13 June

Living In Nature: A Visitor On Our Fence Post. Healing Creatures.

by Jon Katz

Maria was brushing the donkeys this morning when she looked over and was startled to see a visitor sitting on the fence post inches from her head. This is a tree frog; they are amazing to look at, calm, and unflappable; nothing seems to spook them. This one crawled down from the apple tree and waited for the sun to rise.

He is even more chill than Zinnia. He looks as wise as an ancient God.

Psychologists have warned us for years that it is unnatural for human beings to live disconnected from nature or the lives of animals. No wonder species after species and forest after forest are vanishing from the earth; we know fewer and fewer of them and almost nothing about them. We know not what we do.

I don’t quite understand it, but nature was one of the things that pulled me to my farm. I was looking for love, but something in me drew me to live around animals and in nature. Every day is a wonder here, from watching the sparrows and barn swallows lay their eggs in our barn to see how the insects Maria saves from the water bucket every morning clean off their feelers and come back to life.

Maria is out walking in the woods now, and I love the stories she brings back and the photos – animal scat, owls, ravens, gorgeous mushrooms, wildflowers. It was not healthy for me to be separated from nature and animals for so long, and now, living among both, I see what the psychologists meant. And then there are flowers.

These things have brought me back from the abyss and into life. I now know what I was missing all those years. I’ve come  home.

My photography – and Maria – led me to see nature and spiders and ants and birds and trees differently. They fuel our love for our lives and nourish the soul. We were meant to live among them, not only to eat and kill them.

Visitors like the frog – what a face – are a daily wonder for us; they stir, surprise, and heal all at once. I never once got close to a tree frog or even knew what they were. Now he’s living on the farm and visiting with us. I call them  healing creatures, all of them.

Photo by Maria Wulf

5 Comments

  1. Tree frogs are just the most incredible looking creatures. We hear them in our marsh every evening, but rarely get the chance to see one.

  2. Now I know what the noisy critters look like. They are calling out for several hours each night around us. Amazing volume from such a small frog!

  3. The frog has historically been a symbol of transformation, harmony, and good luck. It’s fitting for you! I have a collection of tree frogs (American and Cuban) who live in my outdoor flower pots, along with some tiny, chirpy, earthbound grass frogs that have been with me for years, having travelled in my plants to 4 cities. They are friendly and fearless. I hope your guy (or girl) comes back to stay.

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