Today is December 21st, the Solstice, the stilling of the sun, which continues for three days. And I register the shadow of a drainpipe with a mark now, black line in indelible ink on the outside kitchen wall. This I do at the very same spot every year. It's my mini Stonehenge. I have to be sure that the planet has returned to the same place as ever after its long orbit. I need the reassurance that everything is the same as it ever was.
I need to know that the snow has
covered our Sibillini mountains as it always does a few days before
Christmas and that there will be enough water in the Spring for the
lakes up there and the animals that depend on them.
I need to see the starlings fill the
skies with their poetic murmurations (but these are so few and thin
and scattered this year and this saddens me).
Where I live between the mountains and
the sea in Italy there is little industry and the air and water are
clean, (especially so because most farmers use animal manure to
fertilise their fields). A plus.
So, in this sense we are fortunate. But
we know what is happening in the world outside and we cannot and must
not delude ourselves that the impending dangers which threaten the
planet are not our concerns
Sound gloomy don't I?
I do.
But all is not lost, because a message
arrives as I am typing this, from Ant in Spain.
It is our serendipity at work again.
I call him back and he enthuses about a
book he has found which I must, must get and which I've already
ordered.
It's entitled 'Abundance' and is
written by Peter Diamandis
It turns on its head the gloom and doom
we are becoming addicted to, says he, and is about how innovation,
creativity and fantastic breakthroughs in technology are abounding
and that, although currently unsung, that they will be our salvation.
So as quick as you can, on to Amazon
where you find the book second hand for a few pence.
Read it, and then we can all discuss it
together.
You find him on TED too. Well worth watching as he succinctly runs through a verbal precis of what his philosophy, his life view is:
You find him on TED too. Well worth watching as he succinctly runs through a verbal precis of what his philosophy, his life view is:
My take on it this solstice, is it is good that we are challenged and bumped off any negative addictions; shed them from our minds before we enter the New Year.
Because we need to put our hearts and
energy into new engines of survival and no longer waste our time
fixing rusty old bikes.
I am happy about the return of the
light.
And the celebration of Abundance.
It starts today, at the winter Solstice
Two workshops in the Sibillini Mountains in early summer which you might like to experience....
Wild Photography
A workshop with a Wabi Sabi edge to it.
The Tango of Creativity.
To dance the dance of creativity, because it is we who make manifest the
the imagery, the poetry and the song that the Gods of creativity whisper to us.
Buon Natale,
Michael
Two workshops in the Sibillini Mountains in early summer which you might like to experience....
Wild Photography
A workshop with a Wabi Sabi edge to it.
The Tango of Creativity.
To dance the dance of creativity, because it is we who make manifest the
the imagery, the poetry and the song that the Gods of creativity whisper to us.
Buon Natale,
Michael
Your black line seems to be a metaphor for the reassurance that even though things change in the world, the world doesn't actually change. The sun comes up in the east and settles in rhe west. The clouds fill the sky as I write and their rain revitalizes the soil as I know that the sun will return to revitalize my soul. As things change they stay the same. Wonderful piece Michael.
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