Appreciation in July

As the year changes there is a shift in what I appreciate. We’ve recently had very hot weather so obviously I appreciated the cool of early morning. Now the temperature is more comfortable and we’ve had rain.

The coolness of early morning
Birdsong
The abundance of fruit ripening on the trees
Long light evenings
Strawberries
The smell of rain on the dried out earth
Hearing children playing outside

The song of the Sea

 This is what music from the depths of the soul sounds like. You can read and hear more about this music here

Appreciation

Although I haven’t posted a list here for a while (two years!), I do try to appreciate the day as I fall asleep every night. I usually don’t get much further that my breakfast orange before dozing off. As I have written in the past; I sleep much better too!

 An orange with my breakfast
Coffee
The green of new grass
Seeing the buds start to open on the trees
Early morning bird song
The clock tower on the church striking the hour
Lighter mornings
Coming into the warm house after a walk

Candle Flame

I've decided to go back to meditating and I found this candle flame online. There is no sound and it lasts for a whole hour. I meditated for 15 minutes and didn't feel the time pass at all. It really helped to quieten my mind. Thank you to whoever put this online.

The breeze of 2017

I don’t know about you, but at this time of year I find that being cooped up inside a warm house becomes stifling. Today the sun is shining and it is so pleasant to step outside into the cold fresh air – even for just a few minutes. There is a brisk North-Easterly breeze and the washing is drying well outside for the first time in ages.

2016 has been a strange year all round: A year of sadness and unsettling change throughout the world. I’m going to focus on 2017 as the brisk breeze of changes for the better. Have a Happy New Year.

When my mind fidgets

Today I had a conversation with my son about meditation. I admitted to him that sometimes my mind it so full of clutter that I can’t settle to even 15 minutes. I used to feel a bit guilty about this, but I’ve decided not to. I’m only pretending to myself if I pretend to settle down. My body might not fidget, but my mind does. Some days I can meditate and it feels great when I do. I’ve decided to just do it as I feel like it. I know that it will come back.

When I was a teenager my mother went to yoga classes run by one of her friends. She gave up in the end because she got so stressed about finding the time to practice properly.

In French we talk about ‘feeling good in our skin’. It can relate to a lot of things in our lives; what we do, how we look, how we dress, who we mix with. Learning how to feel good about ourselves should have nothing to do with the judgment of others or feeling that we must do ‘the right thing’.

Look beyond what you see

When we moved to this house, I just had a feeling about it. There isn’t much of a view; the wall that surrounds the farm across the road is very, very old and has been repaired many times, not always with a view to aesthetics. But, when I look out of my office window I can watch the hens in the farmyard over the wall and every morning the sun rises. One morning last week there was an especially spectacular sunrise:

It’s important to make the effort to see past first impressions – you never know what might be over the wall.