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Special

March 14, 2021 by bobleckridge

“Special” – there’s a difficult word – when someone claims they are special they might be claiming that they are the exception which should be respected – that they don’t need to follow the same rules as the rest of the community. This “exceptionalism” is the root of a lot of trouble in the world. The danger with “special” is that others are seen as “not special”.

But I am a great fan of this word, and I think we fail to grasp it enough. This Robin is special to me. He lives in “my garden”. I see him almost every day. We know that Robins are territorial birds and I don’t ever, ever see a flock of Robins in my garden. I can’t be sure that the Robin I see today is the exact same Robin that I saw yesterday, but I assume he is. There are other birds like this near me. There’s a “Little Owl” who lives under the roof of my neighbour’s barn. He often sits on the roof at dusk and watches me as I close the wooden shutters over the windows of the house. He doesn’t fly away when he sees me. I’ve become familiar to him. You could say that we have become special to each other. There’s also a Redstart which returns to this garden every Spring and flies away for the Winter. We have had several back and forth whistling conversations together, the Redstart and I, and when I hear his call again in the Spring I know that Winter is over. When my grand-daughter hears him she says “There’s your friend, grandpa”.

In “The Little Prince”, the boy claims that his rose is “special”, that she is different from all the other roses. He cares for her more than he does for all the other roses. And there’s the key – what makes that one rose special is the attention and time he has invested in her, watering her, protecting her from the grazing sheep, and so on. It’s the time, attention, and emotional investment which makes this rose genuinely “special” for him.

I think everyone is “special”, and contrary to what I wrote above about exceptionalism, in my experience, in the consulting room, one to one, with patient after patient, I found that it was way, way too common for people to fail to realise just how special they are. In fact, they might have been bombarded with messages which have said the exact opposite for years – “you are nothing”, “you are worthless”, “you don’t matter”.

Those messages are cruel and they are wrong.

Every single human being is special, in the sense that they are unique. There are no two of us with identical bodies and minds, no two of us born in identical places, at identical times, to identical families. There are no two of us with identical life stories. In all my four decades of work as a doctor I never heard the same life story twice.

“Special” works when we embrace the paradox of “special” with humility. But there’s something else, and it comes back to what makes us unique – what makes us unique is our connections. Not our differences. I am not special because I am different from everyone else. I am special because of the particular, vast, complex web of connections and relationships that I have, that I’ve had, and that I will have.

One more thing to add here – love.

It’s not just our relationships which make both you and I special. It’s the relationships which we invest with love and care which make both you and I special.

Have you ever noticed that? Just like The Little Prince, the more we care, the more we love, the more compassion we have, the more special others become.

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The heart is the key

March 13, 2021 by bobleckridge

Do you know what I like most about this photo?

The heart shape is carved into the keystone.

Without the keystone, the entire structure will collapse. The bridge can’t exist without the keystone. What are our keystones? We, human beings? What are the keystones without which we cannot exist?

Well, actually, I’m simplifying things already, aren’t I? Because you can’t reduce the entire existence of a single human being, let alone the entire human species, to a single structure. In reality there are many essential “keystones” in a life.

But I still like this concept of the keystone. It’s kind of a declaration of a priority. It highlights something so important that life would be utterly different without it.

And this keystone has a symbol of a heart carved into it. So, here’s something to consider today –

What if we recognise that our heart, our way of “seeing with the heart”, our “heart felt emotions”, our “heart felt values”, should be the keystone in our life?

Without going into all the science of affective neurology, of neural networks within the human body, of the intricate and elaborate connections between the heart, the brain and the rest of the body, I just want to focus today on how we support, nurture and develop the heart……the heart-centred way of living.

Well, we know the heart is healthy (and I don’t just mean working well as a pump) when it is in harmony, when the “heart rate variability” hits a certain sweet spot. And we know that this sweet spot is associated with certain emotions and certain experiences. Specifically, joy, awe, wonder, and love. Whether you look at the work of someone like Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, who describes flow states from a psychological perspective, someone like Dan Siegel, who teaches about achieving a state of integration, or The Heartmath Institute, which focuses on heart rate variability, you will discover what experiences and behaviours are associated with a healthy heart.

If we put the following to the fore –

  • love
  • joy
  • kindness
  • compassion
  • gratitude
  • wonder
  • awe

then we are creating the opportunities to build healthier and better lives, for ourselves, for loved ones, for others, and for the entire planet.

