Loretto in Marion County, Kentucky

Mature Oak Tree - Loretto, Marion County, Kentucky 

This Marion County tree has been around for a long time and is still going.  The base of the tree when compared to the nearby picnic tables shows its massive size.  Perhaps this oak impressed Thomas Merton when he visited the Loretto Motherhouse.

The history of the Loretto community in Kentucky includes 128 years of active service.  The Loretto land is a special place.

North American Native Tree - Sycamore

Woods - Sycamore - Grayson County, Kentucky

The bark of the sycamore tree falls to the ground around the tree.  This large section of sycamore bark was caught in the branches of a small tree.  

Kentucky native tree and Thomas Merton

Kentucky Native Tree - Eastern Red Cedar - Grayson County

The trunk of the Eastern red cedar looks like of bundle of stems.  Eastern red cedar was once the only wood used for pencils in the United States.  By the 1940s it was hard to find enough trees to supply the factories and production switched to the California incense cedar, Calocedrus decurrens.  The California incense cedar is a western tree.

Thomas Merton visited the Motherhouse at Loretto, Kentucky.  During his visit he remarked that the trees surrounding the Motherhouse were magnificent and should never be felled. Thomas Merton wrote frequently of the silence of the woods in his writings.  He also suggested that being present in the woods was helpful to prayer and to the spiritual experience. 

Merton wrote pointedly about damage to the natural world, "Much of the stupendous ecological damage that has been done in the last fifty years is completely irreversible.  Industry and the military, especially in America are firmly set on policies that make further damage inevitable."

Human interactions

Christmas Decorations - Courtyard - Loretto Motherhouse 

How much criticism is the right amount for a situation?   If one practices the formulating of the turnaround about a given interaction then one can see the interaction from a new perspective.  For example if one thinks the following, "David does not take my concerns into account before he decides."  The turnaround viewpoint is "I do not take David's concerns into account before I decide."  This can help with feelings of frustration or isolation.

The idea of intention may be helpful for a situation.  Perhaps one puts an intention of selfishness or laziness in the mind when the other person is not acting with that intention.

Criticize sparingly.

In one of Wendell Berry's poems he writes of loving someone who does not deserve it.  Could you be kind to a person that does not deserve it?  There is germ for thought.

Ft. Knox, Kentucky

M48 Patton Tank

In the war of 1812 one half of the persons killed in the war were Kentuckians.   Kentuckians have been willing to shoulder the burdens in difficult times through history.

In the 1930s Ft. Knox was the home of the Army's armored force.  Gold shipments made in the 1930s were made by rail and the gold bars were transported by truck over to the Treasury Department vault facility.  Fort Knox armed forces personnel escorted the trucks to the gold vault.

The 1st Armored Division was activated in July 1940 in Fort Knox, Kentucky.  The Division fought in North Africa and in Italy in World War II.

The M48 Patton tank was built from 1952 to 1959.  It was used for many years after 1959.  For many years Ft. Knox was the home of armor such that a soldier that specialized in armor would eventually serve at Ft. Knox some time in his or her career.

Kentucky nature

Trail - Rough River Lake, Kentucky

Walking with trees at your side feeds you.  Immerse yourself in nature.  Walk in appreciation. 

Loretto Kentucky

Father Stephen Badin - Loretto, Kentucky



Cemetery - Loretto, Kentucky

Father Stephen Theodore Badin provided the land for the present day farm at Loretto to the sisters before he moved to Indiana.  A statue of Father Badin is on the Loretto property.  He was the first Catholic priest ordained in the United States.  

It is commonly said that tree branches without leaves are sad or ugly looking.  But deciduous trees have a time for locking down vital tree elements for life.  And through the hyphae of fungi that coexist with the tree roots activity in the soil goes on.  You can't see this but it is there.  Hurry is a waste.  Buds will come.  Wide green leaves will come.  A tree has features to appreciate without its full presentation of its leaves. The time without buds and green leaves is just as valid as any time of the tree's life. With experience the way of nature comes to the one who takes it in. 



One of America's Best Loved Photographers

“It is for the sake of emphasis, not exaggeration, that I select the more pictorial personalities when I do the industrial portrait, for it is the only way that I can illustrate my thesis that the human spirit is the big thing after all.”


Lewis Hine
Photographer

Lewis Hine completed works in the 1930s and 1940s that show workers making and building things for the nation.

Appreciations

Bellarmine University - Louisville, Kentucky

Kentucky was home to Thomas Merton.  This Merton statue may be seen on the Bellarmine campus.  Kentucky was home to Robert Penn Warren.
Wendell Berry lives on land in Henry County with ties to family that goes back over 200 years. 
Harry Caudill wrote of the mountains of Kentucky and of the uniqueness of those hills and valleys.
Thomas Barnes knew Kentucky from border to border and celebrated her woods in the books he authored.

