Greetings :)
I began writing this Substack a little over a year ago now, and I shared one of my favorite tales early on. It was an encounter with a Lynx on 2/24/2020, that defied a normal wild animal experience. Only a handful of folks read the piece as my subscriber list was quite small yet. I’d like to share it again as I added a couple of videos and some edits to the original writing.
Also, at the beginning of 2025, I decided to embark on a gratitude project for myself, something I’ve been paying a great deal of attention to for the last few years. The Notes section here seemed a good place to do it and everyday I go through my digital photos to see which one/s spark that gratefulness within. I then post that pic with a little description of why it’s Cultivating an Attitude of Gratitude. This helps me two-fold, one it is a gratitude practice, and two, it helps me go through and delete some of the over 59,000 photos I have stored—mostly of plants, nature, my kids and the dogs!
Today is what I fondly call Lynx Day. What I discovered this morning (while going through today’s photos) is that three years prior, I had taken pictures of some prints that I didn’t recognize…it’s quite possible that back on February 24, 2017, I’d also encountered—but didn’t realize at the time—Lynx.
2017 was the year I quit drinking alcohol. 2020 was the year of…well, we all have our experiences of that time-frame. We ended up uprooting and moving south due to the events of 2020/21. So, both Lynx occurrences have preceded a drastic shift in consciousness, for me anyway.
Now that there are over 300 subscribers to Archaic Joy’s Substack (THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!), I wanted to share the story once more….
Here’s the link to the Lynx Day story—they are such a magical creature:
PS: Thanks for being here and reading these Nature Writings.
It’s what I’ve wanted to do for a long time :)
This story reminds me of when my family had to move to Wyoming for work. The boys were still young and they acclimated to the new situation, but for me it was a hard move. Left my grandmother and friends. The weather in Wyoming was hard, the wind blew all day every day, a lot of snow and my husband would get sent out of town and I would have to deal with it. I did make some good friends we still know today, and the schools were great (no church influence), but I never felt at home there. We did move back to Idaho after six years because of work again and I promised to never complain about the wind again. It does blow here but I’ve kept my promise and have come to appreciate it. I’m so glad you are a part of my life, you have made my son very happy and you have given me two beautiful grandchildren that are smart and very loving. I’m hoping someday you will feel at peace and come to love this beautiful area. Love you
Congratulations on one year here! I am so happy you followed your passion and are sharing your experiences with us here 💚🎉
Also, what a great idea about the photos and gratitude post. I imagine it also helps process past emotions which may need a bit more attention.