Gratitude, Nature and Plant-Based Foods
How being thankful interconnects and heals us and why we need compassion and empathy
Hello, Happy Thanksgiving and Welcome to Wildlands.
Thank you, to the Cherokee Nation for sharing thankful. In honor of National Native American Heritage Month, and the U.S. White House Proclamation, I AM U-LI-HE-LI-TSA-TI for healthy, whole-plant foods, friends, family, animals, nature, being of service, and for you!
Gratitude not only makes us feel better in the moment, it rewires our brain for resilience. Increasing emotional well-being helps us handle stress with clarity and calmness, and reduces anxiety and depression. Gratitude helps us re-frame our experiences so that we can restore/ re-story self.
Discovering and exploring ways to form new pathways and connections with our communities is gratifying. Just like any muscle that gets stronger with use, the brain, body, and acts of generosity, must also be worked.
Be grateful, give back— use it or lose it!
An attitude of gratitude improves the quality of sleep, helps to maintain healthy blood pressure, and increases self-compassion and self-esteem. What’s good for the heart, is good for the brain, the gut, the spirit and the soil. We are interconnected. Together, we thrive. I AM Nature, We are Nature.
Thank someone, reflect on your gratitude, and appreciate the small things. Gratitude improves health, well-being, strengthens our immune system and increases our resilience.
Let’s explore nature.
If the soils can regenerate forests, waters and air, then we can be a piece of the peace, and restor-e ourselves into magical, prosperous ecosystems.
Living by the ethics of reciprocity, or the law of reciprocity, also called The Golden Rule, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” Many great beings have shared this moral, ethical, fact in religions, government and education systems for millenia.
Woodlands, farmlands and mycorrhizal networks are interconnected.
Let’s discover wildlife.
The critters wanted to share their homes with you. They are too injured to return to the wild and will live in unnatural enclosures for the rest of their lives due to habitat loss, collisions with vehicles, trapping, feeding, abandoned fishing gear, poisons, and other human catastrophes that harm. I share some photos of the Bald eagles, Red fox, Turkey vultures, a Red-tailed hawk, and a Great Horned owl that I help care for—and, not in the photos, I also help care for bobcats, rodents, reptiles, corvids, and other raptors and mammals.
What can we do to improve life for the forests, soils, waters, air, food, animals and humans?
Do we hear their pleas and act accordingly with compassion and empathy?
Let’s discover food and nutrition, health and well-being.
Based on Animal Charity Evaluators, 3% of the world population has a plant-based diet.
It is estimated that each person saves, at minimum, 105 vertebrates per year with a plant-based diet.
I work with animals and advocate for their homes and for them. For 40 years, my minimalist, simple lifestyle has included a whole food, plant-based diet.
“Based primarily on data from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), which seems to err on the conservative side,” according to Animal Charity Evaluators. Their estimations reflect that I have helped save more than 4,200 animals so far, with my dietary choices. (105 x 40= 4,200)
“Many Americans believe turkey was part of the original harvest meal served in October 1621, but that is historically inaccurate. The average turkey raised worldwide lives for a handful of months. In 2021, Nearly 601 Million Turkeys Were Killed Around the World, according to FAO/Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. That figure changes by the minute, and to keep abreast of the consequences of factory farming stats, check out these Kill Clock figures.”
Join me, and let’s reduce harm. It’s as easy as:
1. Wildlands shows you how to save, at minimum, 105 animals annually, right from your own home. Join me to #save105!
2. Let’s unite for biota rights! Let’s allow each other to interconnect, nourish and give thanks for All.
3. Life is interconnected. Let’s pause and reflect on what and for whom we are grateful, and, give thanks for those who trail blazed, farmed and built our Country.
I am a nature nomad who lives in three ecosystems per year. For the last two years, I have been living out of two small suitcases, pioneering through challenging times. Our home is in month 34 of what we were told would be less than 4 month remodel, and it puts me out of my comfort zone and my home. And, I am separated by some of my family, including my partner. Thankfully, he is supportive of my mission and is living his dream, too.
Wildlands shares health and well-being, interconnection and resilience stories, and sometimes includes art, advocacy and simple, healthy plant-based recipes.
I shop at my local Co-Op — and share the photos to represent my Thanksgiving and my meals.
How to find and support farmers, farmer’s markets and Co-ops near you— see these resources:
Find Co-ops, and,
Eat seasonally, support locally. Vote with your dollars and let’s shift paradigms and engage in power to the people!
Let’s explore plant-based food ideas for YOU.
I am pleased to share photos of my feast: local and regional mushrooms, squash, sprouts, potatoes, and tomatoes. Broccoli, spinach, kale, red cabbage, legumes, beans, dates, and nutritional yeast- oh my!
Making whole food, plant-based meals helps me to connect with self, others, nature and the Universe.
Wildlands shares compassion and empathy ideas for YOU.
Call, visit and/ or send a card through U.S. mail to someone.
Volunteer for a cause you love. Your porpoise is calling. Be Love in Action.
Pay it forward. Never underestimate your power to make the world a better place.
Join Wildlands and see why my work is inspiring others and called, “important, generous and brilliant!” Let’s Make Anima Mundi Great Again!
