It was a dam cold winter morning at the Hartland Marsh when I carelessly let my hands get bitten by frost.  Like gravity, it’s a law of nature: if you don’t understand and protect yourself, you’re going to get hurt.  Ever since then my hands are the first to tell me Winter has arrived.

The polarity between hot and cold is really only a matter of degree i.e., the amount of vibratory energy that is present.  And the rhythm of the seasons is just Nature’s Way.  We have no trouble understanding the physical laws of nature but how about the spiritual laws of nature?  What are they?

I’ve recommended Mark Passio’s Natural Law Seminar before on this blog and it bears repeating.  The degree to which we, collectively, live our lives in adherence with natural law, will determine the kind of world we create: the reality that manifests around us.

I’ll give you a quick, thumb-nail sketch, using a few slides from Mark’s presentation to wet your appetite.

What are the principles, or first things, underlying natural law?

And what binds them together?

But you already know this!

What are the consequences of following natural law or ignoring it?

At it’s heart, natural law teaches us the difference between right and wrong.

What distinguishes natural law from mans law?

How can we get what we say we want from life?

You don’t have to look far to see which way we are heading… but, we can change that by seeking and speaking the truth.

I like to think I’m combining the laws of nature (physical) with natural law (spiritual) by voluntarily giving my time and attention, my spiritual currency, working to reveal the beauty of God’s creation.  For my reward, I get to keep my sanity in a world gone mad.

This past week I continued prepping The Springs for the prescribed burn that the DNR plans to execute next spring.  I’m focusing on the sand prairie area now cutting buckthorn, cherry, red oak, black locust and honeysuckle seedlings and resprouts.

I’m taking my time and poisoning as many cut stumps as I can find after each tank of gas burned in my Stihl FS-90 brush cutter.  One reason the buckthorn is coming back so strongly here is that I took the shortcut of not poisoning the stumps the first time I brush cut here back in 2012.  For every stump I didn’t poison, a half-dozen new shoots appeared.

I quit early to spend time at The Springs with my dear friend Ed Brown, who was in town to attend the 2014 Urban and Small Farms Conference hosted by Growing Power.

Hey Ed, thanks for inviting Pati and I to take a tour of Growing Power’s headquarters here in Milwaukee with you!

Pati joined me for the sunset at Ottawa Lake.

Last Wednesday, I picked up where I left off on the sand prairie.  It was another cold day swinging the brush cutter.

I’d really like to get all the brush laid down in the areas that I have previously cut before the snow falls, so I hit the trail again on Friday.  Here are a couple of views Friday morning.

And the same two perspectives in the afternoon.  Can you tell the brush was cut?

I worked until the sun went down.

Finally, to cap off the week, I joined Ginny Coburn, Zach Kastern, Jared Urban and a great group of State Natural Areas volunteers, including students from the UW Whitewater Ecology Club, at the Whitewater Oak Opening, one of the 16 sites that comprise the Clifford F. Messinger Dry Prairie and Savanna Preserves.

Ginny gives an overview.

That was a nasty site!

Zach shows how to poison a stump.

Jared, Ginny and Zach organized the teams and we got after it.

That’s Mike with the chainsaw below.

Eric swinging his saw.

Steve lives next store, literally, and he is committed to restoring the oak savanna on his property and the surrounding state owned land.

I was amazed at how much we accomplished before high noon!

Let there be unity between your thoughts, emotions and actions.

See you at The Springs!