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ardysez

~ surrender to yourself

ardysez

Tag Archives: gratitude

a small thing…

03 Thursday Nov 2016

Posted by Ardys in Animals, nature

≈ 17 Comments

Tags

animals, birds, gratitude, nature

img_2195A lovely Spotted Turtle Dove has captivated my attention. It visited our courtyard each morning most of the winter. For much of that time our spa cover had water in it and a variety of birds came for a bath and a drink. It is a dry land we inhabit here, and semi-permanent water is something animals remember.

When the weather warmed my husband thought the water in the top of the cover would attract mosquitoes so he emptied it. Turtle Dove came two mornings in a row and walked around on the dry cover, as if looking for something…a water-y something, perhaps. There was something so heart rending about watching it walk around and search, occasionally pecking at small bits of leaf or dirt where water used to be.

Then one day it didn’t come. Animals quickly adapt to reality, and move on. If only we could let things go as easily!

I told my husband I was going to arrange a sort of bird bath from an old plastic plant bowl and fill it and see if the dove would return. For the first day after I filled the bowl, the only living thing that visited were a couple of dragon flies. Several times a day I would look out my kitchen window for signs of little Turtle Dove. On the third day, my effort was rewarded; little Turtle Dove returned and drank from the bowl. It has come every day since. The Spotted Turtle Dove visits regularly, walking through the herb garden looking for small insects and seeds.

A water dish for bees. The stones are to give them a place to land, so they don't drown.
A water dish for bees. The stones are to give them a place to land, so they don’t drown.
img_2188

“I know you are not welcomed in many places*, but you are welcome in my garden, little dove.”

img_2617And now, a pair of native Crested Pigeons frequent the courtyard, dipping their beaks into the water bowl and playing chase with each other. I’ve seen them cuddling up side by side in the shade of the patio, as well. The male occasionally fans his tail feathers, peacock style, to impress his lady love, and she seems to tolerate his behaviour in a nonchalant way. Ladies, we can be so hard to please.

The enjoyment of my winged guests, who come and go at will, reminds me to be grateful for little things…

“In the emotional world a small thing can touch the heart and the imagination every bit as much as something impressively gigantic.” —Henry Beston

Processed with VSCO with p5 preset

Crested Pigeon couple

(*The Spotted Turtle Dove is unkindly referred to as an ‘STD’ among bird enthusiasts, because it is not a native species. It was imported from China in about 1860.)

I created this series of images just for this blog piece. Sometimes it is fun to be a bit arty with images, and since my iPhone photos of birds are average at best, the editing helps make the images more interesting (I think).

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The world is too much with us

13 Wednesday Nov 2013

Posted by Ardys in Life

≈ 10 Comments

Tags

gratitude, holidays, life, poetry, William Wordsworth

Generally I am a grateful person. As well as the good things, I am grateful for all the sad and challenging things in my life, for they, too, make me who I am, and who I am has much to be grateful for.  But because I am human I have days I would rather not have.  Today, for a while, Life got on top of me.  In addition to some health issues I’ve been dealing with, the Universe took the opportunity to give me, yet another lesson in patience.

We are having a town council bi-election in 10 days’ time, because a man who is a serial offender of making bad decisions quit the council after only a few months. He did this because of his original bad decision, to try to start an ‘escort agency’ in town (registered address just up the street from us).  It backfired.  He quit.  Maybe that was a bad decision and maybe it wasn’t, I mean who wants this clown on our town council?  But it costs the town about $90,000 to run a bi-election.  So, thanks, buddy. Voting here is mandatory.  Because of this guy, I was required to wait in a queue on voting day, or pre-poll vote, as well as see my tax dollars used for something I had already paid for just a few months ago. In an attempt to at least mitigate the queue standing, I pre-poll voted.

Dissolve scenes to the freezer section of the grocery.  The turkey I wanted to buy was just out of my reach.  Happens a lot, I’m a bit short on one end.  So I stopped a young worker and asked him if he would please reach it for me.  Nice man, he happily did so.  As I approached the queue for the checkout the man working the area announced “If you want service, step up to the self checkout there are empty stations there”.  Nice.  If you want service, give it to yourself.  He’s a nice bloke, has worked there for years and looks like he’s pretty tired, but so was I.  If you have a backache, pushing a shopping trolley will only make it worse.  They are designed with the centre of gravity for someone at least three inches taller than myself.

The trolley full of groceries, and I, arrived at my car in the parking lot to see that someone had pulled too closely to my car for me to easily get the groceries into the boot.  I mean they were over the line by at least a foot. As I heaved the groceries, with a sore back, and wedged between my car boot and the car behind, all I could think was… the world is too much, sometimes.

What was that poem from my school days… someone named Wordsworth? How did that go??? Ah, yes, ‘the world is too much with us’.  That was how he put it over two hundred years ago.  I always think it is amazing when someone who lived centuries before us had similar thoughts and feelings.  It connects us.

I came home and looked up the poem and thought I would share it with you (it’s short).  He is lamenting that society is so caught up in itself, it has lost its connection with nature.

“The world is too much with us”

By William Wordsworth, 1802-1804

The world is too much with us; late and soon,

Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers:

Little we see in nature that is ours;

We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!

The Sea that bares her bosom to the moon;

The Winds that will be howling at all hours

And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;

For this, for every thing, we are out of tune;

It moves us not. Great God! I’d rather be

A Pagan suckled in a creed out worn;

So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,

Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;

Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;

Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.

WW was saying that nature was in abundance all around people, but they saw little of it, were out of tune, while slaving away on material lives. ‘We have given our hearts away’ he says. So sad.  And haven’t we come a long way since then?

Ummm, not so much.

Those of you leading a frenzied life with the onset of Thanksgiving, Christmas, Kwanzaa, Hanukkah and whatever else, try and do a little less. Take the time to watch the raindrops trailing down the window pane, or give the family pet an extra scratch and pat, or close your eyes and take a deep breath and let it out slowly.

This is me saying, two hundred years from now, let it be written, ‘the world is at peace with us, and we with it.’IMG_7156

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Himself

29 Thursday Aug 2013

Posted by Ardys in Inspiration, Uncategorized

≈ 8 Comments

Tags

Alice Springs, Australia, boots, gratitude, love, RM Williams, sentimental

RM's

RM’s

The last thing I saw before turning out the light last evening and getting into bed was the outline of my husband’s work boots where he left them in the courtyard.  It is often the little things that endear our loved ones to us isn’t it?  As I looked at them neatly placed at the end of the ladder he is not yet finished using, there was something about that scene that caught in my throat, and even today nearly brings tears to my eyes.  They are his well-loved, well worn RM Williams boots (laughing sides, so named for the elastic in the sides of them) that have had numerous repairs so that he can continue to wear them.  He loves simple things and is very loyal (even to boots).  He would have thought about where he left them, so as to not be in the way, but to be handy for finishing the job he started… even though he is a thousand miles away for a few days.  And what, I thought, if he didn’t make it back to fill those boots again?  Why would I think such a terrible thought?  Perhaps because I know how life can change dramatically in a minute.  Perhaps because I cherish our life and the man that fills those boots.  Be grateful.  That is today’s message. X

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