Another of my bonsai seed plantings has spouted nicely, species Pinus Pinea, a Pine tree. The blue firs [on the right] are coming along well too as you can see. It’s a good photo. This is just under a month after planting.

Taking a break from the things that we do, and the things that we think are important, we can let the world go by. And what better way to do that than to spend time with nature, seeing how things grow at their own pace, in their own time. I was sent a quote today, and we’d all do well to keep it in mind.

“Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.”

- Lao Tzu.

Today I went to watch my brother play football. I stood with the parents of the other boys, cheering Rory and his team on. I watched with interest, and yet I also watched my thoughts. I noticed the way I was subtly rooting for each man of his team to do well, and each man of the other team to not do as well. When our team had the ball, it was good, when the other did, it was bad. Yes, there was a sense of camraderie, but I couldn’t help notice how this split the game into good and bad, us and them. As a supporter of one team (and perhaps one player more than most), my very perceptions were skewed. I did not see the game as an outsider might, I did not see the game as an impartial referee should, I saw the game from my identification with my brother and his team. His victory was my victory, his defeat my defeat. And so I was completely at the mercy of the event unfolding for my happiness or lack of it.

We can apply these same issues to anything in life. We are all supporters of something or someone. And as we support these things, we identify with them, our interests become vested in the outcome of those things. We have preferences, and those preferences cause us to see the things we want, and not see much of anything else. We become narrow-minded, and mistaking what we want for who we are, our happiness and sense of well-being rest entirely on whether we get what we want or not.

So ask yourself these questions: How can you be a supporter and at the same time not give the power of happiness away to external circumstance? How can you see the game as it is and not how you think it is if you have a vested interest in the outcome? And if you don’t put anything above anything else in terms of importance, does that make you truly human, or no longer human at all?

(And for those of you interested. Rory scored, and his team won).

Yes, that’s right. Things look a little different here! Inspired by some fiddling with a photo I had taken of me a while back (that’s me in the distance, those are my footprints!), down in Devon somewhere, I thought I’d give the site a new look. It was just a quick thing really, and like most things, it’ll change rather than stay like this, but for now, it’s a nice change, and if it wants to have a beachy holiday feel, then so be it.

Snow falls gently on the ground;

- Where is Spring?

As humans we often expect things to be a certain way. We like order, we like lists. We like categories and classifications and well-defined boundaries. We have a name for each season and we expect the weather in each season to be a certain way. But when does one season end and the other begin?

Cycles are ever-present, that much is obvious, but these patterns can only ever be general ones. Nature will not be boxed in. It can snow in Spring, it can be cold in Summer, or warm in Winter. If we can learn to live with that, we will be happier, and the same can be said of life. The sooner we learn to blur our boundaries, the better.

When ships are out at sea, and the storms and the high winds come, there is only one course of action: wait it out.

In life there are rough times, times when waves of boredom and restlessness batter us. We might seek various things in an attempt to ease this feeling, going to our old habits, doing the things we usually do when we are stuck for what to do. We might eat, we might play games, we might watch a movie or read a book. We might go walking or running or cycling. We might try drawing, we might try listening to music, we might try going to the gym.

In all these things, what we are really trying to do is escape ourselves, escape the feelings of unease and boredom that we have. It has been said that wherever we go, we cannot run away from ourselves, and this is what brings us the problem. If I am restless, what is to stop me from taking that restlessness into whatever I do? I’m bored, I’ll go read a book. I start to read, and I’m bored already, though really I never stopped being bored, I took it with me.

At a fundamental level, feelings of restlessness and boredom are feelings of resistance, and that resistance is a resistance to what IS, this present moment. On a subtle level, it is a resistance to boredom and restlessness, a sense of “it is not ok to feel this way”. In the end, these both amount to the same thing. Whatever is happening with us is not ok and so we want to do something to get rid of it.

Like ships out at sea, there is only one sane choice: sit with the storm of our feelings, and wait it out.

How lonely are tomorrow and yesterday.
One waits to say hello;
The other, goodbye.

The past and future are lonely places. They are always waiting, because they have never been and never will. We might say that we have many yesterdays, and that we have passed through many tomorrows, but look closer. Where is this yesterday? It is a thought, a phantom. Have you ever reached tomorrow? Ask yourself this: How can tomorrow be now?

So it is that when we try to dwell in these places - the past and the future - we find only loneliness, because there is nothing there. Life is happening now, not in the future and not in the past.

No one else can give to me,
The space to live and love and breathe.

So often when we feel harried, stressed and overwhelmed, it is space that is the problem. Or more specifically, our lack of space. With a spacious mind, there is room for problems and thoughts and emotions just to be there, like lillies in a pond. Think of that the next time you are gasping for air.