The success of recovery is in discovery
Look for the extraordinary in the ordinary
Smile
This is the second line of my personal mantra. One thing is for sure, if we are looking for the extraordinary around us we don’t have to look too far.
There are a few basic rules that will aid and abet us on this journey e.g. a) try to look at the world through the eyes of a child b) come to realise that when we look at nature around us it will always deliver if we look closely enough and c) Try to take on a mantle of awe, excitement and wonder when looking, as believe me you will never be bored.
There are many examples of this available to us on a daily basis if only we take the time – as the great poet William H Davies says to look and stare.
What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.
We all have great personal favourites and I am going to share a few of my own. We have a dog at home called Maxie.
She is of the collie breed, a typical farmyard dog and she is very special to us. I am always fascinated by the way she can sense the postman coming.
Now the postman is a lovely man and is only going about his daily business, but before he has rounded the corner (nearly 300 yards away bytheway) it is nearly like world war 3 erupting in our house.
She (Maxie!) goes absolutely ‘bananas’ – yelping and howling. It puzzles me greatly a) Is she defending her territory from invasion ? b) is there some sort of energy field around her that one must not enter ? and c) has my dog certain powers that I never could possible attain too in that she can know exactly what is going on even when things are out of sight?
Otherwise she is the most placid of dogs – I could go on and on and notice I haven’t yet even mentioned what would happen should a cat approach.
I suppose studying these happenings has put me in awe of nature in general. Going to visit the local woods and listening to the cacophony of sounds coming from the birds, appreciating the beautiful smells emanating from fresh wild garlic and lavender.
A walk on the local beach will always deliver. One of my special treats is a long walk on the beautiful Banna strand going back towards the Black Rock.
One can see the village of Ballyheigue in the distance, and the beach never looks the same on any given two days.
There is the sound of the sea, the waves crashing or the tide lapping against the sand and of course the most fabulous unique salty aroma of the air that can only be appreciated at the seaside.
I often listen to the ocean, its wondrous repetitive sounds that come in harmony to my ears and suck up the clean air and appreciate the high quality of this same air as it has been filtered across 5,000 miles of ocean and that I am the first human to breath it in its absolutely pure freshest form since it left America. How lucky we are to live by the sea.
I am also fascinated watching the birds flock in formation in the distance. How do they decide who is the leader, what shape are they going to take up, how do they know when to move in time or what direction to take?
Yet they all seem to move in unison with a certain type of order and with a definite rhythm. They ebb and flow and each bird seems to know what the bird next to him is doing and how far apart to remain from each other in perfect army formation.
They take up aerodynamic forms that the pelotons in The Tour De France would be proud of!! How they do this will never cease to fascinate me ! Nature Rocks.
Next week I am going to write about ‘Smile’
