The First Day of Spring to those of us in the Northern Hemisphere. To everything there is a season: To renewal and procreation. To life force and fertility. To dancing and feasting. To plowing and sowing. To nest-building and mating rituals. To emergence and blooming. To warm winds and refreshing rains.
Reprinting a perennial favourite. The act of walking is one of the great exercises, but walking can also be moving meditation or a stimulus to mental activity. Walking is true magic, a transformer of body mind and soul.
It's tempting to look outside ourselves for answers to life's big questions. If we could just read a book or go to a seminar to discover our true purpose, it would make things so much easier. While the answers that others have found may inspire you, ultimately you have to answer life's big questions for yourself. A personal journal is the perfect place to begin figuring out your hopes, dreams, and visions.
When I look at all the wisdom surrounding me today, I find so much that strikes a resonant note within. Sometimes it inspires me; sometimes it gives me comfort; sometimes it guides me to a decision or action. Whatever my response, I wish to keep many of those thoughts for easy future reference.
Have you ever really watched a small child play, preferably one who had not yet bought into parental messages of values? Give them a box, a few pieces of wood, a blanket, a pot and watch their imaginations go and grow. You don't always know what will emerge next from their fertile imaginations. They see and think things our adult eyes are blind to.
One month characterizes Spring within its 31 days: March, the unpredictable month, "in like a lion, out like a lamb" -- or the other way around. Not only changes from in and out but, for most areas of North America, extreme changes in a matter of days.
Did you ever feel, by winter's end, that the walls are closing in on you? That your rooms seem more claustrophobic? Perhaps what you are feeling is not a symptom of cabin fever, but a call for spring cleaning. More precisely it can be an internal call for decluttering your home of unneeded stuff.
At the age of seventy-eight, in a moment of whimsey, Benjamin Franklin wrote An Economical Project, a discourse on the thrift of natural versus artificial lighting. Over two centuries later, nations around the world use a variation of his concept now known as Daylight Savings Time to conserve energy and more fully enjoy the benefits of daylight.
April showers are more than just a poetic choice of words to rhyme with flowers. You see, April is a transitional month in much of North America in the character of precipitation.
In the Lakota culture, the phrase mitaku oyasin conveys a sacred bond between humans and other animals that can be translated into English as all my relations. Author Susan Chernak McElroy uses the phrase as title for her book All My Relations: Living with Animals As Teachers and Healers which shows us the roles animals have played in the author's life as teachers and healers.
I have often used the technique of cropping a picture to focus on the central point or theme of the photograph, to eliminate the extraneous and distracting elements. I had no idea that the technique could be applied to one's possessions with similar success.
More so than in recent years, I have been bitten by the gardening bug. But, when is it safe to plant outdoors? The answer may lie with the Dogwood tree.
Stress, we all have it. Some of us have it more than others. Stress can drain the body of energy, depress the immune system, create states of disease and rob the mind of focus.Too much stress is definitely not a good thing. So, in this stress-filled world, how can we best find relief? It may sound funny but laughter is the number one prescription for stress relief.
This is a link to Dr Kathleen Jenks' marvelous page on the Spring Equinox and Spring season as seen through the myths and customs of peoples around the world. The page includes links to the many Spring festivals of people around the world. Its illustrations alone are worth the visit.
Each year, Spring begins to migrate northward along the eastern/Atlantic regions of North America from the ever-warm reaches of south Florida to the Canadian Maritime Provinces, eastern Quebec and New England. While the media appear to want Spring to start "on the dot" with the Equinox, nature does not work that way. Studies have established that Spring migrates northward along the coast of eastern North America at about 27 kilometres per day (17 miles per day) at sea-level.
Breathing is energizing. When the air is clean, the lungs strong, and the body relaxed, the body can develop to its peak potential, acquiring a greater sense of power and balance, awareness and mental sharpness. When the rhythm is right, all is in harmony. Deep and rhythmic breathing will assist our bodies to heal, promote relaxation and improve mental and emotional functioning.
A companion piece for Breathing the Air giving an energizing breathing exercise. Good times to do this exercise is in the morning upon rising and at night before going to bed. In the morning, it is a good energizer to start the day. Before bed, it helps to relax you.
I have been practising the Art of Napping since I was a newborn so I have a lot of experience — over half a century at last count. I was a kid napper until my teens when I truly began to perfect the art. I can proudly proclaim I am a napper.
I have recently added many of my lifetime collection of photographs and art works to an on-line shop where you can purchase notecards, posters, and greeting cards, etc. of my best images.
