Blog #85 Art and Nature – Two Healers
Several years ago, Blog #14 addressed the role of art
and creativity in healing. Today’s blog
will re-visit that topic and add more.
As some readers may know, I run a monthly Nature Writing Group (NWG)at
the North Park Village Nature Center.
We’ve been meeting for about 14 years.
Members come and go, and each has made an interesting and valuable
contribution to our NWG. One member was Dawn Paskowicz, a retired English As a
Second Language (ESL) teacher who raised her four children, cultivated many
friendships, embraced cooperative living, and loved the wilderness and the
natural world in general. A generous
idealist, she opened her large Chicago house to students and immigrants at a
very affordable price and helped them share in a friendly, cooperative
environment.
When she was diagnosed with advanced stage breast
cancer, surgery, radiation therapy and chemotherapy put her into
remission. In 2003, when she was
cancer—free for well over five years, Dawn bought 70 acres of pristine
wilderness in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, and camped there for seven summers
before moving to the UP. She shared with
our Nature Writing Group the inspiration she found from living on this land. She wrote poetry and kept a journal about her
experiences hoping to one day put them in a book to share with others. Dawn enjoyed many years living on the land
and protecting a small portion of our environment. She formed a board of directors to oversee
and protect the 70 acres of not-for-profit land, to keep it pristine wilderness
for a while longer. She named the land
“Children of Mother Earth”.
Eventually, the cancer returned, and she endured the
last stages of her illness in her home in the UP. Dawn died last year, and her two living
children helped put her things in order.
Since I am on the board of directors, dealing with the land has fallen
to me, and I am in the midst of keeping its not-for-profit status and other
tasks. One of the tasks is finding
people or an organization to take over the board-of-directorship. Perks for a new board would be access to the
land, experiencing its peace, and enjoying its adventure, beauty and healing
vibrations. Responsibilities would be doing
paperwork, managing finances, and keeping the 70 acres pristine and wild.
So this month’s blog has three purposes: to relate how
one woman embraced the natural world and artistic expression to help her enjoy
her remaining years, to share a small portion of Dawn Pascowicz’s writing - one of her poems – and to extend the possibility
of visits to the land and also the forming a new board to oversee this
land.
Here is Dawn’s poem, likely written about the Duchess
Iris flowers on her land, of which she was especially fond.
LOOK AT YOU
Look at you in your white
lacy gown
Swaying in the wind
As hummingbirds and bees
Suckle in your blossoms,
Impregnating you a
thousand times
While the wind blows your
intoxicating fragrance,
Overcoming me under your
arms
Where I can foresee your
laden branches
Releasing your babies by
the hundreds,
To nourish all the
creatures
Who know of you
You beautiful, floral
Duchess.
Just look at you.
Dawn Paskowicz, 2012
This month’s blog offer. Contact me about Children of Mother Earth if
you are interested in helping it continue and if you would like to visit.
