat the invasive plants. Barberry takes over, forming thick, reddish, thorny thickets where the ticks that carry Lyme disease thrive as they infect the overpopulated deer and humans. Those humans are the only chance that native ecosystems have now. We are the only creatures who can work to remove invasive plants, advocate for wild places big enough for predators and restore native plants into the ecosystems that need them.

Hartwood seems to be a great place to ride horses. I’ve not seen them on the trails, but I’ve stepped in what they inevitably leave behind. I’ve always wanted a horse. As Alyssa and I get older I think we both feel more drawn to have an old horse of our own someday. I’ve even decided I’d like to get a Welsh pony if I ever have the land to support such an animal. Such a pony isn’t as big as a horse but it was bred to get the work done, I think they remind me of myself. Around here its only the richest folks who live near the park that can afford to have horses. They board them near the park where professionals take care of them. That’s the thing about horses, you either need money to pay someone to do the work or you need time in your life to do it yourself.

If you ever get the chance to walk those trails be sure to go slow. Pay attention. Find a fallen tree and sit on the trunks for a while. Look up at the canopy and down at the forest floor. You just might see a salamander or a blue crayfish, the kind that lives in soil and not water. You’ll surely hear the pileated woodpecker and probably see it big black and white wings flashing above. In spring warblers find the woods too, yellow, black and white, they’ll be flying around the canopy picking off insects and larva from the oak leaves.

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Above is part of an early Celtic Cross from Lindisfarne.

Cuthbert engaged in missionary work throughout the region, spreading Christianity into Southern Scotland and Northumberland. Roman Christianity had largely died out in England and probably never made it into Wales and Northumberland, but the new religion had been thriving in Ireland for several centuries. The rich way of Celtic Christian faith that developed in Ireland was centered around a broad network of monastic centers throughout Ireland. The Celts were connected in Wales and Scotland where Celtic Christianity also took root. Their way of following Jesus became distinct from the Roman way developing on the European continent. Celtic Christianity was separated from Rome as the Roman Empire receded in power during the early Middle Ages. Cuthbert’s ministry was helping to bring the Celtic way of faith back to what is now England from the Celtic north in Scotland.

St. Colman was another of Cuthbert’s contemporaries who refused to accept the decision of the Council of Whitby in favor of the Roman liturgical practices and immigrated with most of the monks of Lindisfarne to Ireland. He wanted Celtic Christianity to stay pure and separate from the Roman way. St. Eata was appointed bishop in his place and named Cuthbert Prior of Lindisfarne. Soon Cuthbert resumed his missionary activities and attracted huge crowds. We can imagine Cuthbert and his fellow monks walking from Holy Island across the causeway to the mainland where they would daily share meals with their neighbors and share the gospel. Cuthbert received his abbot’s permission to live as a hermit, at first on a nearby island and then in 676, at one of the Farnes Islands near Bamborough, where now there’s the impressive Bamburg Castle. Against his will, he was elected bishop of Hexham in 685. He arranged with St. Eata to swap Sees, and became bishop of Lindisfarne but without the monastery. He spent the last two years of his life administering his See, caring for the sick of the plague that decimated his diocese, working numerous miracles of healing, and gifted with the ability to prophesy. He died at Lindisfarne.

Source: (https://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=491)

Though Cuthbert was a saint in the Celtic way of Christianity he brought unity between the Celts and the Roman Church. Cuthbert agreed to change the Celtic date of Easter to be in line with the Romans. He allowed for other changes that helped unify the faith.

Above: Me resting and praying on Lindisfarne, 2025.

Once when Cuthbert was praying and fasting in the water off the island. He stayed out all night and his feet were wet and cold when he returned to the land. As the story goes two otters came out of the sea and laid on this feet, warming him with their fur. Another story exists of Cuthbert caring for the Cuddy ducks on his hermit island. During storms he would house them in his dwelling. Supposedly Cuthbert protected the ducks throughout Lindisfarne allowing them to nest all over the island without being bothered by people. These sorts of stories developed and demonstrate Cuthbert’s connection to nature and nature’s care of the saint.

