The sun is out; it’s warming up! Looking forward to some warmth. Brilll!
Took me back sixty-five years. A tousle-haired little boy, equipped with wellingtons, a net and various containers would be cycling off with his little mate Tony Hum to check out all the local ponds for frogspawn.
We’d bring back some for our ponds. I’d built a pit in the bottom of the garden with a pond I’d made from a huge old enamel sink. I’d have an aquarium or two indoors and delight in watching the spawn hatch into tadpoles.
Spring, Summer and Autumn were spent outdoors in nature collecting toads, frogs, newts, lizards and snakes for my pit. Fostered my love and respect for nature.
Fluffy white clouds sailing imperceptibly through the ocean.
The rustle of insects industriously
Toiling in among the dry beige undergrowth.
Larger creatures crawl and sniff.
Green and red blood pumps.
I sit quietly among the colours of nature, of life
For one last glimpse.
Opher – 22.12.2024
I have such vivid memories of my idyllic childhood, sitting alone in the midst of a great flower-strewn meadow, the summer sun beating down, chewing on a stalk of hay, watching the life go on all around me, oblivious to my presence.
There was such an industry. Everywhere was so packed with life. I sat for hours fascinated by the beauty and wonder of what was taking place all around me. Magical times.
Jane is a naturist who first caught my attention from her work with chimpanzees in Tanzania. Way back in the 60s I was captivated by her book – In the Shadow of Man. She is someone I greatly respect who has worked to support wildlife.
The least I can do is speak out for those who cannot speak for themselves.
Me too. There are millions of creatures being killed daily. If nobody speaks up for them they will continue to be slaughtered. The world is already depleted of its fantastic array of life. Soon they will be gone if we do not do something.
Only if we understand, will we care. Only if we care, will we help. Only if we help shall all be saved.
I am only a writer. The people who make the decisions are the rich and powerful. They have to be made to understand that this cannot go on.
The greatest danger to our future is apathy.
Throughout my teaching career I have strived to get my students thinking. They are the future. They need to be aware and involved.
Every individual matters. Every individual has a role to play. Every individual makes a difference.
We can all make a difference. There are millions of us who care. We have to keep making the powerful aware.
Change happens by listening and then starting a dialogue with the people who are doing something you don’t believe is right.
We have to keep telling them to stop – there are better ways.
Lasting change is a series of compromises. And compromise is all right, as long your values don’t change.
The bottom line is that the environment needs protecting.
“I don’t have any idea of who or what God is. But I do believe in some great spiritual power. I feel it particularly when I’m out in nature. It’s just something that’s bigger and stronger than what I am or what anybody is. I feel it. And it’s enough for me.”
I’m an antitheist. I do not believe in god and I think that religion is very bad for us, but I do believe in a power that exists in nature, a vibration that connects us to the universe. That is something I’m prepared to call spiritual. That is what requires protection.
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I was just walking up my hill yesterday and a small flock of birds flew over and wheeled above me. I stood and watched, transfixed. Nothing moves me like nature. I couldn’t make out what they were but it was stirring. I found myself thinking.
Five hundred years ago that flock might have been a hundred times bigger. Wild life proliferated. Everywhere was a mass of nature, big and small. It seemed infinite. Catching a thousand larks to pickle their tongues as a delicacy was not even considered wrong. Larks were so numerous you could never exhaust the population. I read with horror how in Greece they filled barrels with living tortoises and used them as ballast in ships because they were so numerous it was easier than gathering rocks.
Mankind’s inherent cruelty and inability to understand suffering in animals has always horrified me.
It’s taken hundreds of years but what we have now is the remnants of what once was wonderful. What once was everyday is now rare; what once was numerous is now solitary.
When the Normans invaded King Harold marched his army from one end of the country to the other down forest trails. The whole country was a forest. There were wolves, bears, beavers and so much wildlife they would catch and eat what they wanted. I read tales of herring shoals so dense that you could walk across them.
As a child I roamed the meadows. They were alive with chirping insects. Every flower adorned with bright beetles, bugs and hover flies, bees and butterflies. Hawk moths on the willows, stickle-backs in the streams. We collected frogs, newts, slowworms, voles, lizards and snakes.
Now those fields are silent, the streams empty of darting fish.
We live in the remnants and think that is normal.
I have to believe there is hope. There is always hope.
We bought this house because of the views it offered. They are spectacular. I pulled back the curtain on a new day and was greeted with a double rainbow.
Isn’t that something we’re all doing in one way or another?
Is happiness the same as fulfillment or are they just related?
I find my happiness in love, my partner, family, creativity (writing, photographing), nature, travel, music, reading, good food and wine, and sharing with friends.
We opened our eyes into a beautiful universe. We came from nothing and will return to nothing. In the meantime we have all this and we take it for granted. It is so wondrous.
There are those who can see that wonder all around us. Those are the ones we should take heart from. They are living.
There are those who would look to build, to make things better, to provide a pleasant word or helping hand. They are the ones we should take heart from. They are worth so much more than the mindless nasty types.
There are those who realise the incredible wonder of every living thing. They see the amazing wonder of our evolution and our place within the spectrum of life. We should take heart from them.
So here’s to the positive forces that live among us!
