Every day there are surprises, things we didn’t expect, events which we didn’t imagine. Some seem like miracles, many astonish or amaze us. Others strike us because they are synchronicities.
Some of them are obstacles, demanding we change direction, follow a diversion, or that we adapt.
Over the course of a lifetime we don’t follow a straight path. Looking back isn’t like looking at the wake behind a ship. A life is full of twists and turns.
These events, these adaptations, they shape us and they shape our lives. Whether we think of life as a journey or a story, every one of us is unique, and not one of us grows an identical life to another.
In every event we connect with others, and with the environment. As we interact we exchange atoms, energies and information which sculpt both ourselves and the others into these unique shapes.
These trees are over two hundred years old, and every twist and turn developed from their daily encounters…..and that’s what makes them so amazing, so unique and so beautiful.
I love to walk amongst trees. It’s good for my body and my mind. It changes my breathing, my heart rate and my day. It amazes me to be so close to creatures which have lived for hundreds of years.
We didn’t just appear on this planet one day independent of all others.
We didn’t grow up all by ourselves.
We don’t survive separate from everyone and everything else.
Within all the vast networks in which we live there are two absolutely essential ones. Nature – we are embedded within nature. There are no absolute boundaries between us and all of Life. And, other people. We are fundamentally social creatures. None of us would have made it past the first few days, first few hours, of life, without others. We need to be cared for, just as we need to care for others.
Our society privileges the idea of objects and individuals but maybe we should focus more on connections and relationships, seeing what we have in common, seeing the bonds of mutual benefit.
It’s my experience that it’s normal to be kind, to offer assistance, and to smile. It’s normal to want to share experiences with others. It’s normal to realise we have much in common with every other person and every other living being on this one, shared, small, finite planet.
This one is just across the other side of the road from where I live now.
After four decades working as a doctor in the Scottish NHS I retired and emigrated to France. I live in a small village where neighbours gather spontaneously to chat in the street. My French language skill has improved enormously over the last ten years but I still study it every day, read French magazines and books, and take every opportunity I can to speak.
I decided many years ago I’d like to spend part of my life living in a different country, immersing myself in a different culture and language, and it feels, undoubtedly a good move. We humans don’t stay still. We grow. We develop. We change. We adapt and we explore.
I am sorry to witness the extent of anti-immigration narratives around the world, to see the huge increase in rules and administrative hurdles as countries build walls instead of bridges.
But I am happy that’s not my personal, daily experience. Everywhere I go I get a warm, friendly welcome.
The other big part of my experience now is closeness to Nature. We have a big garden, some of it a very small forest. It was all badly neglected but we’ve been opening it up to sunlight, planting flowers and vegetables and caring for it again. I encounter more birds, wildlife, trees and plants on a daily basis than I’ve ever done before.
The “source” across the road fills with clear, clear water which, I’m assured, makes its way here underground from the mountains of the Massif Central. It flows out of the pool into stone channels built by the Romans. This was a crossing point for the Romans, for pilgrims, and for Celts and Gauls before them.
I was born and raised in Stirling, an ancient market town with a castle overlooking the main bridge over the River Forth. The town was a crossing point where north met south and east met west.
I feel that parallel deep in my soul….connecting me to a life of encounters, of meetings and relationships between diversely different people.
We are all unique, and there’s nothing more enriching, more fulfilling, than making connections, building bridges, sharing, and understanding……
We all need to know there are these crossing points, these “sources” in our lives where we connect the past to the present, where we encounter “the other”, human and other than human, and find our lives enriched in the process.
La source, for me, is the physical manifestation of flow….the flow of Life, of time and change, of encounters and connections.
I welcome constructive criticism and suggestions. I will not, however, tolerate abuse, rudeness or negativity, whether it is directed at me or other people. It has no place here. ANYONE making nasty comments will be banned.
Heroes Not Zombies 