It’s not everything, there’s a lot more we can do, but if we create the intentions every day to exhibit, to practice and to experience love, joy, kindness, compassion, gratitude, wonder and awe, then we will build a really powerful, strong keystone – a heart-centred keystone.

You might say, but, hey, I can’t experience all of those every day, and you’ll be right, but I’d be surprised if you can’t choose to express, and/or discover at least one of these, every single day. I mean, why not give it a go? Why not take it as one of those “30 day challenge” exercises? How about making a chart and recording each day which of the ones you have expressed or experienced?

Maybe something like this ……….

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Kindness

March 12, 2021 by bobleckridge

Ever since I saw this door with its heart shaped hole (presumably a “peep hole” to see who is knocking at the door?) I’ve really liked it. It got me thinking how this shape, this powerful symbol, right there on the front door, might influence the lives of those who come across it every single day. It also made me wonder about whether or not it led the residents of this house to see the world through the lens of the heart – and as Saint-Éxupery wrote in “The Little Prince”, “It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye”.

Of course there is a lot in that simple little phrase, but the meaning I’m reflecting on today is the power of the heart to shape our best thoughts, our best ideas, our best behaviours. The heart, it transpires, is not a simple mechanical pump pushing blood around the circulatory system. Around the heart is a network of specialised nerve cells – neurones – the kind you find in the brain. It seems that this “neural network” around the heart acts more to send information to the brain, than it does to respond to information from the brain. Just stop and think about that for a moment. We tend to have the idea that we do our thinking, our imagining and our feeling in our brains. But it’s not that simple. We also do a good deal of our mental work with the heart. Actually, there are other neural networks in the body too, and the reality is that the “mind” is an “embodied” phenomenon. The division of a person into “body” and “mind” is a tad artificial!

It seems the heart is especially involved in creating some of our emotions and in harmonising the diverse elements of our being. By that last phrase I mean, one of the things the heart is good at doing is producing “integration” of our entire complex being…..of producing “resonance” within ourselves, and between ourselves and others – yes, it actually sends out detectable energy waves beyond the body…..in rhythms which can influence the rhythms of those around us.

It turns out that the “symbolism” of the loving heart is rooted in biological, physical reality.

The truth is acting with love, wonder, generosity, gratitude and kindness is something that is really good for our health. When we approach others and the world from the heart-felt position of care and compassion then we increase the healthy resonances within ourselves and between ourselves and others.

So, that’s partly why I return again and again to the role of kindness. Can’t we use that more as a tool for living? Can’t we use it more to improve our own lives and those of others? How about we use that as the main touchstone? How about we ask ourselves, of our own actions and words, as well asking of others and even of governments and organisations, “how much kindness does this spread?”

Because I reckon whatever we do, think or believe that diminishes kindness harms us, and harms every other living being. In fact, I believe it harms “Gaia” – the living Earth. Conversely, when we come across the stories of cruelty, injustice, neglect, or violence in the world and we wonder “what can I do to make things better?”, then, one thing (obviously not the ONLY thing) we can do, is try to act, to speak and even to think with more kindness…..to live in better harmony with our hearts.

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Isolation

March 11, 2021 by bobleckridge

Look at this guy! All alone, out there on the tip of the rocky outcrop. Not another soul in sight. Bliss!

Or is it?

There are times when life gets too busy. Times when we are packed onto trains, buses, planes. Times we are standing in queues surrounding by dozens of other people talking, shouting, pushing and shoving. And we just think – of, if only I could be all alone!

Well, it’s not been much like for many of us this last twelve months, has it? Gone are the commutes, the overcrowded bars and shops, the slow moving queues, the hustle and bustle, and now we are in our homes for way more of the time than we’ve been before.

In isolation, or “lockdown”, or “confinement”, we have been separated out. Socially distanced. Physically distanced. Is this bliss? Probably not.

We are social creatures, we humans. We have evolved a highly social brain which connects us to others. We have longings, desires, needs to be with others…..socially, physically, emotionally.

You’ve probably had the experience during this last year of contacting people you haven’t heard from in years. Or people you haven’t heard from in years have contacted you. You’re probably having more conversations on the phone, on video calls, and using messaging services like WhatsApp and Messenger. You’re maybe participating more on social media – which, strangely, is sometimes terribly anti-social!

