Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.
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Leaf Warrior
A Naif in the Forest by Darrell Berger Wing Tips to Hiking Boots: Musings of a New, Full-Time Poconos Resident Winter’s snow has been replaced by the leaf blanket of early spring. In previous years, I raked leaves from our driveway and the few flowerbeds we determinedly carved from the mountain shale. Now we have…
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Don’t Eat the Wolfsbane
A Naif in the Forest by Darrell Berger Wing Tips to Hiking Boots: Musings of a New, Full-Time Poconos Resident “The wolfsbane should be coming up soon,” my wife said. “You planted wolfsbane? That is so cool!” I replied. I was fascinated by vampires, zombies and werewolves as a boy. Wolfsbane is well known to…
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A Tree of War and Peace
A Naif in the Forest by Darrell Berger Wing Tips to Hiking Boots: Musings of a New, Full-Time Poconos Resident When countless trees were felled by last winter’s high winds, this tree was the one we watched. Our house would be significantly demolished if it toppled toward us. It did not. It seems to be…
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Bearly Present
A Naif in the Forest by Darrell Berger Wing Tips to Hiking Boots: Musings of a New, Full-Time Poconos Resident Was winter finally breaking? My wife said, “We should think about taking down the bird feeders this weekend.” The anxious interval between bear arousal and the final retreat of the snow was upon us. We…
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This Land is My Land
A Naif in the Forest by Darrell Berger Wing Tips to Hiking Boots: Musings of a New, Full-Time Poconos Resident The finch turns from gold to gray, leaves from green to red and orange, moss fades, the ground itself wears a white blanket then throws it off. The bright, pink plastic ribbon around the tree…
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Sometimes Gold Returns
A Naif in the Forest by Darrell Berger Wing Tips to Hiking Boots: Musings of a New, Full-Time Poconos Resident When March arrived without a trace of spring, I began to look for subtler signs. I found some on the golden yellow of the pine siskin, applied as an accenting coat, streaked randomly along tail…
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Zen Woodsman
A Naif in the Forest by Darrell Berger Wing Tips to Hiking Boots: Musings of a New, Full-Time Poconos Resident Two cords of wood are stacked under our deck. This will get us through the winter and into the fall. Having enough firewood is a comfort. The delivery truck backed up our driveway, an impressive…
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Earth Tones
A Naif in the Forest by Darrell Berger Wing Tips to Hiking Boots: Musings of a New, Full-Time Poconos Resident While driving home from the city last week, I noticed that the recent thaw allowed a rare winter landscape in colors other than white. The mountains glowed with rich browns, bright yellows and deep greens.…
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High Water Mark
A Naif in the Forest by Darrell Berger Wing Tips to Hiking Boots: Musings of a New, Full-Time Poconos Resident This is Hornbeck’s Creek near my part of the forest, the day the temperature reached the mid-60’s. Three days before my thermometer registered -8. I’ve never experienced a more than seventy-degree change within three days. …
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Why did the Egret Cross the Road?
A Naif in the Forest by Darrell Berger Wing Tips to Hiking Boots: Musings of a New, Full-Time Poconos Resident Last week the Naif in the Forest was the Naif in Florida, but fear not, I have returned in time for the sub-zero weather. While basking in the very rainy but sixty degree grayness which…
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