Hundreds of photographs are awaiting – reminders on many joyous events; from the Ethnoambient Salona festival, via several memorable concerts and soul-family reunions to one wedding, various inspirational encounters and lights that travelled on many roads.

One of joys was an assignment that was especially fragrant; handy scented items for home: lavender filled little cotton bags and clothes hangers, bath sea salt with rosemary and many other Mediterranean delights, all made by one lovely lady who is based in the city of Split but spends every available moment on the island of Hvar where she gathers majority of the aromatic plants she works with.

It was a joy to chat with her and get to know her family who also seems to be deeply involved in research and cooperation with the the world of herbs and plants and grow them or pick them in the wilderness to create herbal infusions or yet another product that will bring some closer to (their own) nature.

Here are a few scenes as my reminder on that photo session.

It is challenging to trust there is a balance when only considering one part of the whole.  If I focus on my aching feet I may experience my entire body is in disfunction. However, a long walk resulted in a stronger back,  tonified skin, calmer mind and reenergized body as a whole (yes, again, except for the feet that will need some time to feel the beneficial effects of the momentary overstimulation).

It is July 1^st. The central heating is on in my current home as it has been for the entire month of June. Transportation of summer clothes proved to be a waste of space and weight on the airplane. My sunglasses are useful though as they save my eyes from various particles the inexorable wind and rain keep bringing in their vicinity.

On the other part of this mysterious planet of ours, some of my family and friends are praying for a gust of wind and a drop of refreshing water from the sky. As much energy I use for warming up, they spend on cooling down. Parts of extreme…

However…

In the wholeness of this enchanting earthly globe, those two extreme circumstances seem just like two aching feet in the entirety of one body, unaware of the uncomprehending vastness of Life, awesome in its diversity, intriguing in its mystery.

Yet another storm is over. I can go out now and work on training my eyes to adjust to different environment, hoping the new experiences will soften my heart to embrace what I know as unusual. More walking may result in losing the archetypal fear of the ego and it may, above all, strengthen my feet…

whenever I need a reminder on any essential facts of life, I find it in the Nature. I take a walk and just observe, inhale, let go of any presuppositions and assumptions and just allow myself to… be. It often feels like taking off the layers of inherited or adopted cloaks, capes and robes or like relieving a lens from various filters that are supposed to protect its delicate and expensive inner structure or enhance/improve/change what is, all in the name of “adapting to circumstances”.

All very useful yet not at that particular time when “being in the Nature” means being in tune with the lightest part of me, the one that judges not and asks for no approval of its being, the one that needs no protection and needs not to protect, control or supervise yet just…is. Such Nature includes a walk by the sea, around trees as well as synchronistic events involving people – experiencing human nature and the nature of a tree as a naked creation of joyous, light, smiling vibrations.

And all is well and all is a well of one extraordinary, nourishing reality.

It works for me, for you, something else might be a source of a relief, reassurance, energy, pure joy… Something you can pull out when those “It’s too much” feelings shake the imaginary reality. I can’t say I created those moments, they sort of happen once I…yes, now I’ll put in the famous “let go” expression… Just recently I felt overwhelmed with many changes (some sudden, some expected) in my life and one particular visit to the sea, the vastness of space in which mighty waves were rolling and splashing in an ever-changing mode, was a perfect reminder how change is inevitable, how the sea is constantly changing, how every wave is different as so is every moment on this planet and how natural change is as a process of life whether we comprehend the circumstances or not.

Just by observing the waves crashing on the shore felt like each of them carried a relieving gust of wind that threw away hindering thought patterns and redundant beliefs, allowing space for new adventures and skills, new experiences and opportunities to learn more about the world and about myself, the world in me and me in the world. Isn’t it great that we always have a choice of perspective – as it is said: we can moan that rose has thorns or celebrate that thorns have roses.

Hope this letter answers your question, dear T. and that in your time and space you will allow yourself to rediscover your own reminders and experience your very own naked truth that will change the perspective of powerlessness and scarcity into one of strength and… Enoughness?

Hugs

A.

The meaning of November is different in the Mediterranean, especially this year. It’s warm, sunny and beautiful, particularly when we get to spend more time in the nature like last week.

Several joyous days in Marin and Zeljka’s garden; picking olives from the gorgeous trees that have a marvelous view to the sea on one side, hills on the other and a carpet of wild beauty under their fertile branches…

And each of those days, the Sun would give us a sign when it’s time to leave the garden rest for the day…

Golden retriever Koko in the golden garden at the golden hour of the golden day…

While writing this we are packing our bags for another trip to the North where November has different meaning and Nature is already resting, withdrawn in the state of dreams…

Yesterday we took a walk by the sea, a few people still on the beach, catching the warm rays just before the Sun was about to embrace the hill and the scenery in front of us was amazing…The stones emerging from the sea looked like made of gold, purified by a silvery-blue water… Wonderful contrast of tints, shades and tones…Once I got my breath back I started to look for a place to stabilize my camera… Nothing flat was around on the position I wanted to place my camera and the shade was approaching the golden stones…

“Ah, look at that light and the waves…and I can’t find a flat ground to take a longer exposure…”

A few moments later, a perfect, flat piece of stone appears by my side.

“Would this help?”, she asks handing me the stone.

It did help… She did.

The scene gracefully mirrored into my camera… I got my reminder on yet another blissful moment in the nature.

