A week or two ago my mother passed along an email to me featuring a photo of some "snowballs" that strewn all across a snow covered field. I think the caption was something along the lines of the snow balls having been made by God. You could see tracks in the snow, where the balls of snow had rolled along and grown in size with the wind pushing them along. I had never heard of or seen spontaneous snow balls like that before.
This week it has been quite cold here, with a couple of all-day snow showers. One morning I had a meeting to go to, and when I went out to get in my Explorer I saw snow balls all over our yard and fields just as in the photo Mom sent ... what magic, and right in our backyard.
As I drove along I saw the snow balls everywhere. They were in yards and empty fields, even strewn all across the frozen river and a lake. As I drove along I imagined the fun of God, angels, fairies ... some sort of omnipotent or magical beings taking time out to make snow balls. It was almost as if someone or something had been in the midst of making a tremendous number of snowmen all at once, but was suddenly interrupted and had to stop and disappear, quick as a blink leaving their work half-done.
Of course, I know there is a perfectly good scientific, logical explanation for the snow balls lying about everywhere. Many apparently magical things can be explained away by science and logic, and that's just what happens when they are treated that way ... they go "away", poof. Where's the fun in that?
A child walks outside each day, and sees a world of possibilities in front of him ... magic everywhere. There's a leaf blowing along in the air, dancing around the corner of the house, a little girl follows and imagines the possibilities. Magic.
Ah, a stick. A boy picks it up and suddenly he is an Arabian knight fighting off ten armed bandits as he protects the King and a princess or two and earns a pot of gold. Magic. The stick is dropped and left behind when he sees a lizard squirming off through a bush. There he goes in a flash, pursuing what he hopes might become his next pocket pet who he might name George, Spot, or Zero. Magic.
They smile, giggle, laugh, cry, and stand in wide-eyed awe at simple little pieces of new knowledge which are giant building blocks of their intellect. Children look -- actually look -- right into mud puddles and see things tantalizing enough to keep their attention fixed for several minutes. When was the last time a mud puddle fascinated you?
They go along breathing magic into life as it unfolds before them, and the magic keeps them going.
Children possess an intuitive faith; that faith is the basis of the grace with which they view and experience life. I thought quite a lot about children as I drove toward my meeting, fascinated by magic snowballs lying about all over my world. Despite the knowledge of a perfectly good, scientific, and logical explanation for the snowballs I have the freedom to look at those snowballs and decide all on my own that they got there by magic. That is what I choose to believe, that belief is fun and I am at liberty to think any fun thought I choose to. So, I do.
I say those snowballs are magic, and so they are. Today, I plan on purposely looking for and finding ten absolutely normal, ordinary objects or scenes for which there is plenty of scientific evidence as to their origin and I plan on disagreeing with science and making my own decision that those things are in fact, magic regardless of the illusion of their being logically placed in the environment. I plan to do that because it is fun. Not only do I plan on deciding those things are magic, I also plan on imagining some very fantastic explanations as to how they came to be there.
Today, as on many days, I plan to experience my personal style of spiritual freedom, all in the playground of my own mind.
That's what I plan to do.
Care to join me?
Blu has joined in. He and I had a great time playing out in the yard this morning, running around while we visited the barn and the willow and the fields, and some new snowballs left by those extraordinary beings. You can see the fun in his face, the pure joy with which he greets life as he runs around in wild abandon. He is lithe as he runs circles around me, frisky from the cold. He laughs at me in my big fluffy coat and boots, all bundled up and unable to move around very well.
He has taken to the snow just as he took to the river. Look at his coat, he is pretty much naked out there in 20 degree weather, pink skin exposed on his underbelly. I dare say if I was out there in the yard all pink and exposed I would not be running around with a crazy, wild eyed smile on my face. I rejoice in his joy, and have a great deal of fun photographing him as he bounds and careens all over the grounds the way we should all be enjoying our lives.
Really, that is how we should be approaching our lives. The way a child or a dog does the moment they step outside, each and every day. Joy. Unsuppressed, unbridled jubilation at the thought of being alive and out of doors.
Who is to say we can't, any of us, decide to feel that way and then go about creating those feelings in ourselves. Regardless of "reality". I think we have been pushed into accepting far too many "realities" by others who are accepting those and other powerful "realities" ... and they tell us we must agree. We must believe, but believe in what? Believe in sourness, dourness, dryness, dullness, dreariness.
No. I say no.
I'm for joy. Unsuppressed, unbridled jubilation at the thought of ... what may be.
Didn't we all just get finished celebrating a season of joy to the world? Let's keep it going. What do you think, Blu?
By the way, take a look at my new hand knit hat (pattern available in my Etsy Store) ... can you see why I chose those colors?