The thing is we need both. We need time to ourselves, time we can relax, be at peace, perhaps meditate or exercise or just chill. With no interruptions, no demands and no stress. But we also need time to connect, to say “hello”, to ask how others are doing, to express ourselves, to be heard and to listen.

I know you might think it’s a matter of balance, but that’s a tricky concept isn’t it? Because a balance point isn’t likely to be found by scheduling in a set number of minutes for alone time and a set number for social time. That’s because the quality of life isn’t found in numbers of minutes. It’s found in the experiences….in the level of attention and awareness…..in the emotional landscape which emerges during an experience – love, joy, play, awe – all add quality to our lives. Whereas anxiety, fear and anger tend to feel not so good (even though these emotions are definitely an essential part of being human).

I wonder what comes next? Have we left behind the days of “over-tourism” in cities like Barcelona, Edinburgh and Prague? Have we become averse to crowds? If you’ve been working from home during this pandemic, are you looking forward to getting back into an office block? Are you looking forward to an hour or so of commuting to and fro again? Or are you longing to throw yourself into crowds of fans at a concert, or to pack a dance floor?

I don’t know, and the answer will be different for each of us. But, for a time anyway, I suspect we might be just a wee bit more aware than we’ve been for a long time. We might make more conscious decisions. And that, if it happens, will be one of the lessons we’ve learned from this pandemic.

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Improvising

March 10, 2021 by bobleckridge

I’ve only been sailing a couple times but I do think there are real life lessons we can learn from a photo like this.

First of all, life can seem full of threats like those rather scary, dangerous rocks. In this era of the pandemic that seems especially true and I wonder how our children are going to be as they grow up – they are having to wear masks, wash and/or gel their hands, get regular tests at school to see they are “germ free”, and are being taught that every physical contact is a potential threat – don’t hug! Don’t kiss! Don’t even stand too close!

Secondly, rocks are often much more of a hazard than they appear – we can see what’s above the water, but what lies hidden beneath? Which makes me think of viruses again – after all, we can never see them, and in fact the evidence for the effectiveness of things like wearing masks, social distancing, lockdowns and all such “non-pharmaceutical” interventions is disturbingly scant – by which I mean, not that they might be really helpful, but that we actually don’t know!

Thirdly, as a boat sails close to the rocks the pilot has to be aware of the currents and tides – because it’s not just the presence of the rocks which is a threat, but the potential for the water flows to push your boat onto them. Which reminds me that what we call threats are rarely fixed, often can’t be generalised and always need to be considered in their relevant contexts. Currents and tides change all the time…..and so does life.

Fourthly, I used this photo at the beginning of the pandemic to write about how it has always been a soothing image for me. Ever since I took it I look at it and I feel calm. It pleases me. But when I used it at the start of the pandemic, somehow I noticed the rocks as a threat for the first time. And here I am again, talking about how this image makes me think of potential threats. I guess this pandemic has changed us all. It’s certainly altered the lens through which we view the world.

Finally, I think sailing is a great metaphor for life. You can’t just plot your starting point and your destination and head off in a clear straight line from the one to the other. Nope, life will go much better if we stay aware and responsive. Sure, it’s good to have an idea of where you want to go….even to make preparations for the journey, hoping to anticipate what you’ll need and how you will deal with potential obstacles. But this is what life does – it throws up the unexpected. It surprises us again and again….which should be obvious really because the future is “emergent” – it comes into being from the combination of the past and the present – it’s not sitting there waiting for us to discover it. That’s a basic principle of complexity science – that the future is unpredictable in specific circumstances – that is, we can make broad generalised predictions – like about weather or climate – but we can’t predict accurately about specifics – the weather predictions get less accurate and reliable the further ahead you look.

So, if life isn’t fixed, then we can make certain preparations and plans but we always need to be awake and aware…..stumbling through life in zombie mode doesn’t strike me as the best option! And we need to be awake so that we can change direction, be flexible, adapt, depending on what we encounter. It turns out that improvisation and creative responsive solutions to problems and obstacles is what we need……every bit as much, if not more, than we need “goals”and “plans”!

Here’s the strange thing – at first this image was a calming image for me, then at the start of the pandemic it turned into a metaphor of threat, but, now I find it has become a positive image of improvisation and adaptation. Well, well, I wonder what kind of image it will be for me this time next year??

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Diversity – revealing uniqueness

March 9, 2021 by bobleckridge

The truth is that every single flower is unique. There are no two flowers which share identical lives.