When you spend time today on Lindisfarne the Cuddy Ducks still persist. Seals can be seen on the rocks out in the shallow ocean. The entire island is known for some of the best birding in all the British isles. The seashore, gardens, wetlands and meadows all seem to radiate a peaceful presence. The monastic rhythms of the island are built in as the tide goes out visitors arrive on the island and as the tide comes in a sense of solitude and the quiet sounds of nature fill the senses. Cuthbert represents the rhythms of the island, the solitude, the connection to nature and the feeling that nature cares for us.

Eleven years after his death when his body was exhumed it was reported it had not perished. Numerous miracles were also attributed to his intercession and to intercessory prayer near his remains. After he was canonized he became the most popular saint in England during the medieval period. If you’ve ever watched "The Last Kingdom” on Netflix you might remember the scene in season one where the army meets up with monks carrying Cuthbert’s body. Today Cuthbert’s remains still exist along with the fragmentary remains of his original coffin in Durham Cathedral.

I’ll be posting short articles here recounting each day as I’m able. Alyssa and I will begin in Ireland, take a ship to Wales and spend some time in the Snowdonia range. From there’s we’ll meet our ten fellow pilgrims in Melrose, Scotland where we’ll spend two days prepping for the journey. We’ll stay in small hotels, hostels and Bed and Breakfasts in the towns along the trial. It’l be my first backpacking trip where we won’t end each night in a tent! The meals will be a little better too, knowing how great the food in Scotland was last year.

We’ll be intentional about the spiritual connections made during this walk. We’re not just site-seeing or adventure-seeking, I think we’re all seeking a deeper connection to the early Celtic saints of Northumberland and their deep belief that all of creation is sacred ground. As we walk in the footsteps of these Celtic saints, particularly Cuthbert and Aiden, we’ll pray regularly together and reflect on the practice of pilgrimage.

The trail ends by walking across the tidal sands to Lindisfarne where a 7th century monastery still stands in ruins. We’ll spend two nights on the island where we’ll live into the prayerful rhythms of the local churches, attending both morning and evening prayer. Since 2007 I’ve used the Celtic Books of Daily Prayer on and off. The author of the book and the founder of the Northumbria Community will join us and help us discover some of the lesser known spots for prayer and meditation on the island.

The trip includes some amazing people… Rob Ruzanic, Ryan Walsh, Rev. Chad Collins, Johanna Collins and her father Fred Boyle, Rev. BJ Woodworth, Katrina Woodworth, Rev. Jeff Eddings and of course, Alyssa Creasy.

Stay tuned! Before we leave I plan to post a short article on Saint Cuthbert, who he was and why he’s one of England’s most beloved ancient Celtic saints.

Last year Evan (my co-laborer in much of this work) and I spent a few days at my family’s cottage on Slippery Rock Creek about an hour north of Pittsburgh. I have to say, listening is a big part of our lives! We’re both lovers of the natural world who strive to simply pay attention to what’s happening around us. Maybe we’re out on a hike, floating on a row boat or sitting on a back porch. And we’re both spiritual directors who listen for the Divine through the stories of other people’s lives. During our visit to the cabin we sat out on the back porch after dark. In the deep darkness of night we heard a high sort of screeching. After a few seconds pondering what it could be out there in the pitch black night we both chimed in at the same time, “A screech owl!”

Screech owls are so cute! They’re the tiniest of owls. They eat little things like grass hoppers. And the their homes are small too. A hole in a tree that a woodpecker might make is perfect. Back in college I was teaching elementary school kids about birds and I had the idea of building a screech owl house. I realized I was having more fun studying nature and building things than I was actually teaching in a classroom. I built my first birdhouse and my dad and I hung it up high in a maple right there at our cabin, it’s long gone now. But the owls are not! I still love teaching kids, but I prefer the outdoors to the school room.

