Katrina Martich

In A Sand County Almanac, Aldo Leopold wrote about land not as something you stand on or own, but rather as a place created by a living community. This month Living Connected is focusing on creation’s gift of land and the home places it provides for us. Notice Stand (or sit) outside your home for 15 minutes. Slowly turn around for a 365 degree look at every living being in the place – people, other animals, and plants. Who do you see? Close your eyes – what do you hear, feel

I live on a collector street for my neighborhood, which means I’m continuously picking up litter from the street and my yard. Mostly it’s drink bottles and fast-food waste. I first assumed it was all discarded by people walking to the bus stops or tossed out car windows. Then, I kept finding some things over and over again, week after week, like cigarillo wrappers and single-serve Chardonnay bottles. I began to wonder if these were from my neighbors. I got a surprise answer t

John O’Donohue was a priest and philosophical theologian from County Clare, Ireland. His faith was influenced by his Celtic heritage and included the belief in God’s presence everywhere within creation. This doesn’t mean trees, rocks, water, and other natural features are literally God. Rather, the spiritual quality of these things reveals and connects us to God. A place where someone feels particularly close to the Divine is known as a thin place, where the boundary between

I’m a lazy gardener. “Gardener” is not even the correct term for what I do, which is mostly puttering. I check on plants to see how they’re doing and tend to the ones that need a little care. I find a bare spot and add a plant or two. I look for signs of new creatures and wonder what I can change in the yard to meet their needs. Mostly, it’s all an excuse to be outside and reconnect with nature. My laissez faire yard care results in plants getting a bit unruly before I weed,

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about names. It started when I was walking along a creek and noticed the difference in my perspective when I wondered “who” was in the creek, instead of “what” was in the creek. The perspective of “who” caused me to be aware of the living nature of the plants, animals, even the flowing creek itself, and my relationship with them. Around the same time that I was having these thoughts, I read an essay about the Spokane River called “What Is the N

My first of the month blog posts are dedicated to the practice of Living Connected. Plants are the focus of our practice for July 2021. Notice Go for a walk and see the plants where you live. Find trees, bushes, or potted plants. Look specifically for survivor plants. They persevere in challenging places: cracks in pavement, between buildings, and other fissures of our constructed world. Study one plant closely. Notice the pattern, form, and direction of its branches and leav

What does it mean to resist even when you know you can’t overcome injustice? I heard this question last week while part of a group discussion of systemic racism. It’s been lingering in my mind, as I wrestle with what I’m called to do for ecological justice. I frequently hear a related question when I talk with people about making changes in their lifestyle to live more justly and sustainably within the planet’s resources. They ask, why should I make sacrifices, when nothing I

My first of the month blog posts are dedicated to the practice of Living Connected. Soil is the focus of our practice for June 2021. Notice Take a hand trowel or sturdy spoon outside and find some bare ground. Put your hands on the ground. Feel the firmness of the soil surface, bearing the load of all we place on it. Dig a few inches into the ground and use your hands to play with the soil. Notice its colors, textures, moistness, and maybe even scent! Celebrate the nourishmen

Where do you go for retreat and renewal? I seek out natural areas. Unlike the built environment of people, where I just feel “small,” the breadth and depth of life in natural areas cause me to feel a small part of something large and wonderful, something humming with the energy of a Divine life source. The place that gives me retreat and renewal where I currently live is the Fort Worth Nature Center and Refuge. The nature center is often busy, but the refuge’s trails are ligh

Land, and its importance to people, is an ancient story. In its simplest definition, land is the dry ground on which we stand. It’s the image we have from the creation stories in Hebrew scripture; when, in the beginning, God gathers the waters into one place and the dry land appears (Gen 1:9). But land is so much more than dry ground. Land is the source of the food that sustains us and the goods that fill our houses. Land makes fortunes for people and may determine who does a

Much of the U.S. is in record-setting cold and snow as I write this blog post. Birds who migrated to my area of Texas for winter are now coping with several inches of snow on the ground. It’s been a hard winter for birds, starting with a mass die-off of migrating birds in October. An early snowstorm did them in, but researchers found the cause of death to be long-term starvation due to declines in insect populations, which left the migrating birds unable to withstand the snow

A study by the Pew Research Center indicates about three-quarters of adults in the U.S. are concerned about protecting the environment; however, only one-in-five act on this concern in their daily lives. These results are consistent with my observations working as an environmental engineer and in eco-justice ministry. As a people, we care about the environment in a general sense. At the same time, environmental crises don’t seem as urgent as the other daily issues we face. I’

“I don’t have time for this!” I wanted to yell, as I stood at the kitchen counter tearing an egg carton apart, so I could put it in the compost pile. I was severely tempted to throw the carton into the trash and be done with it. We were headed out of town the next day. I had what seemed like a million things to do before leaving. What difference would one carton make? Instead, I took a few deep breaths and discovered ripping apart the carton was a great way to diffuse the fru

Why aren’t you talking about climate change? More than any other question I’m asked, people want to know why I don’t keep climate change front and center in all I do. If you look at my work, climate change is mentioned or included somewhere in almost everything. However, people are right to say it’s not the primary focus. That’s intentional. Both NOAA and NASA state there is scientific consensus that climate change is happening and is “extremely likely due to human activities

Many people are aware of the invasive boa constrictors that threaten native ecosystems in Florida, but did you know we have a native boa constrictor in our country? I didn’t until I recently encountered one at Turnbull National Wildlife Refuge. It’s the snake in the photo accompanying this blog post. My spouse and I were slowly driving the refuge’s auto loop, looking for wildlife, when he stopped the car and said he’d seen a snake. Last he saw, the snake was heading under our

The pandemic is prompting many conversations about the common good versus individual rights. The tension between these two is ages old. In the ancient Greek text, Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle considers the two perspectives, as he reflects on the virtue of individual flourishing versus the flourishing of a nation or city-state (Book I, Part 2). Later, in Book IX, Part 6, he comments on what happens to community when people focus too little on the common endeavor: “they aim a

At the most basic level, we eat for the same reasons we breathe and drink – to survive. But eating is so much more than mere survival. We use food to celebrate and to console. We share meals to share time and stories with friends and family. At its best, food is an essential part of creating community. It’s why eating alone can be uncomfortable. At some level, it feels like something is missing. Eating is so much a part of being human, in being a creature of this world, that

Tyson Foods recently warned, “the food supply chain is breaking.” I agree, but probably not for the same reasons. Anyone who has read Upton Sinclair’s novel, The Jungle, knows the meat packing industry has a problematic history in the US. The book played a role in passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906. Food safety was not Sinclair’s goal. In an interview for Cosmopolitan Magazine, published under the title What Life Means to Me, Sinclair states that he failed in his g

I live in a state where the lieutenant governor suggested grandparents should be willing to expose themselves to, and if necessary, die from coronavirus, so their grandchildren will not suffer economic hardship. Like me, you may have heard friends echo the lieutenant governor’s sentiment or considered it yourself. His statement is almost a month old, and yet, I think the statement is still relevant, as we approach the 50th celebration of Earth Day on April 22nd. The first Ear

Gene Stratton-Porter was an amazing woman. I recently read about her in a Smithsonian magazine article. She lived in northeast Indiana from her birth in 1863 until she moved to California in 1919. Stratton-Porter was what we now call a naturalist. She spent time outside, observing and developing a understanding of the ways physical geography, plants, and animals interact. The Limberlost swamp was she where spent her days, and she was dismayed to see it drained for agriculture