Curves. I like curves. I made a post a while back where it seems nature uses so many curves in it’s design. Plants are a prime example. After a light breakfast this morning, and because I ate way to much last night, I sat outside in the morning sun visiting with an elderly man and his wife. Across from me was this planter where the green plant’s curves caught my attention. I came back later to take this image. It has a pleasing contrast and love that curve.
We finish up tonight so I will be home the next two days. Will try to catch up on stuff around the apartment. We also had major corporate news yesterday with our company and want to see how all that plays out.
I ate dinner the other night with a young man who is questioning the career direction in his life. I would love to say just the right words and help guide him along but those words don’t always seem to come. I do listen and ask questions, hoping those questions will help. While reflecting back over our conversation this morning, I realize seeking a career is not what I’m focused on at this time in my life. Do we need to have a career or as the case is now a days, multiple careers? Why do we pursue careers? Are we seeking the monetary gain or the status? How many of us define ourselves by our careers? We tell others we are an engineer, a teacher, policeman, a doctor, etc. At the root of all this is the realization I was always looking for a career that would give my something. I really wanted to have the money, the title, the unnecessary material goods. I expected a career to make me into someone and it never could.
Maybe a career is more about what I can offer to benefit the world rather than what I can gain.These simple daises pictured above, have so much to offer this world in such a short lifetime. They will sprout, grow, blossom and then decompose as part of the process to nurture the next generation. They are not trying to be a rose or a lily. They will blow in the wind as if waving to us, calling our attention to the beauty around us. Maybe that’s what a career is all about.
A couple days a go I wrote about the dominance of the color green in nature. Well nature is also dominated with curves. I do admit to enjoying the curves you find sunbathing along beaches :-), but nature has that beat. Let’s just say nature is into curves. You just do not find many straight lines in nature. While, man, on the other hand designs and builds with straight lines. Even the framing of this images is done with straight lines. What we may consider a straight line in these leaves still has a curve to them.
So, when we walk in nature do we take notice of those curves?
Some days I need and want extra therapy. There are those mornings when I need to take a little longer to stretch my muscles as the body ages. Or maybe the brain is fried, things seem fuzzy, disoriented, no energy or motivation. When mornings like this happen it’s time to head for one of the parks nearby with camera in hand. The sounds, smells, and of course the beauty of nature will invigorate the mind and body. Nature is a healer and teacher in my life. I’ll call it Nature Therapy.
I sure don’t sing very well. Practice would probably help but I doubt I could make a living at it. I would most likely loose a few friends if I sang too often. I also do not listen to much music since the radio in my car and my home stereo went “kaput.” I have an iphone but have not music on it. The music I enjoy at this place and time in life is sounds of nature: wind as it blows through trees, birds sining their morning song, water flowing in a stream, leaves crunching under foot, rain falling and even the quiet of snowfall.
But there is another enjoyable music in my life. I find at times while riding in my car or on a walk, that a song will rise up inside me and my spirit will quietly sing. There are those songs from the past, stored in my memory, that rise up and every once in a while a newly created song will flow forth. So when my spirit wants to sing, I do. It’s music from within, not from my ipod.
My profession is always to be alert, to find God in nature, to know God’s lurking places, to attend to all the oratorios and the operas in nature. Henrey David Thoreau
