i love the night sky: the northern lights that dance along the horizon, the harvest moon, the big dipper, the star-studded milky way.

i love birch trees – the way their white bark is equally at home in winter whites, spring greens, or autumn splendor.

i love how lake superior stones change color when they are kissed by the water.

i love listening to the wind through the pines, the yip-yip-yip of coyotes, the chirp of crickets in the swamp, the prehistoric cry of sandhill cranes.

i love the pink rose petal carpet beneath my mom’s rose bush, browned butter ferns and squirrel tracks in the snow.

i love how blueberry bushes turn crimson in autumn & a single drop of rain sends ripples across a pond.

i love that gnarly apple trees produce a sweet sweet fruit.

i love the yellow larvae in the fallen wasp nest, translucent winged dragonflies, the tiny pink & white cosmos in my grandparents’ back yard, dew on a spider web.

i love the blue jays at the bird feeder, the polka-dotted ladybug on the screen door and the delicate-limbed hornet on the lip of my mug of vinegar & honey water.

i love how the woods down the road are carpeted in yellow every spring.

i love watching autumn leaves dance in the wind, fox cubs playing like puppies, geese flying overhead, waves crashing on the shore.

i love how purple thistles remain long after the first frost, leaves float lazily to the ground in autumn and grains of sand look like miniature jewels as they fall from my hand.

i love feathery cirrus clouds & puffy cirrocumulus clouds.

i love the tiny brown bird wading in the green algae at the edge of the lake who had a thin beak that was longer than his head.

i love the crunch of dry leaves, the plop of a turtle as it drops into the lake, the roar of the waves, the rain on the roof.

i love when blue sky meets blue water, when the world is silent & white after a heavy snowfall and when clumsy yellow bumblebees sip nectar from wildflowers.

i love purple lilacs in my blue mason jar.

to me, nature is magic.

it’s no wonder i believe in magic.

magic is all around me.