Please, reach out and connect with others! We never know what others are dealing with— and, we know our personal lives and our struggles. Kindness to a stranger, neighbor, enemy, teacher, loved one, an elderly person, a child, an animal, a lake, or a forest is always valuable action. I’ve spent many hours while hiking in the desert and forests, and while kayaking, picking up after those with careless habits and leave plastic bottles and food wrappers in their footsteps for others to clean, haul out and fix problems.
Do good deeds as much as possible. Love your family, friends, flora and fauna…the biota.
Holidays are hard for many, especially after the loss of a loved one. Contact an elderly person, or anyone, for that matter. We invite and include someone (or more than one person) who does not have a place to go for the holidays to join us for a meal and celebration.
In honor of all ancestors, family and friends, All Blessings to you. I ask you,
How do we increase collaboration to reduce harm? How do we shift paradigms? How do we Be Love in Action? Wildlands shares how to transform self and systems!
In honor of National Veterans and Military Families Month and the U.S. White House Proclamation, thank you for your service!
In honor of my father, I’m sharing his Army photo and an Army Thanksgiving menu from the early 1960’s. My family lost our beloved dad five years ago. His humorous, beautiful, compassionate, generous soul loved animals and nature. He loved to make people laugh, and he was the life of the party. Our parents’ generation seemed more simple, basic and pure compared to our world today. I am pleased to announce that his photo will be on a 2025 Hometown Hero banner, in my hometown.
The original Hometown Heroes Banner program first ran in Harrisburg, PA in 2006.
Honoring family, community and being of service with others brings me joy and well-being and I welcome you to join me!
About Robin
When I see problems, I like to help fix them. I see ways to resiliency. Transformation is my department. Flora, fauna, food, farming and freedom are my health and wellness focus, and restoration-conservation is my purpose.
My health-well-being work includes experience in massage, energy work, communication, food, nutrition, teaching, landscape and home design and animal care. I’m a naturalist, artist, writer and a poet with a purpose. I help care for animals, and I am an outdoor writer and an advocate. My work is also helping to expose animal cruelty and corruption within animal organizations.
Reciprocity is exchange- our way of compensating for all that flora and fauna give us. Giving back expands nature and more than humans gratitude for us. Generosity of our hearts, minds and hands (actions, thoughts, words and deeds) give us compassionate, empathetic purpose- Restoring Soils and Souls is sustainable conservation. We are all a part of the biota. What we do to one, we do to ourselves.
My great grandfather was a farmer and friends with President Truman. My great aunt babysat President Truman’s daughter. Another ancestor fought in the American Revolution. My partner, a Physicist who is a Citizen of the Cherokee Nation and I now own farmland- land that has been in his family since 1902.
We would like to see the land and structures as a public park, with a Co-Op and small working farm, a farm to table restaraunt, meeting space, guest and retreat rooms, healing gardens, an animal sanctuary and more. We would like it to be named Cherokee Farms and Park. This is a life long dream and I will be sharing sketches from the late 1990’s and more in an upcoming essay and expose.
Please help leave a legacy of love. Be a part of restoration history and let’s dream to reality, support love in action with a paid subscription to Wildlands!
Gratitude, compassion, empathy for all species and being of service are uplifting, invigorating and rewarding.
“A Poet with a Purpose” as a Wild and Free Nature Nomad, my work is growing organically- through art, poetry, photos, research and essays on Wildlands and through Sustainable Tucson Habitat Restoration projects. I also present and speak at events and meetings.
Support flora, fauna, food, farming and freedom, health and well-being. Wildlands shares practical, fun and simple ways that nourish you and others.
I am blessed to work in an ancient forest, a dreamy desert, and luscious plains. And, I help care for wildlife. I am also blessed to create organic food and pollinator gardens in communities. I am teaming up with local and State leaders, and the public, to bring healthy food and habitats to communities.
Please join me and #getout. Get out of your comfort zone. Join me and a growing community of “misfits” who are transforming corruption, carelessness, and cruelty. We are rebel minds in ruff times. Let’s get the party started!
Each being is valuable, valued and interconnected with the Universe. Get out of your comfort zone, and #Unite. Join Wildlands, be in-joy with self and others.
Thank you to my paid subscribers, and to Emily Kaminsky of , , and all those who support the work and vision of Wildlands. And, thank you to the growing number of creators who recommend Wildlands! I AM grateful for Substack. I have envisioned a way for visionaries to help create healthy ecosystems for all beings and be valued for our efforts for years.
20% of each paid subscription and donation goes towards supporting healthy habitats and habits- which are choices.
Inner Reflections for YOU. Tell me:
1. What are you thank-full for in your life?
2. Would you like to help shift paradigms, increase collaboration and reduce harm?Join the efforts and learn how to restore healthy food, habitats, health and well-being in your community!
You are valuable, needed and I AM thank-full for you!
Please help me build a community of farmers, artists, small business owners, advocates and nature lovers! Let’s create a farm-park and sovereign societies! Together, we create a world of well-being with Regeneration Nation to restore soils and souls! Let’s nourish communities and each other and Make Anima Mundi Great Again!
We must listen to our bodies, and do what is right for self. Thank you for your comments, this has been a lively discussion! XX
From a new Wildlands Subscriber, "...you have a very beautiful and amazing write up. how do you come about such amazing write up? wow I love it." -ML
Thank you to all Wildland supporters! Together, we can transform trauma and reduce harm. Never under estimate the power of one person and the power of YOU!!