Wildness

I've been looking back through my photos and I've noticed a pattern:

 they are almost exclusively of nature, and within that they are often 'empty' landscapes, with no people or man made structures visible...

They often feature trees...

...and water...

...especially showing reflections.

But I also notice that there is a bleakness, a sense of sadness even.

Maybe I need some reflection of my own....

This too shall pass...

Sitting huddled around the fire, with doors and curtains closed to keep in the warmth it feels like midwinter.

We are sat reading in the dusk like light despite the clock telling us it's nearly lunchtime. It should feel comforting but I am unsettled, impatient. My body clock, like that of the world around me, knows that the days are lengthening.

I wake earlier now, with the morning light but as yet have only felt the pull to rise and enjoy the morning sunshine on a handful of occasions.

There are seedling everywhere, close to me, protected by the same warmth instead of spreading out as they should.They like me are on pause.

And yet I can't rid myself of the feeling

 that there is a reason for this slowness-

that I am waiting, like the winter scene outside....

and I remind myself whilst watching and waiting that...

"Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished." Lao Tzu

Connection to Nature

I have spent some time this month with children and adults who only see the world in contrast-black and white, good and bad, day and night. It made me think about how my view has changed over the years, the journey I am on that has helped me to see that life is a continuum and that those two sides don't exist, if I choose not to take them. That there is only blend, or flow, a continuous cycle of energy.

I have been helped on my journey by spending more time in nature. 

As a child I was always outside, exploring and creating, immersed in the world around me.

But as a young adult I moved away from the natural world and became a smaller me, 

less of who I was and more of what others thought I should be. 

Then my children arrived, and I saw the world anew, 

I saw the sky above us as we lay on the ground together, wondering at the enormity of the universe.

And the world turned with us lying there, and I felt the connection, the awe,

and again felt immersed in the cycle. 

Realisation dawning that those events that I had thought of as bad, or wrong, were crucial in determining who I was and although they had undeniably changed me, I was still continuing to grow....