Above is a house for a screech owl that I put up at Garfield Community Farm.

It was a fascinating thing that happened next on the porch at the cabin. Our little screech owl got silent, like it must have flown away. Suddenly we heard another voice, this time an unmistakable one, it was the call of a Great Horned Owl. And, yes, they’re much bigger. In fact Great Horned Owls will eat a little screech owl for dessert! Hoo Hoo… Hoo Hoo, we heard. The screech owl had flown away as soon as it heard or otherwise sensed the presence of the bigger owl. (I don’t like to think he was eaten!) There was much that we listened to that evening. I’m sure the owls were listening to even more. Listening, with our ears and metaphorically with how whole being, helps us understand and know the environment around us. In permaculture listening and learning leads us to a response, a gentle interaction with environment we find ourselves in.

Listening to these two owls told a story of interaction, predation, hollowed trees and our riparian property. The story told was by sound only, we saw nothing but the stars up above and the outlines of trees against the blue-black sky. The next day we found an old hollowed tree where the screech owl’s voice had come from. I surmised his home was inside.

There are a bunch of old silver maples on our property. Trees that have reached the time in their lives when they begin to hollow out, drop big limbs and reduce in size. We could choose to cut them all down. Or we could remove the dangerous limbs and tend to the rest as they age. By doing this the trees are providing rotting wood at their base for salamanders, chipmunks and snakes to burrow in. The hollows house the owls, woodpeckers, chickadees and song sparrows. The list of ecological benefits go on and on. I wouldn’t have thought so much about it if it weren’t for our listening to those two owls that night. They told me to leave the old trees alone.

This first principle of permaculture is how we start our Wild Indigo Guild program when we identify a group of people wanting to work with us. In that first group session we give the group a simple assignment… find a “sit-spot” somewhere near your home, outside, and begin paying attention to your surroundings. We don’t give a whole lot of guidance, just sit and listen… listen to your own emotions and thoughts, listen to the natural world around you, pay attention to people and patterns, animals and insects. Through our observations and mindful attentiveness folks always come into week-two with profound insights, some personal, some natural, some spiritual. On the other hand, sometimes our listening posture results in almost nothing… and that’s ok.

We can listen and find awe and wonder and we can listen and find a sense of nothingness. We can listen from our hearts and find a peaceful whisper of Spirit. In nature our listening can result in understanding. In prayer our listening can result in something like peace. When we realize that all is nature and all of nature is spiritual our listening opens into a whole new world. All of the natural world and all of our prayer is combined, interconnected, we realize that everything is sacred calling us to oneness. The practice of listening with our ears and our hearts opens us to God’s oneness through all that is.

The permaculture principle of “listen, learn and interact” makes me think our next step is always important. We interact within our relationships, loving our neighbors through acts of kindness, pursing ecological health on the land we manage, looking for equity in our society… big ideals!

Listen… Learn… Go…

Likewise the north rim of the Black Canyon of the Gunnison is remote and hidden. The temperature was supposed to be in the 90’s and what we’d experienced of the park so far, on the south side, was a very exposed and sunny landscape. In 2025 a forest fire burned the south side, closing down the park for weeks and killing most of the larger trees. We decided we would need to arrive at our trailhead by 7am to be able to hike in the cool of the morning. Knowing us, early mornings are wonderful, but very hard to make happen.

“What if we go at like 5 or 6pm?” I suggested to the family. “We could hike the seven mile trail as the sun starts to go down.”

“I’d rather get up early and go, but I know you and mom won’t get up.” said Micah.

