Grandmother Cottonwood, evening sunlight

A of Ames Iowa wants to know;

Q. How can we invite more people to lie under your shade, to play around your trunk instead of being so tethered to technology?

A. What do you want for your yourself and your children? Rootedness in their place in the magnificent web of creation? A heart felt connection to the pulse of the planet, happy hours, soul satisfying hours spent climbing and communing with tree spirits, blowing grasses, blooming violets, jewel like birds, rushing waters, crawling creatures going about their business letting life flow through them, never questioning their place, knowing they belong to the magnificent ball of metal, rock and earth that is held together by the energies of pure love? This is the gift you give your children when you let them play outside, and to yourself when you “unplug” and let nature teach, soothe and refresh you.

The 2 legged one has heard over and over that technology is now an integral part of children’s lives. Is this so because you want it to be so? If you do not want it to be so, then find a new way. Use new words, use your power of choice.

When you plop a shiny blinking thing in a child’s field of vision, it sucks up all the attention; all the focus; forces their brain onto a narrow band which many humans prize above all else. Is this what you want? They do not realize the enormity, the vastness of all that is lost when the brain is focused in such a way for long stretches of time. You are in danger of making yourselves small, of building little boxes that shut out the universe inside each of you for the sake of mass addiction to the newest shiny thing.

Play outside more. Leave the shiny things with screens inside. Use them only at certain times of the day. Open your awareness to the song that life sings through you that is vastly larger and more complex and fascinating and soul satisfying than anything you can buy in a store.