Tag: Nature

A blank canvas to start the year

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My beautiful sister

Lost hatwinter 2014 IMG_2253sms winterwinter_Poland dancing in the snow“I wonder if the snow loves the trees and fields, that it kisses them so gently? And then it covers them up snug, you know, with a white quilt; and perhaps it says “Go to sleep, darlings, till the summer comes again.”
― Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass

These photographs were taken during my stay in Poland. A day before our flight back to the UK snow began to fall. I was thrilled. I had what I waited for and I’ve captured our little walk around my dad’s orchard above. I think that it was in my childhood that I have somehow persuaded myself that the snow needs to fall for the new year to begin. It’s as if a blank sheet was put on my old scribbled paper and I am now allowed to start again…. with lungs full of refreshing air.

Waiting for change

toddler among apple treesSometimes we look for winter and we find autumn. Forced to take a step back. Forced to revisit what has happened before. Disappointed that the past is actually the present. Disappointed that things do not change quickly enough. But the past is never fruitless.The past can still give more…

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This life, that hour

“Happiness, knowledge, not in another place, but this place, not for another hour, but this hour.”

– Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass

Finding yourself

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“The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.” ~Mahatma Gandhi

Experiencing freedom

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It’s terribly difficult (or maybe even impossible) to learn or taste freedom if we stay indoors. Freedom is born through movement and exploration, through distance and a change of focus. Freedom often comes from having the time to be on your own, from having the time and space that doesn’t involve any sort of control, neither us being controlled or us controlling others. Nature is perfect for this. Perhaps it is its total acceptance of us that is so liberating. We can simply run, poke a stick in the sand and chase the butterflies. No internet connection will break, no adverts will try and sell things to us and no message will leave us disturbed for the whole morning. Those things all stay indoors.

I need to keep on reminding myself that it’s the time outside that guarantees the experience of freedom and makes for a healthy and happy family. You too?

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reconnect with nature