Welcome to the 4th issue of The Magic Heron Newsletter, a fortnightly newsletter with a focus on journaling, writing, and learning nature’s wisdom through midlife. Thanks for being here. I appreciate you.

North Carolina, March 28, 2021

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Hi there!

This last week my son had his (hopefully) last surgery to repair the ligaments in his knee. In October 2019, he was in an accident at work and was crushed under a 1,000 lb machine platform. It shattered his leg below the knee, among other injuries. I came to North Carolina to stay with him while he healed, and …well, I’m still here. This was his 8^th surgery.

We have not been able to go out to walk on the trails lately, but we have been watching the birds and squirrels in the backyard. The weather has slowly warmed up and I’m seeing streaks of pollen here and there in the cracks in the sidewalk and on the hood of the pickup.

We are watching woodpeckers come in and take their share of the bird food in the feeders. Sparrows, chickadees and a new rust colored bird have come in and squabble over the remains after the squirrel figured out how to carry off large chunks of the suet feed.

This week the temperature should start staying in the 70’s and it will be warm enough to sit in the backyard longer. The day after my son’s surgery was the Spring Equinox and it was cloudy, cold and windy. We stayed in and watched movies and he had a slight post-op fever. He is feeling much better now, moving around a bit and will have a doctor’s appointment this week to get the staples out.

Woodpecker has shown up at the bird feeder this week, so he will be this week’s newsletter Spirit Animal.

Woodpecker Symbolism and Meanings:

-Communication and opportunity

-Determination

-Being resourceful

-Each tree is a door, revealing new opportunities (ants and grubs for the woodpecker)

-Attention

-Listening

-Discernment

-“Use your head” – Use your knowledge, brain to find solutions to your own barriers

Woodpeckers see opportunities and value everywhere, even dead trees. We can interpret this for our own lives such as– what idea or project have we put to the side or given up on? Woodpecker could be saying it’s time to breathe new life back into those projects that were put aside. Now’s the time to get back to them.

Woodpecker also calls us to return to our roots, return to the womb of our ideas, our creativity. Woodpecker shows us to hammer at our purpose, work our way through to the other side of the obstacles before us. Woodpecker also teaches us to listen more closely to messages from our intuition.

Recently Published . . .

Do you like sardines? I never ate sardines until a few years ago when I needed to add more Omega3 fatty acids to my diet. When I searched around for ways to eat them, I was surprised at all the simple recipes that I found.

So I put together a recipe journal of ways to eat them!

50 Ways to Eat Canned Sardines–a recipe journal

There are plenty of simple, easy ways to eat sardines, 50 just in this recipe journal! And if you like these, pick up the 2^nd book, 50 MORE Ways to Eat Canned Sardines–a recipe journal

Recipe . . .

I have been craving peanut butter cookies and found a super simple recipe that doesn’t take long to whip together. I have been making batch after batch lately and they are so soft.

I was wondering why I was craving peanut butter so much, (I eat intuitively) and looked up the health benefits. Turns out peanut butter is rich in Vitamin E, and I have noticed that my dry skin has turned softer the last few weeks. Nothing else has worked to clear up the dry skin, not even oily fish, which usually works. I guess I was deficient in Vitamin E!

4 Ingredient Chocolate Chip Peanut Butter Cookies

1 egg

1 cup sugar

1 cup peanut butter

Chocolate chips (amount as desired)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Using a whisk (or mixer), beat the egg in a bowl.
Then beat in the sugar a little at a time.
Then beat in the peanut butter a little at a time.
Next, stir in the desired amount of chocolate chips until evenly mixed in.
Drop by spoonful onto a nonstick cooking sheet and bake 10 minutes in a 350-degree oven. Mold the cookies the same size and flatten with your fingers just a bit, maybe 1/4 “ thick (or more! These are your cookies!)
They will still look soft and a bit “undone” when you pull them out, but as they cool they will firm up a bit and be very soft.
Best enjoyed with a cold glass of pasture-raised milk!

I love this recipe and use just a whisk and bowl to whip it up, then store the cookies in a plastic baggie. Even Bug (my son’s dog) is under my feet waiting to lick the bowl.

Blog Post . . .

This week’s blog post is a journal entry about my backyard squirrel’s latest antics!

Journal Entry #5: Squirrel Trapeze Artist and When You Are Lost

Interesting links . . .

How are you doing on your Midlife Journey? Are you journaling your way through? Are you walking or hiking? I have been going through more midlife “stuff” lately. What happened? It seems like just yesterday I was still a mom at home, homeschooling the kids, teaching them life skills on the homestead and out in nature, and then like a whisp of smoke it was all gone.