He was right. After talking it over a little we decided we’d sleep in, go swimming at the nearby reservoir and then go for our hike. Micah wasn’t too happy with the plan, but Téah and Lyle seemed fine with it. I could tell they were all a little worried we’d end up hiking in the dark. We only had one headlamp and our iphone flashlights if it did get dark before we finished. It seems like a point of pride for hikers to get on the trail as early as possible, often by 4:30am in these Rocky Mountains. I’ve known friends who would get on the trail by midnight or 2am to get a summit at dawn. That sounds amazing and on the other hand it sounds miserable to me. I am not an early morning riser. Neither is my wife. Its just the way we are. If we tried to get up and go super early we know we’d be miserable for days to come from the lack of sleep. But, we can keep going late into the night on a trail. In the Rockies there are good reasons to not be at the summit of a climb in the afternoon when thunderstorms often arise… I get that. If we do more 14k foot climbs I’ll have to get up early. But I don’t want to if I don’t have to.

“Hiking in the dark is fun,” I told them. I could tell they were a little nervous.

As we arrived at the trailhead it was just as I’d hoped, desolate and empty. And it was even a little later than I’d planned. We just don’t get to places early, or even on time, when all five of us are traveling. The tiny ranger station was closed and not only were there no cars in the parking lot, there were no tents in the campground and not even a single car on the five mile dirt road leading into the park. A large and very prominent sign stated no dogs were allowed. Our whippet, Archie, was with us. He was more than ready for a good long hike so we all set off on the trail, bags packed with snacks, one headlamp and a canyon waiting to reveal itself, Archie included.

The north rim didn’t experience the forest fire last year. Evidently it’s been quite a while since fire saw this side of the canyon. After a tenth of mile or so in a grassy, dry meadow we entered a dense and very old piñon pine and Utah juniper forest. Gamble oaks, probably hundreds of years old, and fragrant sumac made for a thick shrub layer in the forest, providing habitat for rabbits, lizards and grey foxes. Other shrubs include serviceberry, not the same species that we have in the East, these are smaller and more drought tolerant. There’s ample ground cover too, like flowering cactus and of course, everyone’s favorite native plant… poison ivy. All of these we saw. The cactus flowers caught Téah’s eye as she found different colored blooms along the way. Lyle had reminded me that these cacti were probably edible, a good survival food.

Soon the forest opened to our left and the Black Canyon revealed its deep, dark secrets. The Black Canyon is nearly two thousand feet deep, but not very wide. The Gunnison River flows with white water at the bottom, continuing carve deeper and deeper into the earth’s rock. As we hiked we were all in awe and continued to marvel in the canyon as well as the old growth forest all around us. The canyon reminded me of a line in a Vigilantes of Love song, a song that Karen Bergquist sang with Bill Malonee on. The lyrics… “Tell me your deep dark secrets and I will tell you mine, oh… is that your deep dark secret? Oh well, nevermind.” I’ve always remembered that lyric. We all desire to be known fully but so often we allow shame to keep us from sharing our full selves.

After about an hour on the trail we arrived at Exclamation Point.

“So, does the map call it ‘!’ or does it spell out the word?” Lyle joked.

We rounded a little side loop in the trail that brought us to several rock outcrops over top of the Painted Wall, a massive sheer cliff dropping straight down the canyon floor.

“Who is going to be the first to let out a primal scream into the void?” I joked. Micah and Alyssa had no problem using their voices… and the echo was impressive.

“Hello… Hello… Hello..”

“Whooo… Whooo… Whoo…”

The canyon seemed to throw the words back to us from around the side canyon on our right. It wasn’t quite a slap back echo, but more like a roundabout. Téah gave it a go too.

“Lyle, it’s your turn,” said Alyssa.

“Uh, no, that’s ok,” he replied. A minute later he gave in and let out a loud yell that surprised us all, more gutteral than any of the others.

We continued around the loop, pausing at each rocky outcrop, amazed at the perfect evening light shining on the canyon walls, illuminating the grey, white and amber colors of the different geological epocs.

Finally, after we ate some snacks, gave Archie a drink of water, and just taking our time, we began back on the trail that would lead up Green Mountain, the highest peak above the canyon.

