Take a minute, slow down, breathe deeply and watch this beautiful time lapse video of a blooming rose.
Everything is blooming most recklessly; if it were voices instead of colors, there would be an unbelievable shrieking into the heart of the night. ~Rainer Maria Rilke
I took some flower pics for fun this morning. I’m still struggling with the whole balance thing, I always feel like I should be doing chores or only taking the kind of iStock photos that sell well. I wonder if it’s mostly an American problem, always feeling like we need to be doing something that will make money or accomplish some kind of work related goal? We do tend to be a workaholic society. Why is it when we do something solely to feed our spirit we feel guilty, even though we know in our hearts that at the end of our lives we aren’t going to wish we had spent more time at the office or vacuuming the floors! Hmm, so I think I’ll take a me day today, do some creative stuff, read, meditate, maybe even watch the grass grow (really, I sprinkled grass seed this week outside my office window and it’s cool and rainy so it’s going to sprout any minute now!). But first, I should throw the wet towels in the dryer before they start growing mold, empty the dishwasher, clean off my messy desk…
Life is not a having and a getting, but a being and a becoming. ~Matthew Arnold
It is light that reveals, light that obscures, light that communicates. It is light I “listen” to. ~John Sexton
See other Wordless Wednesday participants here.
I haven’t paid much attention to Miley Cyrus or the whole Hannah Montana movement, but I came across this video of one of her new songs and really liked it. Good song, good message, and so far she seems to be a good kid who hasn’t been corrupted by the fame game (yet!). Another plus is it’s kind of uplifting, which I could really use. I’ve been dragging lately and I’m not sure why. I’m not sleeping great, having a lot of dumb, stress-filled dreams that seem to leave me more tired when I wake up than when I go to bed, overall I’m just feeling a bit gutted. Oh well, spring is right around the corner and it will probably do this body good to get outside and into the garden.
This weeks topic on Photo Friday is “isolation”.
Solitude is the profoundest fact of the human condition. Man is the only being who knows he is alone. ~ Octavio Paz
I always wanted a happy ending… Now I’ve learned, the hard way, that some poems don’t rhyme and some stories don’t have a clear beginning, middle and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it without knowing what’s going to happen next. Delicious ambiguity. ~Gilda Radner
See other Wordless Wednesday participants here…
My book club read Three Cups of Tea last month. It was a fascinating read, particularly now with the Middle East in the news so much. It’s the story of an ordinary man who begins an extraordinary journey with a simple goal, to build a school for boys and girls in a remote village in Pakistan. After a failed attempt at climbing K2, Greg Mortenson wandered into the rural village of Korphe where he was nursed back to health by the impoverished, but generous people of the tiny village. Before he left he asked to see the village school and was shocked to see children huddled outside, scratching their lessons into the cold dirt. He vowed to return and build them a school. Greg Mortenson has since become director of an international non-profit organization that has built 80 schools in Afghanistan and Pakistan that not only educate children, but also help promote peace and tolerance in a volatile region that has become the focus of the war on terror.
When I look into the eyes of the children in Pakistan and Afghanistan, I see the eyes of my own children full of wonder – and I hope that we each do our part to leave them a legacy of peace instead of the perpetual cycle of violence, war, terrorism, racism, exploitation and bigotry that we have yet to conquer. ~Greg Mortenson
When I was growing up, my mom often took on responsibility for two of her brothers who suffered from mental illness. My first trip to New York City was to visit one of those uncles on Staten Island in the hospital. I remember riding the subway in the city, taking cabs for the first time, and skimming across a blue-green New York Harbor on the Staten Island Ferry with my mother at my side. It was all a grand adventure as far as I was concerned and it never occurred to me that my mom was under any stress; wondering what kind of shape she would find her beloved big brother in, being forced to talk to strange doctors and make arrangements to get him back to Michigan. My grandmother always turned to her youngest daughter for help when the shit hit the fan because Carol was the “strong” one, the one who could get things done. I was surprised while talking with my mom in later years when she mentioned going to the doctor to get a prescription for Valium before she had to go to court to commit her other ill brother to a mental hospital. I suppose that was one of those eye opening moments when I really looked at my mother as a person, not as an all-powerful and all-knowing parent.
One of the characters in my latest book makes the following statement while talking to a friend, “…and the thing about strength is, nobody faces a potential heartache and thinks, Hey bring it on, I’m ready. It just doesn’t work like that Susie. We do what we have to do when the people we love need us and it’s damn hard sometimes. I don’t really buy into that idea some people have more strength than others.” So I’m wondering if you agree with her, are there people who are by nature stronger than others, or are some people simply more willing to act despite their fear? And do we pay a price by acting when we are afraid, or do we gain strength?
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