We have a tendency in our way of thinking which is dominated by how our left hemisphere engages with the world – it’s a tendency towards abstraction, labelling and categorisation. In other words we reduce whatever we encounter to a small range of characteristics or elements, consider them separately from their contexts and relationships to all else, label them and pop them into categories. So we can look at a meadow like this and identify, say, four different species of flowers. The trouble is, do we then just see only four species of flowers?

Maybe you think that doesn’t matter, and the thing is, most of the time, it doesn’t. We don’t need to know the life story of each individual flower. But the trouble is we extend that habit too widely. A good gardener tends their plants as individuals, noting how each one is growing, which ones are struggling, and so on, and dealing with any problems as they appear. We engage with domestic animals the same, naming them, learning their habits, characteristics and quirks. When a pet dies we feel grief which can’t be eased by “just buy another [cat] [dog] [rabbit] or whatever”.

In “The Little Prince” he talks about his rose which he says is not like all the other roses because he has spent so much time and attention looking after it….he’s developed a “bond” with it, a special and unique relationship. He’s right. When we create a meaningful relationship with an other, be that another person, another animal, another plant, then we appreciate their uniqueness, their irreplaceability.

Noticing diversity is a good way to remind ourselves that no two organisms are the same….no two trees, no two flowers, no two pets, no two people. When we become aware of diversity and see the individual as unique we can form a personal, meaningful, deeper, and richer relationship. That makes life richer.

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The beauty of diversity

March 8, 2021 by bobleckridge

I suspect “beauty is in the eye of the beholder” is not the last word on beauty, but I don’t deny that there is a subjective element to beauty. What I find beautiful, you might not, and vice versa. So here’s my invitation to you – tell me, or show me, what you find beautiful and I’ll share with you what I find beautiful.

Today, I came across this photo of a tiled roof in a village in Southern France. This is a very typical roof for this part of the world. I find it beautiful. I’m sure there are many reasons why, but I want to pick out and explore just one of them today – diversity.

What I see whenever I look at a roof like this is that the tiles are all different. As opposed, of course, to them all looking identical. I love how they are different colours and shades. I love how some of them have lichens growing on them, and some don’t. I love how they are not all the same size (they are pretty much the same size but it isn’t exact) and I love how they sort of fit in a higgley-piggedly way!

In other words the characteristic which I find so beautiful about these roofs is that the tiles are so diverse.

Diversity is beautiful.

Nature loves diversity. Left alone you don’t get permanent mono-cultures in Nature. Instead you get the display of vast networks of relationships between widely diverse elements, all of which contribute to the success, to the survival and the flourishing, of the whole.

I also love diversity even in tiles because it gives them more “character” – you can distinguish one individual from another. I like that more that factory produced, machine made, production line sameness – don’t “mono-culture” and “mono-tony” have the same root? Isn’t that maybe why I an averse to “mono-polies”?

I’m not a fan of imposed conformity, of the industrial, capitalist age of mass production and mass consumption. I love to see artisans at work here in France…..people with a lifetime of skill, learned by daily practice over years, taught by the most skilled ancestors and passed on to enthusiastic younger generations. I saw a great initiative in France recently where a small town invited two groups of people to a local building every Wednesday – retired people with a skill (an iron worker, a woman who used to sew for a fashion house, a stained glass worker, and others), and children aged about 12 years old. The children were learning these practical skills from these now retired skilled workers during their regular Wednesday time off from regular schooling. Both the retired skilled craftspeople and the children were loving it – it brought joy and meaning into their lives. It also connected the generations and gave both groups a different view of the other generation. Yes, it’s very small scale. There were only a handful of people in each group. But I don’t think that should put us off. Something doesn’t have to be “mass” and “standardised” to be successful. There’s nothing to stop any community taking this idea and fashioning it into their own practical project.

In my local town of Cognac there are several “Boulangeries” (Bakers) and they are ALL different. They might all include a core range of similar products, including baguettes and croissants, for example, but they all do it differently. Each baker has his or her own skill and experience, own strengths and weaknesses, and I know which one to go to for different types of bread, which make the croissants the way I enjoy them, and which make the best patisserie (like eclairs, and other cakes). Here’s the thing – I don’t buy all those different products in the same boulangerie. Yes, I know, you might prefer the “convenience” of a standardised, one stop shop, and that’s your right to enjoy that. But for me, acquiring this local knowledge then using it to find just what I want, when I want, enriches my life.

