Time Flies

 

Greetings, I hope to find you well. This is the first of a two parter where all pics were taken at the same location, but separated by a year. Whilst this year, our Summer has been somewhat wonderful (for the majority of non-farming folk), last year wasn’t always quite so good. Today’s pics, however, were taken on a particularly beautiful day during August ’17.

Tempus Fugit, and in one year so very much has flown swiftly by. Yet still the growing tale of events accelerates us ever further onwards. Although a year is a relatively short time for an aging adult, for the millions of tiny creatures who inhabit every inch of the natural landscape in our pics, it is a millennium. How inconceivably quickly time flies for tiny critters. I see no reason not to suppose that unimaginably vast beings are inhabiting spaces forever imperceptible to us, and whose lifespans endure far beyond any measure of time we might care to believe. Yet if even these hypothetical souls had a beginning, then they must as surely have an end. Therefore, it is fair to say that for them time probably flies in a relative way too.

My mother would often remark on the beauty of this world, and express her sadness that one day we have to leave. Nowadays I doubt strongly that she would swap her present environment for the troubled world she left behind. Our time here is flying, I think it’s best to practise kindness, and no matter how strong the temptation, to avoid wrongdoing.

Now, in the blink of a blackbird’s eye, all our time has flown on by.

Part two to follow. Namaste, and peace from Amras.

“Love is the only sane and satisfactory answer to the problem of human existence.” ~ Erich Fromm.

Photography ©Amanda Moloney.

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The Freshly Waxed Sled

We were treated to a heavy snowfall. It stayed for a week, but now is gone. It was a nice lead up to the seasonal festival here in the hills, where the soundless blanket of frozen crystals fell from the air. It seemed as if we were living in a scene from a Christmas card.

I am old enough to remember snowfalls that almost completely buried the houses where I lived, and which endured for many months. Temporary ski slopes were created in the unlikeliest of places, and I used to go sledding almost every day. Most of the roads were impassable for traffic, so walking to school and back was akin to embarking on an arctic expedition, which came complete with freezing flurries, and howling winds. Also ambushes, and pitched snowball battles with rivals from other schools. That was 62/3. Winters have never been so good since.

One day, I was having a go on my best friend’s freshly waxed sled on the street where he lived. Face first, and like a torpedo, I flew down the hill unstoppably towards the junction at the end, accompanied only by the cold wind singing in my ears. The road down there must have been gritted that morning, because I realised suddenly as I cleared the street, that my head was about to collide with the front wheel of a moving car. He must have been the first driver on that road in months. I just glimpsed the shock on his face, when at the instant his wheel should have crushed my head, I was lifted up by the collar of my coat, still clutching the sled, and was placed standing safely on the side of the icy road. This all happened in the blink of an eye. Thinking that my friend had somehow rescued me, I turned and shouted a heartfelt thanks, but there was nobody there. My friend was a quarter of a mile away. The car slid to a halt, and the driver got out. He said nothing, just gawked at me in what looked like complete disbelief, tinged perhaps with a little bit of fear. Cognitive dissonance, I suppose. Then he drove away, and I never saw him again.

My friend was greatly puzzled, but after an excited debriefing session, we agreed that for us, angels are proven, and nothing would ever take that knowledge away from us. We were nine.

Countless, I’m sure, are the numbers of people, who have, and who will experience such things, and although we live in a world that prefers us to keep it all to ourselves, we will alway know what is really true – and so will our angels. And that has to be a blessing.

I wish you all a blessed Christmas, and a safe and holy season in the arms of the giver of life. Let us remember in our hearts, all those who will not have it so good, and perhaps find time to reflect on the ebb and flow of things that cannot be quantified by any organ other than the heart.

On the Eve of the Winter Solstice, Peace from Amras.

Soundlessly they go,
the herons passing by:
arrows of snow
filling the sky.

― Yamazaki Sōkan (1464-1552), loose translation by Michael R. Burch

The Grace of The World

Greetings. I have been a bit more poorly than usual for a while, so please do bear with me if this post seems brief. All of our lives are in transition, and nothing exists but all that is becoming. Only the giver of grace is eternally motionless, yet waits far ahead of all that moves, in the silences of forever.

One of the nicest things I find about our community is the respect we share, and I wish for the happiest of futures to find their way fast to all our doorsteps.

These pics were taken today, at Kingsbury Water Park in the West Midlands, UK. Please enjoy.

Until next time, and may it be soon. Peace from Amras.

“When despair for the world grows in me and I wake in the night at the least sound in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be ……I go and lie down where the wood drake rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds. I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief. I come into presence of still water. And I feel above me the day-blind stars waiting with their light. For a time I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.”

~Wendell Berry, “The Peace of Wild Things”

 

 

 

Photography ©Amanda Moloney.

Between Friends

 

Please excuse me for my levity, but as a life-long lover of laughter, I’d love to leave you with some jokes tonight. I don’t know who made them up, but here they are.

 

 

1. Save the whales. Collect the whole set.

2. A day without sunshine is like . . Night.

3. On the other hand, you have different fingers

4. 42.7 percent of all statistics are made up on the spot.

5. 99 percent of lawyers give the rest a bad name.

6. Remember, half the people you know are below average.

7. He who laughs last thinks slowest.

8. Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm.

9. The early bird may get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese in the trap.

10. Support bacteria. They’re the only culture some people have.

11. A clear conscience is usually the sign of a bad memory.

12. Change is inevitable, except from vending machines.

13. If you think nobody cares, try missing a couple of payments.

14. OK, so what’s the speed of dark?

15. When everything is coming your way, you’re in the wrong lane.

16. Hard work pays off in the future. Laziness pays off now.

17. Every one has a photographic memory. Some just don’t have film.

18. How much deeper would the ocean be without sponges?

19. Eagles may soar, but weasels don’t get sucked into jet engines

20. What happens if you get scared half to death twice?

21. I couldn’t repair your brakes, so I made your horn louder.

22. Inside every older person is a younger person wondering what happened.

23. Just remember – if the world didn’t suck, we would all fall off.

Our friend, by the way, is called Frosty.  Here Frosty and Amanda share a joke between friends.

I hope  you enjoyed this post.  Peace to all the world, and Namaste from Amras.

 

 

Photography ©Amanda Moloney.