~firefly
A week or two ago my mother passed along an email to me featuring a photo of some "snowballs" that strewn all across a snow covered field. I think the caption was something along the lines of the snow balls having been made by God. You could see tracks in the snow, where the balls of snow had rolled along and grown in size with the wind pushing them along. I had never heard of or seen spontaneous snow balls like that before.
This week it has been quite cold here, with a couple of all-day snow showers. One morning I had a meeting to go to, and when I went out to get in my Explorer I saw snow balls all over our yard and fields just as in the photo Mom sent ... what magic, and right in our backyard.
As I drove along I saw the snow balls everywhere. They were in yards and empty fields, even strewn all across the frozen river and a lake. As I drove along I imagined the fun of God, angels, fairies ... some sort of omnipotent or magical beings taking time out to make snow balls. It was almost as if someone or something had been in the midst of making a tremendous number of snowmen all at once, but was suddenly interrupted and had to stop and disappear, quick as a blink leaving their work half-done.
Of course, I know there is a perfectly good scientific, logical explanation for the snow balls lying about everywhere. Many apparently magical things can be explained away by science and logic, and that's just what happens when they are treated that way ... they go "away", poof. Where's the fun in that?
A child walks outside each day, and sees a world of possibilities in front of him ... magic everywhere. There's a leaf blowing along in the air, dancing around the corner of the house, a little girl follows and imagines the possibilities. Magic.
Ah, a stick. A boy picks it up and suddenly he is an Arabian knight fighting off ten armed bandits as he protects the King and a princess or two and earns a pot of gold. Magic. The stick is dropped and left behind when he sees a lizard squirming off through a bush. There he goes in a flash, pursuing what he hopes might become his next pocket pet who he might name George, Spot, or Zero. Magic.
They smile, giggle, laugh, cry, and stand in wide-eyed awe at simple little pieces of new knowledge which are giant building blocks of their intellect. Children look -- actually look -- right into mud puddles and see things tantalizing enough to keep their attention fixed for several minutes. When was the last time a mud puddle fascinated you?
They go along breathing magic into life as it unfolds before them, and the magic keeps them going.
Children possess an intuitive faith; that faith is the basis of the grace with which they view and experience life. I thought quite a lot about children as I drove toward my meeting, fascinated by magic snowballs lying about all over my world. Despite the knowledge of a perfectly good, scientific, and logical explanation for the snowballs I have the freedom to look at those snowballs and decide all on my own that they got there by magic. That is what I choose to believe, that belief is fun and I am at liberty to think any fun thought I choose to. So, I do.
I say those snowballs are magic, and so they are. Today, I plan on purposely looking for and finding ten absolutely normal, ordinary objects or scenes for which there is plenty of scientific evidence as to their origin and I plan on disagreeing with science and making my own decision that those things are in fact, magic regardless of the illusion of their being logically placed in the environment. I plan to do that because it is fun. Not only do I plan on deciding those things are magic, I also plan on imagining some very fantastic explanations as to how they came to be there.
Today, as on many days, I plan to experience my personal style of spiritual freedom, all in the playground of my own mind.
That's what I plan to do.
Care to join me?
Blu has joined in. He and I had a great time playing out in the yard this morning, running around while we visited the barn and the willow and the fields, and some new snowballs left by those extraordinary beings. You can see the fun in his face, the pure joy with which he greets life as he runs around in wild abandon. He is lithe as he runs circles around me, frisky from the cold. He laughs at me in my big fluffy coat and boots, all bundled up and unable to move around very well.
He has taken to the snow just as he took to the river. Look at his coat, he is pretty much naked out there in 20 degree weather, pink skin exposed on his underbelly. I dare say if I was out there in the yard all pink and exposed I would not be running around with a crazy, wild eyed smile on my face. I rejoice in his joy, and have a great deal of fun photographing him as he bounds and careens all over the grounds the way we should all be enjoying our lives.
Really, that is how we should be approaching our lives. The way a child or a dog does the moment they step outside, each and every day. Joy. Unsuppressed, unbridled jubilation at the thought of being alive and out of doors.
Who is to say we can't, any of us, decide to feel that way and then go about creating those feelings in ourselves. Regardless of "reality". I think we have been pushed into accepting far too many "realities" by others who are accepting those and other powerful "realities" ... and they tell us we must agree. We must believe, but believe in what? Believe in sourness, dourness, dryness, dullness, dreariness.
No. I say no.
I'm for joy. Unsuppressed, unbridled jubilation at the thought of ... what may be.
Didn't we all just get finished celebrating a season of joy to the world? Let's keep it going. What do you think, Blu?
By the way, take a look at my new hand knit hat (pattern available in my Etsy Store) ... can you see why I chose those colors?
~firefly