This photograph will always remind me of her patience, as well, of her acceptance of the fact that when it is two of us it’s always one more, my camera, and thanks to her tolerance it never feels like there is a third wheel and I never feel I’m failing her; she waits for either mine or her paused sentences to be completed a bit later, understanding how much those wanderings of light in the nature are magical to me…

Friendships are precious, soul family that heart chooses… One of the definitions of unconditional love…

Friends intuitively feel us even when thousands of kilometres away and send text messages asking how we are in the times no one knows we’ve shut down during painful moments of growth… Friends are our family with whom we learn, share, support each other and exchange shoulders to lean on and with whom we celebrate and rejoice.

Friends expand our hearts and help us open our minds a bit more every time. They support us in learning more about our authentic selves.

We broaden paths and expand the roads for each other… We hand each other a torch when in need or… find a way to help regain the balance – and sometimes it is not about metaphors and life defining choices, sometimes it is just about a piece of the right stone at the right time…

Unlocking the doors of different worlds…

Where perspective changes and three seems like one…

Where changes are accepted and transformations are a natural process of living…

And a peaceful closure of what’s behind, purified path towards restful dreams and a new day.

Meeting such two different worlds in half an hour can have a tremendous effect on one’s state of mind. In one word: joy – joy for witnessing the gorgeous diversity of nature (and culture), two worlds so close to each other yet so different and each precious in its own way.

Silence. Serenity. Spaciousness.

No glossy city reflections, no urge to overtake… Here, everything has a softer, gentler, wider pace.

A few more turns, deeper into the valley, several horses found their way of connecting with other species offering lessons in gentle playfulness, patience and gracefulness.

Precious moments, a wonderful Sunday afternoon in the country.

“Welcome to 2011, darling.”

“Ah, things like that existed hundreds of years ago just functioned on a different level. More on telepathic…” It was more of “that look” chat.

My Soulmate knows me too well. I’ve also resisted Myspace and Facebook for some time just because “everyone” was on it. The moment something takes a mass-following-proportions (it could be a film, a book or whatever), a sort of alarm fires up in me even though I love networking. I just have moments of acting like a concerned hermit who likes to analyze too much before accepting anything. It’s just a pattern that saves me from spreading too thin, I guess. Surely, those moments sometimes last for quite a while but time is a stretchy, personal unit, anyway and it is there to allow space for learning more about oneself (often in order to change – for the better, of course). Yes, now I admit I find Facebook pretty useful since many of my friends and people I like to stay in touch with live far away and I don’t get to see them often, so reading their updates regularly and seeing their photos from the currant fun time or getting to know their family and friends better even in this way is precious.

And now Twitter. Who is it for and why?

I am still figuring it out. My Soulmate keeps telling me he finds it interesting and useful. Well, surely there are loads of his peers, programmers on all web networks sharing latest discoveries of their minds and technologies, still for me…

First I used the search option to find many of maximum 140 character short posts about things I was interested in. Not much different than any search engine yet here it was short, concise and often with a link to wider descriptions plus you quickly get a picture who is behind a post; a person with similar interests, a company with open agenda or even someone you know personally.  It makes a same reference to be considered quite differently and helps get to the fields of interests directly, without first having to deal with flashy front lines of someone else’s idea of what “should” interest you before you reach the desired destination.

I’ve also found some of the people whose work I appreciate and it is lovely to receive updates on their work from their personal perspective and not just as quotes on quotes. Quotes are o.k. at certain moments, as reminders, yet I rather hear how a certain quote influenced someone’s life in particular, what beneficial changes a certain phrase brought to him or to her.

Changes… And… There! An opportunity of one soon presented itself. The Challenge for Ms Ooh, Ooh I Am So Not. The thing is that if you want to get updates from certain people you have to click the button that says „follow“ and thus you become their “follower“ on Twitter. Er… Follower? Sounds guruish. Not my thing. Ha! Do I smell a challenge here? However, that’s the linguistic approach on the network called „Twitter“ so if I wanted to explore it I had to accept certain rules. Right. What to do but change the meaning of the word „follow“ in my mind? Few minutes of some reframing and I was smiling at my own recent states. (O.K. I did more than that as I also used this as an opportunity to dig deeper and realize why do I resist that word so much yet explanation of that process and it’s results would require writing several posts if not a book!) The letters haven’t changed their shape or sequence while forming a word but my perception of it’s meaning has changed.

I love words. I love how we can change a context and a certain word can change our inner worlds. „We change“, „I“, „you“… I’ve already mentioned on this blog that when I write „you“ or „we“ I mean „I“. And I find the „I“ in other people’s posts. Mirrors all around.

So I’m discovering many mirrors on Twitter. Some of them might not even be aware how some of their tweets (!) might have reflected or brought a smile to an unknown face. There are many things we don’t need to know as there are many we benefit from by bringing them into our daily awareness. It’s all about balancing between the known and unknown. All we need comes our way, anyway. Sometimes it takes chasing Kairos’ hair yet those moments of avoiding a touch of serendipitous moment are also challenges to learn from, so there is a gain in every way.

A few days on Twitter already brought me some new challenges, i.e. some new opportunities to question several patterns I’ve previously chosen to explore.

Also, as previously on the network called „Facebook“, some friends get reconnected via Twitter and searching on certain topic can bring more interesting/useful results on Twitter than on other search engines as far as time efficiency is concerned.

All in all, I’ve decided I like it so far. As long as I do, I’ll see it as a contribution to this time and space, another way of people sharing their thoughts, exchanging ideas, learning, finding new peers, connecting and reconnecting.

Yes, of course, element of fun must be included and so far it is so.

There. I think this might be the longest text I’ve posted on this blog so far. Thoughts described with so many words usually don’t end up on my blogs, why now? Hm… Now, there is a challenge: analyzing that in less than 140 characters?

Sharing is caring.
May be if we decide that’s what it means to us and allow it. We get what we focus on, anyway ;).