Me, on a holler walk. I'm standing within the area I observe for Nature's Notebook. [selfie]
Cathie Bird
I'm a semi-retired psychoanalytic psychotherapist in eastern Tennessee.
I write about psychoanalysis, nature, science, social justice, subtle energy fields and subtle activism. I’m especially interested in edges, spaces and places where all of these fields intersect.
At HollerPhenology, I focus on stories about plants and animals that live in my neighborhood, a forested hollow in the headwater reaches of the Cumberland River. As an observer in the National Phenology Network, I'm especially interested in life cycles of species that live here, and often write about the changes I see across the years and seasons.
My interest in nature goes way back. I spent my earliest years on a farm in the Flint Hills region of Kansas and played in fields and along the banks of the Republican River. During the summer I often spent time with my grandparents in northwestern Boulder County, Colorado. All of these environments -- and the amazing varieties of plant and animal life within them -- inspired my choice to become a naturalist. I studied conservation at Ohio State University, then transferred to Michigan State University for my junior and senior years. There I enrolled in the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources with a major in Parks and Recreation Administration and a focus in environmental interpretation. For two summers before graduation, I worked as a seasonal Ranger/Naturalist at Wind Cave National Park, Hot Springs, SD.
After graduation with a BSc in 1970, I got married and moved to Allenspark, Colorado. I continued to do both volunteer and paid seasonal work at Rocky Mountain National Park, including one summer as an environmental education specialist with the Youth Conservation Corps, one summer on a resources crew doing restoration work following the Ouzel Fire, and one season as a park technician assigned to park campgrounds.
In 1989, I decided to switch gears toward a master's degree in psychology with a focus in contemplative psychotherapy at the Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado. After 17 years work in community mental health and private practice, I now consider myself semi-retired, doing some reading, blogging, and volunteering as an observer with the USA-National Phenology Network's Nature's Notebook project. This latter activity led to creation of my HollerPhenology blog.
Interests: psychoanalysis, social and environmental justice, civil and human rights, indigenous rights, earth and life sciences, personal and planetary transformation, nature photography, Qigong, jazz, blues, other life in this solar system (and beyond).
Banner Images: The life cycle of an apple tree gives me awesome photo ops: buds, new leaves, flowers, developing fruit, maturing apples. [photos by cathie bird]
