It’s amazing to see the kind of plaything a child loves and craves. For example, a big empty cardboard box. A little snip here and there and presto, a small house, or a store, or a spaceship.
Their imagination is so intense and vast and immediate – that it can go way beyond the “stuff” in front of them, and “grow” their own little world.
It was the end of fall, and we put out a pumpkin on the front steps for the squirrels to enjoy.
A large chubby squirrel came up and started eating it. He was not shy, or perhaps he was too awestruck by such a wonderful feast appearing for him out of the blue.
In any case, we slowly opened the front door so only the storm door, a full pane of glass, stood between us and him. We were one foot away as he continued to chew his way thru the pumpkin – to the point at which he was able to sit inside it and eat all around himself.
Listen to that sound
The sound of those waves hitting the shore
Just coming in
The coming out
Just The heavenly sounds
The planes now flying over head
The birds making a chirp
Think of all the noises we hear in a day
What kind of noises are we paying attention to
Are we listening to the children’s laughter
The breezes that hit our cheeks
The drops of rain that fall
All the things
That just hear nature at its finest
What are we paying attention to
What kind of chatter is going on in our mind
When my children were very young, we would play a game. They would smell spices, herbs, and other flavorings. The idea was not necessarily to know their names, but rather to become familiar with them directly, meeting them, letting them talk to the children.
Remarkably, many years later, I learned that this is how indigenous people would learn about healing plants – by meeting them and learning from them, rather than human experts.
The children really had definite opinions about each flavoring.
One of my earliest memories is playing in a sandbox with my brother. It had a striped awning, green and white.
The sand feels so cool, and has an unusually pleasant sensation. It’s similar to putting your hand into a bin of dried corn kernels, or sunflower seeds, or birdseed.
It feels like it is alive in some way, this easy ability to reshape as you move your hands or your feet through it. And it pours, like water.
Every year we like to visit the rose gardens at Boothe Park in Stratford, Connecticut. Even from several feet away, one can smell the beautiful and pungent scent of the various types of roses. Once inside the garden, one can see all the different sizes, shapes, and types of roses - more than seem possible.
It is like a Wonderland of Flowers. Some are red, some are pink, some are yellow, some white, some purple, some orange, and some are even multicolored. Inevitably, some are buds, while others are partly bloomed, and still others are in full bloom.
I love the smell of fresh cut pine wood.
Seeing a house being built is always fun. In particular, looking at, or better yet, walking through the framing – when all the workers have gone.
I am not sure why it feels so happy to do this, but it does.
Perhaps it’s seeing the essence of the house coming out of nothing – an empty lot.
Perhaps it’s the smell of the wood.
Or perhaps it’s a sense of adventure – exploring.
Perhaps it’s the figuring out of what room is where.
Or perhaps it’s imagining, for just a few minutes, this is our new home.
Birds singing, trickling water, crickets humming – I’ve found these sounds to be powerfully healing.
I use muscle testing, also known as kinesiology, to see the healing power of sounds, measured on a scale of 1 to 10.
The crows, the hawks and the sparrows all – all birds – the peacock, the gentle “cooaw cooaw” of the chicken – these all give a power of 10 healing sound.
And trickling water too. I am always drawn to tickling water, in a fountain, in a brook – so meditative, so healing.
What’s that sound
The sound of my dog
Missy as she is howling and growling away
playing with her toy
Having such joy with this stuffed animal
Is the sound ferocious?
is the sound she is making an expressing
Delight
Frustration
fun
there are so many sounds we hear in life
And the meaning we put behind the sound
And the expression of the sound
I can tell she is having a lot of fun
Running around
Enjoying this toy of hers
Just having a really good time
Getting up in the day
Appreciating her meal
Her time with me
I really enjoy looking at tree bark - the whorls and swirls of bark as it moves up the trunk of the tree. It overlaps like house shingles. And it eddies around limbs and around the stumps of fallen limbs. You see the tree holes, and the flow of the bark around them.
The patterns are mesmerizing, like watching water that is stopped.
It really seems like something is written on the tree, by the tree, over and over again.
And when a vine climbs the tree, it is even more beautiful, especially in the autumn when the vine turns red.