“Hang on dad,” said Lyle. “It took us an hour to go 1.5 miles, there’s no way we’re making it two more miles and then turning around to do 3.5 more before dark.”

“Yeah we will, it’ll be fine,” I replied.

“No it won’t, it’s already getting dark!” he argued.

“Well, we better get going, I’ll set the pace,” said Micah.

“Your math is terrible, both of you,” said Lyle in a very frustrated voice.

“WE WILL NOT MAKE IT!” he exclaimed.

The arguing over if we’d make turned into an argument about our plan for how we’d make it back to the car in the dark. Micah and I were determined to see the canyon from 1000 feet higher than we stood at the cliff’s edge. Would we ever have this opportunity again? I must admit, I’ve been known to push on when I should probably have turned around.

We agreed that Micah would lead with Archie at the front. Alyssa took up the back. Soon we were spread out more than I felt comfortable with. Micah and the dog setting a very fast pace. I was just behind, but stopping every two minutes to snap photos of the amazingly old, gnarled and beautiful trees. Lyle and Téah seemed to bond as they agreed on just how stupid and bullheaded Micah and I were as we continued to lead the family deeper and deeper into the wilderness and higher and higher up the mountain.

After what seemed like an hour (it was actually less) I looked at my map and saw that we were only half way up, maybe a little less. We kept going. The sun began to turn a dark orange as it sat low on the horizon. For me it was just opportunity to take better photos in the perfection of the “golden hour.” For Lyle it was an ominous sign that we’d soon by in pitch black with one headlamp.

“Dad, I really don’t care about the dark,” Lyle said at one point. “I just don’t want to hike in the dark,” he said.

“So you do care about the dark,” I said a little confused and chuckling.

“Well, no… Well, I’m afraid of the dark, but only when I’m alone,” he said quickly.

“No shame in that, I’m afraid every time I’m backpacking alone and it gets dark,” I replied.

Honestly, as much as I love backpacking and sleeping in the woods there was a time when I was terrified of wild darkness. Not as much today, but it’s so much better with others. There’s no fear of the dark when I’m with my family. Lyle agreed.

We continued up the mountain and soon were spread out on the trail again. I could see Micah and Archie up ahead. I yelled across a switchback for Micah to wait. We came up with a plan that he’d get the top as soon as he could and then turn around, giving everyone else a choice… hike up come back down in the dark or turn around. Micah gave Archie to me, who was getting tired at this point, and quickly made his way to the top. Archie arrived while he was still enjoying the view of the canyon from 1000 feet higher than the canyon edge.

“Look at the moon!” Micah said as we gazed out at the expansive Black Canyon.

The moon at appeared well before darkness, but it was orange, glowing like a supernova in some hidden corner of the universe.

“I wonder if there are forest fires somewhere near,” I replied. The sun was dropping deeper in the sky and casting it’s own orange haze into the atmosphere.

Micah soon descended on the trail and found Téah and Lyle close behind. No way they were going to turn around so close to the top. Soon Alyssa rounded the corner and we were all together again. We sat for a few minutes, drank water with electrolytes and gazed into the distant abyss.

On the descent everyone seemed much more relaxed, Lyle included. We spread out some and Alyssa and I had some time to hike, just the two of us. We spotted so many more incredible, old trees. We heard birds we’d never seen before. Soon we found the kids all sitting and waiting for the two of.

“Archie’s super nervous,” said Lyle.

He was right, as the woods got darker Archie was the one who seemed anxious.

“I’ll the the front with my iphone light, Micah will take the rear with his headlamp,” I suggested.

