Lindy 👽️

The beauty of #Alaska changed me. I had never seen an old-growth forest or walked through a temperate #rainforest before. Standing among trees that had lived for centuries, surrounded by the biodiversity of so many plants, fungi, and animals, shifted something in me. I started noticing the natural world in a way I never had. And somewhere along the way, I fell in love with being alive in a way I hadn’t felt before. For a long time, I thought purpose was something I had to find one day. Instead, I found it by paying attention: learning the names of trees and mosses and mushrooms; watching a bear scratch its back on a tree; or just sitting quietly and noticing Stellar Jays bullying smaller birds away from the feeders. I realized the woods are full of stories, and it’s up to us to slow down and notice them. Paying attention became an act of gratitude. Curiosity became how I moved through life. Slowly and quietly, my mental health started to heal.

@KatyElphinstone@mas.to exactly this!!! I spent 25 years of my life thinking something was fundamentally wrong with me, and that I was born a broken person (I remember feeling this way as early as 4 years old even!) Turns out I am not broken, just different. My brain works exactly the way it's supposed to, and I deserve to find ways to support myself and my brain. Photo credit: https://wizardofbarge.com #autism #autistic #actuallyautistic #neurodivergent #audhD

Growing up on the East Coast, #nature seemed small and controlled, squeezed into whatever space was left between buildings or sidewalk cracks. Alaska showed me the opposite: there, society fits around the nature. Juneau seemed to exist only because the mountains allowed it. Forests reached right up to neighborhoods. And glaciers, salmon, ravens, and bears felt like neighbors, not just attractions. There was a real respect for the land, wildlife, and Indigenous cultures. It made me see how differently we treat nature back home, and how much Colonialism attitudes still shape how we interact with the world around us.

For #waterfallwednesday here's Blackwater Falls in the Allegheny mountains of West Virginia. The falls gets its name from the light brown/tea colored water. The abundant spruce and pine trees drop their needles into the river, and all of the tannins in the needles dye the water brown. #nature #hiking #waterfall #naturephotography

@welshpixie@mastodon.art beautiful work!