James Lane Allen and John Fox Jr. wrote a century ago. Kim Edwards, Sue Grafton and Barbara Kingsolver are Kentucky authors.  James Still, Jesse Stuart, Harriette Simpson Arnow, Harry M. Caudill, Gurney Norman, Janice Holt Giles, Verna Mae Slone, Elizabeth Madox Roberts and Silas House write or have written from their Kentucky homes.  John James Audubon, Bobbie Ann Mason and Irvin S. Cobb are all from Kentucky.

 

When appreciating precious things these are some of the things that are in mind.  The place of these people.

Christmas thoughts

Christmas Decoration Church of the Seven Dolors, Marion County, Kentucky

We think we need to make up for shortcomings around the time of Christmas. We want to do something for people to let them know we love them or care for them. This can become more than we can humanly do. Perhaps keeping the holly and the ivy in us for more than the weeks between the calendar Thanksgiving and the calendar Christmas would be healthy for all of us.

A survey revealed that two thirds of the people felt sad or inadequate during the Christmas season.

Perhaps our sadness or despair springs from false thinking. If we are lifted out of false thinking we can be the healthy people in the light that God intended for us.

 

 

 

 

The land for the people

Mammoth Cave NP Kentucky

A recurrent criticism of the United States' parks is that they are frequented  by the well to do.  The other criticism that is seen again and again is that lands now under park system management contain areas that Native Americans once used.  When one considers the alternatives that would be in place were it not for the parks one appreciates the parks with all of their contradictions.  These few special places have been preserved for the people.   If the lands were instead bought by private interests the scenic areas would be taken over by gated communities.  Vast areas would be unavailable to the people.   Land companies would own huge areas and would allow mining interests to use the land for extractive pursuits without caring for the animals or the plants.  Many current parks are used by present day Native Americans.  These places are deeply appreciated and Native Americans are among those who deeply appreciate these set aside places.  The parks have contradictions.  The fact that the parks have contradictions in no way diminishes the appeal or the value of the parks.

Beautiful Photography

I take picures.  My hat's off to this man and his talent for photography. http://www.carolinanature.com/about.html

Merry Christmas

What do the hallowed hills of Kentucky have to do with Christmas?  One story I know is about the John B. Stephenson Nature Preserve in Rockcastle County.  I met a woman there in the valley.  I asked her about how she felt about this Kentucky place.  She said that she went to school there and she motioned to the ridge to the left of where we were standing.  She said that as a girl she came down into the woods to gather vines and branches to make decorations for Christmas.   That was many years ago. And the precious Kentucky woods are still there.   No work has marred the beauty of the woods.   So most every Kentucky place has many stories.  May it ever be so.

Gingko leaves

Yellow Ginkgo Leaves - Loretto Motherhouse - Marion County, KY

The ginkgo tree is a survivor of a group of ancient plants.  The leaves of the ginkgo tree often have a deep notch in the margin of the leaf.  In the fall the leaves turn from green to a brilliant yellow. Each leaf grows from a long shoot.  The shoots are clustered on side shoots.  Because of the tree structure the leaves of the ginkgo fall all at once.  Complete leaf fall may occur in one to three hours.  The leaves in this photograph began falling after ten in the morning.   The amount on the ground around the tree accumulated in about two hours.

The people

Trails through the woods are good.  The places we can go to are there because of people's hard work.  Many worked their entire life to keep these natural places from being developed and forever lost.  When we go up to a peak on a trail constructed by the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) we benefit from the planning and hard work of those depression era workers.  With every step we take we can call them to mind.

Forest and Boulders - Southeast Kentucky

Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves. As age comes on, one source of enjoyment after another is closed, but Nature's sources never fail. ... The petty discomforts that beset the awkward guest, the unskilled camper, are quickly forgotten, while all that is precious remains. Fears vanish as soon as one is fairly free in the wilderness."
John Muir

"Life is a great adventure... accept it in such a spirit." Theodore Roosevelt

"If you wish to advance into the infinite, explore the finite in all directions."
Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe 

"Only that day dawns to which we are awake.”
― Henry David Thoreau

Southeast Kentucky

There is more to take in about South East Kentucky than delicious fried chicken.  Yes London does have a big chicken dinner in September built around the last weekend in September.  The festival boasts the biggest skillet in the country.  Late Fall and Winter is a good time to come to the Valley.
It is a time to move about without the worry of humid air or ticks or mosquitoes.  The beauty of the stream banks will come into you.  The music of the winds will come to your ears.  You will take back the sights and sounds and remember them.  You will appreciate them.

The Cumberland River - Southeast Kentucky

Protect Fish, Wildlife and Plants; Kentucky's NRRA

 

 

Rock Bluffs - Big South Fork NRRA

 

Huge Cliffs with walking space in between - Big South Fork NRRA

 

 

 

 

Trail near Blue Heron - Big South Fork NRRA

A wide variety of habitats and associated wildlife are found at the Daniel Boone National Forest and the Big South Fork NRRA.  This area of impressive cliffs and rocks is in the Blue Heron area of the Big South Fork NRRA.  Writing or photography can only go so far; one has to be there to experience it.