Archie quickly took the lead role from me, motivated to get to the van and not get left out the middle of the woods all night. He probably has the most keen sense of danger in the dark. As the sky darkened the bats came out, quietly swooping toward our heads and pulling up at the last moment. We hiked on in the quiet calm of the evening sky. I was never worried about the dark setting in, knowing we’d only have to hike the last tenth of a mile or so in partial darkness. As the darkness came it seemed everyone realized it wasn’t so scary or dangerous. Of course, darkness can be very dangerous, but with knowledge, a little light and experience navigating trails in these sorts of situations, hiking in the dark can be so peaceful and even mezmorizing. The headlamp (or iphone in this case) casting light for our feet, the vastness of the woods became only as big as the light shone on the path. Soon the cactus flowers were completely closed up for the night, preparing for another day of blooms.

The sun seemed to be setting for hours that night thanks to what we learned was, indeed, smoke from wildfires in Utah. We all learned that some darkness isn’t as big a deal as if you stay calm and take one step at a time. Staying together when there’s darkness is crucial, never leave the the company of the others in your group. We stuck to within a few feet of each other. Micah’s bright headlamp illuminated the trail enough for all five of us holding additional iphone lights.

All that said, never hike in darkness without lights. We knew the way and knew we’d finish very close to sunset. We knew that we had plenty of food water and clothing to spend the night in the woods if we had to. I’ve hiked for hours in complete darkness with only a headlamp and learned to navigate a trails markings, twists and turns, and even I know I could get terribly lost on a more dangerous trail. But this night I’m so thankful we went for it, saw the canyon at dusk, experienced the quiet of evening in this still wilderness, climbed to the top and saw the moon over the canyon, and I’m thankful we finished safely together, in the dark, and not afraid.

Over the past few days we’ve had the chance to look down as much as we look up and here are some of the amazing flowering plants we’ve found.

Above is Showy Milkweed (Asclepias speciosa). Its growing along the Gunnison River north of The Back Canyon of the Gunnison National Park. I love this river’s vibrant riparian zone where plants like milkweed, willow, fragrant sumac and dogdane thrive. This species of milkweed is about 3’ tall with large claw-like flowers. All milkweed supports monarch butterflies and dozens of other pollinator plants. Monarchs are one of the only species that can eat the poisonous leaves. Some milkweed species are high in the toxins that keep animals from eating the plants, other species are much lower. Showy Milkweed is among the lowest and therefore among the best for human consumption. Foragers will tell you that milkweed pods and young shoots are a delicious food in spring and late summer. Cooking reduces the toxins.

Above is Green Rabbitbrush (Chrysothamnus viscidiflorus) and I found it growing along the sidewalk atop the Black Canyon. Last year a wildfire burned through much of the park above the canyon. This year there’s so much regrowth and flowering happening, it’s a great example of natures succession planning and how fire can remake an ecosystem. This plant seems to like sunny, hot and dry conditions.

This plant is called Sulfurflower Buckwheat (Eriogonum umbellatum). Its more of a high meadow plant that I found up above the treeline. It’s furry leaves remind me of lamb’s ears (the plant, and maybe the animal too).

Now here’s my favorite flower of those high elevation meadows (Rhodiola integrifolium) know as King’s Crown, and yes, there’s also a Queen’s Crown but I didn’t find it on our hike. King’s Crown is a type of sedum as you can see by the succulent and fleshly light green leaves. The flowers are just so bold! This species is closely related to another roseroot that has been shown to treat stress, anxiety, fatigue, depression and even cancer, according to Daniel Mathews in his book Rocky Mountain Field Guide. People even use it as an endurance enhancing supplement according to Mathews. King’s Crown hasn’t been studied but probably has similar uses.

Lyall’s Goldenweed (Tonestus lyallii) looks like a plant you might find at a specialty nursery somewhere in the UK.

Below is one more plant to highlight in a bit more detail. It’s also seen above in the gallery; Silky phacelia (Phacelia senicea). I found this plant growing in little clumps near the Colorado bristlecone pines. It’s leaves remind me of lavender. The flowers are a bright purple, almost glowing or luminescent like a forth of July sparkler.

There’s just so much to see! Look up and the mountains are stunning, look down and the flowering herbaceous plants seem to calling out this time of year that they’re just as magnificent.