Diversity – it’s beautiful and enriching.

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Twists and turns of an evolving world

March 7, 2021 by bobleckridge

We change all the time. The world changes all the time. Nothing is fixed or, so called, “permanent”. I thought about that when I received my residency card here in France recently. I’ve been given what is called a “Carte de Sejour Permanente” – a permanent residency card. That’s me sorted, you might think. Then I notice that it expires in ten years time. Do they know something I don’t? Well, no, thank goodness, it’s just that permanent seems to last ten years in this instance.

That did get me thinking about the whole concept of permanent. Which isn’t something I’ve explored all that much. I have wondered for a long time about the concept of “now” – which is a period of time when we instantly recognise but is devilishly difficult to pin down or define. I mean the moment you think “this is now”, that moment has slipped away into the past and been replaced by an entirely new “now”! But back to “permanent” – I guess we just use this wonder to mean a fairly longish piece of time – in relation to geology we might be talking thousands of years, and in relation to the universe perhaps billions, but, in every single case, we discover that nothing is fixed, nothing really does retain the same, exact features and characteristics (cripes, even the same molecules!) for ever. It’s just the speed of change which alters.

Yet, in our own lives, things happen, and after they’ve happened nothing ever seems the same again. Like you can see in this image of a tree that I’ve shared above. This tree has the most dramatic change of direction which has completely changed its shape forever….ok, for the rest of its life then. And when I see a “lesion” like this I immediately wonder “What happened?” I used to have the same approach with patients in the consulting room. They might come with a problem which had gone on for decades and I always asked them to think back to the time when they felt completely well, then to tell me about the appearance of the first symptoms. That naturally led on to a discussion about what was happening in their life around the time of the big change. I don’t think there’s any way to prove cause and effect in such a scenario but I found it helpful to take the position of “Let’s imagine that what was happening then was significant in bringing about what happened next” That seemed to open the way to a new understanding of illness, it’s significance and possible meaning, which gave a patient the opportunity to change their way of dealing with it to something more helpful, something which might even open the doors to growth and development.

In that sense I think that the events of our lives change us. The most significant events change us dramatically and for the rest of our lives. Death of a loved one, giving birth, serious trauma……you know the kind of thing. All of that, for the individual concerned leaves a permanent change – it can’t be erased. But the way forward with that is learning to create different responses from the ones which have trapped us in suffering. In other words, we can’t change the past, but we can change the way the past impacts on us by choosing to respond differently.

This pandemic is going to change us all……has already changed us all. There won’t be any “return to normal” even if many people desire that…..and nor should there be. Because this event is an opportunity for us, individually and collectively, to reflect, ask ourselves what we were doing that might have contributed to the particular experiences of the pandemic and what we might do differently now to not end up in the same place again.

We have a chance now to reassess our values, our beliefs and our behaviours. To change our priorities, to demand change in our economic, political and social systems. I hope we do that. We’ll all remember 2020. I hope we remember it as the year which led the world to take a different direction.

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Facing the world

March 6, 2021 by bobleckridge

At Otagi Nenbutsu-ji outside of Kyoto, there is an extraordinary display of sculptures – read more about them here. They are all small figures, but the emphasis is on the faces. Each one was created by a different person, so each one is completely unique. You can see several of them if you click on the link in the first sentence of this post.

This particular one has a gorgeous expression. What does this convey to you? To me, it conveys delight, happiness, contentment, and a certain open hearted, loving sense of wonder. I know, I know, what we experience is an interplay that emerges from the connection between ourselves and whatever we have engaged with, so a lot of what this conveys to me comes from personal disposition and preferences. But that’s just how life is. You can’t take your subjective reality out of your daily experience!

What effect does this expression have one you? Because it does have an effect. It calms me. It soothes me. It stirs feelings of love and kindness in my heart. And as those emotions start to flow, they will change the complex balance of chemicals in my body, boosting my immune system and calming down my inflammatory system. Isn’t that amazing? I can change the chemical status of my “inner environment” and so my state of health by what I choose to engage with.

We do this all the time. Subconsciously for the most part, but we do it all the same. Our inner state, and our wellbeing, change constantly in response to the signals and triggers we encounter every day, and according to our own reaction and response patterns and habits. We can become more aware of them, and when we do, we can move more of our lives from react-mode to response-mode which frees us up from living in auto-pilot, or what I call “zombie living”. That lets us become more autonomous, more able to develop new patterns of response, and, yes, even reaction. More able to develop new behaviours, new habits, and new patterns of thought.

