Do you remember the last time you felt as light as a feather, and free as a little butterfly? Wasn’t it the breeze of inspiration that lifted you above the worries of the world? The magic of art in all its forms can do that to me.
Tag: flower
At the end of summer so many little funerals are held in the great church that is nature. Flowers die, leaves wear their ceremonial dress of color as they sway gently to face their inevitable end, grains are harvested and their stems left to dry and return to the earth. So yes, “everything returns to the source of its arising” and so will each one of us one day. But there is a glory in this cycle of life and death, of flowering and withering, of fulfilling a purpose and then gracefully passing the baton to another. Flowers blossom again, trees grow new leaves, all is renewed and if we are lucky and if we have done well then perhaps so are we.
Dwelling on the mysteries of life that never cease to flirt with my mind and my soul.
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Day Two Hundred Five, August 15, 2011
“Twinky doo, a fairy true, bathed in a light, most shimmering blue, on buttercups dance, think: can you?”
A song I once learned, and a fence that brought it out of my memories to shimmer on the surface of my mind…
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Day Two Hundred, August 10, 2011
Someone once said: “you are born alone, and you die alone”
True words that cannot be argued. We arrive here alone, fragile, bewildered. We depend on our parents our caregivers to help us get through the first years, we search for companions along the journey to take away our loneliness and in the very end we face the unknown completely alone. No one can hold our hand then after the departure gate. Knowing that makes me value the people who have a place in my life so much more…
photo: a lone flower at castle Gibralfaro, Malaga, Spain
They were once tiny seeds, placed inches below the ground in darkness and they were coded with one single purpose, to reach up towards the source of life, the yellow power, the great sun. So with a tremendous effort they pushed, over and over in one singular direction till they broke through the earth and came out into the light. Their will is something to learn from, their singularity of purpose and continuing relentless struggle is something to take on as a way of being towards success.
“when it is dark enough, you can see the stars” ~ Persian proverb
So simple, so true. Light a candle in the sunlight and you see nothing, light it on a dark night and it can illuminate you way. On a very grey, hot, humid day in Shanghai, I was walking the streets as usual and everything looked dark, dull, colorless with a thick almost black blanket of clouds covering the city. Then I saw a flash of bright color, and it was this bed of flowers that looked like it was lit up, on fire! And life is like this too. Every dark age the human race went through produce a new renaissance of art and vision. Every hard time we go through is packaged with its own ‘light at the end of tunnel’ next stage.
Nature is to most of us a place of peace and harmony. It is so because its laws are constant, reliable, reassuring. The sun rises every day, the moon keeps its regular cycle of waxing and waning, the seasons keep their repetitive cycle, the flowers keep blooming in the Spring and the bees keep coming back for their nectar.
This sense of harmony and rhythm is soothing, pacifying, pleasing to the human soul. When we are feeling a lack of harmony, a slow walk in the forest or in a garden has a magical way of realigning us and even helping us in our decision-making process. Much I feel has to do with a slowing down that happens which allows us to be in synch with nature.
So a walk in the woods~ it can reveal so much when done at the right speed and with the right intentions.
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Day Eighty One, April 13, 2011
Spring is finally here in full swing! I love the first days of Spring when you open your windows and the mild breeze rushes in to caress your face. It feels like a time of renewal, new growth, blossoming trees, flowers popping up in multicolor everywhere you look. It is a time to put away the gloom of winter and to jump forward into a new bright adventure!
I loved watching this Chinese lady today in the French Concession contemplating the gardens from behind her half open window and wondered what her story might be.
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Day Seventy Six, April 8, 2011
This morning Spring was filling the air, the weather felt finally mild enough to leave heavy jackets behind and the sun was shining.
She decided to dress herself for school as she often now loves to do. And out she emerged looking like a jar of jelly beans 🙂
But I could not blame here, the trees were behaving in the same bizarre manner.