Living with nature
Insight
It was one of those mornings. I woke up to find rats had chewed their way through the long life milk in the pantry; the garden hose had blown a hole and our precious water was running off down the hill. Getting the children ready for school was plain hard work. I was frustrated by the weather. As the days get shorter, I have expectations that the weather will gradually get cooler with the golden leaves slowly falling in the orchard. I carry this European notion in my head of how ‘seasons should be’. Autumn here is different experience altogether, a frustrating combination of cold windy days where you feel the hands of winter at you and then long stinking hot spells where the garden withers yet again. Rain is scarce. The leaves hang on, rarely change colour and fall in one hit of strong wind.
Nature is harsh and extreme at times. This morning I found myself resisting against it all, irritation, shortness of temper and forgetting breakfast were the result.
On the phone later I glanced out the door and caught my breath. A large wedge tail eagle swooped down 10m from where I was sitting and picked up a hare in the paddock. I laughed, nature is harsh at times but also so exhilarating! In that instant the irritations of the morning and the weather left me as I was brought back into the present (in a dramatic fashion). With sudden clarity the realization came of how I had been carrying and building up as irritation all the unexpected turns of events and things outside my control.
Going with what has happened unexpectedly instead of resisting the event brings aliveness and clarity as rewards. Letting go of past events that cannot be changed also allows more tuning in with what is happening now…
See the unexpected and unpredictable in a positive light; as adding uniqueness to your day. If the seasons gradually melded from one into another and the weather was predictable, if getting out of bed brought an identical day as the day before with an identical routine then any aliveness would be lost.
Each day is unique, if not make it so.
Finding the days ‘uniqueness’ only requires stopping for a moment. Watch a child’s face as it ever changes and/or their growing sense of self. Look out the window and watch the sky, the garden, a bird on the fence, the lady walking down the street. Taking time to just observe (even for a few moments) each day will allow for finding something that makes the day ‘different’ and unique.
Until next time,
Rachel Furbank, Sustainable living eco mum