Have you ever felt you lost your sense of purpose? I have and I still go through this phase occasionally and the last week has been one of those occasions. Wondering what my new purpose is, now ranks right up there beside ‘what the hell –ANOTHER CHIN HAIR? Didn’t I JUST pluck this area?’

Every. Damn. Day.

I have always done the things I wanted to do. I pushed until we got our homestead and could teach my kids all the things I felt they needed to know for life. I spent that time learning to weave and spin wool, garden, raise goats and chickens and how to use all the by-products of what we raised.

Now though, I’m divorced for a few years, with one kid on the coast and the other having moved back to stay with me in Texas. We write together, but we are both in a limbo of where we want to move to next. One thing is for sure, nature and writing are always going to be a big part of my purpose.

What have you struggled with in this journey through Midlife? Or have you made it through and if you have, can you give the rest of us any advice? Are you journaling all your midlife questions?

Hit reply and let me know how you are doing on this journey!

Interesting Links . . .

Here are some interesting links I came across on my ventures through Internet Land this week that I thought you might enjoy:

1. How To Avoid A Midlife Crisis

2. NestWatch

3. The Midlife Movement Podcast

4. Bird-Watching for Beginners: How to Start Birding

5. Vanilla Extract’s Mind-Boosting, Anti-Inflammatory Benefits

6. Why people believe they can’t draw – and how to prove they can | Graham Shaw

Article on Journaling . . .

The Story Circle Network has tons of great essays and information on journaling and writing your life stories.

The Power of Journaling

Random Nature Fact . . .

37 million years ago, there was a species of penguin that was nearly 7 feet tall! The colossus penguins roamed Antarctica. They weighed in at 250 pounds and stood 6 feet 6 inches. The biggest penguins now are emperor penguins that measure 4 feet.

Nature Journal video . . .

I like this video, he gave some awesome tips on how to use binoculars, from adjusting the eyepieces for each eye, to how to use the binoculars while nature journaling at the same time.

The Nature Journal Connection, Episode 19, Getting Closer: Using Binoculars

Nature Journal Prompt . . .

This week’s nature journal prompt is the woodpecker. Here are some fun facts!

Woodpecker facts:

Picidae family

Woodpecker family includes: piculets, wrynecks, and sapsuckers.

Lifespan: 4-12 years, larger woodpeckers 20-30 years

Scientific name: Picidae

Weight: range from tiny piculets 0.25 oz to great slaty woodpecker 19.9 oz

Length: range from tiny piculets 2.8 inches to great slaty woodpecker 20 inches

Habitat: woodlands, savannahs, scrublands, bamboo forests (and some grasslands and deserts)

What it eats: insects on trunks and branches of trees, some eat fruit, bird eggs, small animals, tree sap, human scraps, and carrion

What eats it: wild cats, snakes, foxes, large birds, rats

Did you know? The largest woodpecker is the Imperial Woodpecker of Mexico, at 22-23.5 inches long and is listed as critically endangered (possibly extinct)

What I’m watching . . .

1. Land Trailer #1 (2021) | Movieclips Trailers

2. I rescued four baby red squirrels [The Squirrels & Me]

3. The Eagle and the Squirrel: A story about about wildlife photography and friendship

4. And for fun . . . and because it’s writerly . . . Romancing the Stone

What I’m reading . . .

Reading has slowed down a little, but I’m still working on these books:

1. The Valley of Horses by Jean M Auel

2. When You Are Lost by Joy Colangelo

3. Writing From Life—For Women with Stories to Tell by Susan Wittig Albert

4. Change Your Story, Change Your Life by Carl Greer, PhD, PsyD

Quotes I’m pondering . . .

“In the spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt.”

— Margaret Atwood

“Though I do not believe that a plant will spring up where no seed has been, I have great faith in a seed… Convince me that you have a seed there, and I am prepared to expect wonders.”

— Henry David Thoreau

Questions I’m considering journaling on . . .

What else am I here to do?

What is my purpose now?

Journal Prompt . . .

Using a line from Mary Oliver’s poem, journal about her last line: “Tell me, what is you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”

Here is her poem for inspiration:

The Summer Day – by Mary Oliver

Who made the world?

Who made the swan, and the black bear?

Who made the grasshopper?

This grasshopper, I mean-

the one who has flung herself out of the grass,

the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,

who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-

who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.

Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.

Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.

I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.

I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down

into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,

how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,

which is what I have been doing all day.

Tell me, what else should I have done?

Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?

Tell me, what is it you plan to do

with your one wild and precious life?

Happy Journaling!

. . . Shanna

P.S. Is there something you like or would rather see in the newsletter? Hit reply and let me know!

I’ll be back on April 11th.

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