That’s the first thing I wanted to share with you when I looked at this image again today, but there’s something else too.

As we walk around our every day world there is one face we don’t see – our own. OK, we can see the mirror image of our face (which isn’t what other people see) and we can see photos of ourselves (look how many selfies people take nowadays!) so we do have opportunities to be able to see our faces. But we have to stop what we are doing and change our expressions to do both of those things. We can’t see the “live view” which other people have…..the expressions on our faces when we meet them, when we converse with them, when we engage with them.

Yet, look again at this image – it’s clear, isn’t it, that the facial expression has an effect on you? Well, that’s true of you as well. Your facial expression is having an effect on everyone who sees it. So, I wonder, what kind of effect do you want to have on other people? What kinds of responses and changes within them do you think might occur when they see the expression on your face?

I’ve said before that we can’t not influence the world we live in. We change it moment by moment by our breath, by our movement, by our actions and behaviours, whether we choose them consciously or not. But here’s another way we influence the world we live in – through our facial expressions.

Of course we can’t go about our lives consciously fashioning particular facial expressions all the time, but when we spend part of each day generating feelings of love, kindness, gratitude and wonder, then that will all play out in our faces, and we will literally radiate those vibes.

In contrast, when we spend a lot of our day in fear and anger then……guess what? That reminds me of the old story about the hungry wolves inside us.

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The sacred and the enchanting

March 5, 2021 by bobleckridge

I’ve been fortunate to have had the chance to visit Japan on a number of occasions. One of the things I always loved to do there was to visit temples and shrines (if I understand it correctly there are buddhist temples are shinto shrines). I’m not a Buddhist and I know only a bare amount about Shinto but I found these places to be what some would call “sacred” places. They feel sacred because they feel special, they stir something inside which surpasses wonder and appreciation of beauty. They are amongst those places in the world where the boundary between the material world and the spiritual world seems thin. I have had similar experiences in stone circles in Scotland, and in the cloisters of old monasteries in southern Europe.

What makes a place a sacred space? For you, I mean. What places in the world have you had experiences of stepping into somewhere enchanting, somewhere which stirs energies deep within you?

This photo is of a particular part of a particular place, but I want to focus on it today because every time I return to this image it calms me, it soothes me, it draws me out of myself and into a deeper connection with the whole. Let me just draw your attention to the elements (which I think are repeated in some form again and again in these Japanese temples and shrines).

There is running water. I do think this is a key element – not that you need running water to make a place sacred but in the context of these Japanese places it seems to be essential, and I love it. I love that the running water isn’t dramatic and showy like so many huge city centre fountains in France and Italy (although I must say I DO like those fountains too!). I like how it really demonstrates a continuous flow. It seems to me that this is the basis of all Life – continuous, always changing, but somehow also always constant, flow. We understand water so poorly, yet without it nothing of what we know would exist.

There are rocks and often one or more of them form a basin for the water to pour into. The rocks have age, they bring the past into the present, and they expand the range of time available to us as we stand in front of them. Have you ever stopped to wonder where rocks come from? Well, that’s a whole other story, but a truly fascinating one.

Lying on the rock are two strips of bamboo which are bound together to create a rest for the bamboo ladle. The ladle is used to scoop out some water and pour it over your hands…..a ritualised cleansing. I wonder if all religions have this element? This use of water to “cleanse” as part of a spiritual experience?

There is also a small sprig of flowers……Japanese flower arranging creates great beauty by simple and sparse combinations of plants. It inspires both wonder and delight. But the flower isn’t the only plant there…..there’s also moss. Now, moss has a particular special place in Japanese gardens and spiritual places. It’s revered in ways I haven’t encountered anywhere else in the world. Are there other cultures which revere moss? I would say it’s my encounters with moss in Japanese gardens and temples which completely changed my opinion of it. I love it now. I only saw its beauty once I had encountered it in places where it was revered. Isn’t that interesting?

This image still works for me, and I hope it brings you some delight and joy as well.

Here are my leaving thoughts – What places feel special this way for you? Do you have photographs of them? Did you paint them? Or write about them? How might you create such a special place for yourself? What elements would you like to include? And, don’t you think your life could be enriched by encounters with such places?

Posted in art, creativity, from the dark room, from the living room, life, perception, personal growth, philosophy, photography, psychology | 2 Comments »

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