Tag: sharing

Sunday evening mellowness

~ windinmywheels ~ 4 Comments
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Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared

calendar thought for the day supplied by the meditation app Aura

Reflection, by candlelight, in late evening, brings a procession of causes for gratefulness into my quietened mind. Conversation with a friend who enjoys both candlelight and quietness as much as I do. My first Feldenkrais class via Zoom. Books that draw out aha! or eureka moments on the one hand, and deep and glad recognition on the other. Creativity. Shared art. Shared imagination. Photographs made by two friends today, miles apart, but each depicting eerily beautiful morning mist in winter wonderland. Plans for comings and goings. Teamwork. Letters. Phone calls. Prayer. Celebration. Contemplation. Meditation. Daydreaming. Growing. Hoping. Learning. Longing. The illumination that relationship with others brings to life and love every day. Here in this candlelit, quiet Edinburgh night, the word ‘connection’ appears as though it were an illuminated sign before me. Connection. I am warmed and held as I think of all that can be brought to birth by a single candle contributing light to potentially thousands of others – lucky old me among them …

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Robert’s good counsel

~ windinmywheels ~ 12 Comments
2017-02-08-16-44-36
Barcelona – click once / twice (or pinch) to enlarge

‘Sorry, I’m a bit pushed for time today,’ I said to my friend Robert, twenty years or so ago. ‘I’ve got to think of something to say to the Women’s Institute tonight. Their invitation asks me to speak on ‘any subject that takes your fancy’ and I’ve come a bit unstuck.’

‘Nonsense!’ said Robert (and RSC will know exactly who he is!) – ‘just go and tell them about one or two things that really light up your life.’

So for an hour or thereabouts I told a large gathering of women my story of what it had been like to live and study for a month on the very edge of Bethlehem, wandering into Jerusalem in the early mornings to buy my daily newspaper, about the colours of the souks, the sounds of the calls to prayer, the scent and the sound of olive groves, of sunrise, and of sunsets over the Judaean desert, of ancient history, and of contemporary youths singing together in groups outside, in late evening warmth, eating ice cream.

Other invitations followed and I have thought so many times, with deep thankfulness, of Robert’s ‘tell them about one or two things that really light up your life.’ And since then, with a more keenly focused eye, I have noticed the things that light up my life – Barcelona being one such recent bright spot. Friends are such a gift in our lives. Robert’s good counsel abides …

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