Its a classic time of year for me to be adding a load of eye-catching nature pictures to my newsfeed following long winter walks. To those of my friends who don’t live in my part of the world, or even a similar climate (and there are several), it may seem as though I live in a completely DIFFERENT world, but I don’t…not really.
I started doing an online photography course yesterday and I loved it when the teacher described how she saw a feather hanging off a branch in a pubic garden and pounced on it with her camera. Her friend said to her “How did you SEE that?” and she replied “How did you NOT?” I’m just the same and, like her, I would have then spent the next half hour angling different shots at this feather while my friend scuffed her feet around wondering when we were going for some lunch – I do that to my family all the time – but its not that I’m trying to force the beauty out of a subject. Its already there…its everywhere, its just a case of being receptive to it, to really see it, to notice it wherever it presents itself.
It strikes me that its a simple case of offering to Gaia what I would ask the world to give to me; to be seen and appreciated for all the effort I’m putting in to being creative and delivering of my best, day after day. Our planet just keeps delivering and delivering, no less do I, no less do all of us…and all she is quietly asking is “see me, honour me…notice what I do, don’t take me for granted”.
Its a small but important thing to be mindful of as we turn the corner into yet another year (and all too easy to assume its going to be just “more of the same”). Perhaps this will be a year when we receive the full bounty of what is due to us for all that we are, all the gifts we bring, all the light we shine on the world…in proportion to how much we dole it out to others. A fundamental longing to “be seen” and acknowledged is such a huge thing to every human heart that appreciation is the universal healing balm that could very well change the world.
In the meantime, here’s a selection of some of the pictures I’ve taken in the last couple of days; be astonished, it’s all Gaia’s own work! You can see these and even more over on Flickr.
spinning the light 
You’ve certainly been receptive to her beauty with this pictures Helen, a lovely optimistic way of beginning a new year.
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Thank you Andrea, Happy New Year to you!
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