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Heart Eyes

3/28/2017

My sight isn’t as sharp as it use to be. In fact it has reached the stage that my grandchildren now bring me my glasses along with the book they want me to read! Oh dear signs of old age I’m afraid.

But I hope, despite the diming of my sight, that my “heart eyes” are getting sharper every day. To see the sadness in someone’s eyes … feel the discouragement or disappointment behind the smile … the hints of loneliness and emptiness beneath the surface.

A few years ago, Pope Francis suggested that instead of giving up chocolate for Lent, we instead give up our indifference to our neighbour. He believes there is a ‘globalisation of indifference’ … a worldwide tendency to be so preoccupied with life, so gobbled up with busyness, that we are missing the cry of the poor, the needy and the lost.

And what about our family, friends and work colleagues, the close to home people who we encounter everyday? Does familiarity or busyness blind us to the cry of their heart?

I suspect few of us are deliberately indifference to anyone; rather it’s a failure to notice the person and the pain in the first place.

Last week I shared a painful experience I was going through with a friend. She sat quietly with me then she began to weep. “I feel your pain”, she said through her tears. I felt understood and deeply cared for; she felt my pain with more than words. There was no advice, no trite clichés; her heart met mine, and it felt like balm to my soul.

How do we learn to weep with those who weep, to recognise the unspoken struggles that are slowly tearing someone apart? How do we meet that pain in a way that doesn’t try to 'fix it', but leaves the person with their dignity intact and their heart comforted?

My friend knows the art of being present, of lettering go of her own thoughts and concerns and focusing completely on what I am sharing with her. She let the full weight of what I was saying hit her and literally felt my pain.

In this hectic, busy-making-life-work world we seem to live in, I wonder if this ‘being there’ is the greatest gift we can give another person. Sometimes there aren’t any words and just sitting in silence is all we need, knowing someone cares enough to just be with us.

But often this can be the hardest gift of all. Silence can be threatening, scary, sometimes embarrassing or awkward. We can feel helpless. We want to escape from the uncomfortable or not go there in the first place.

When I feel like that I know it’s more about me … my own internal struggle to acknowledge that I can do nothing. The question is, can I move through my fear to just be there because the truth is, just being there is enough.

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A hidden kingdom

3/21/2017

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Come with me into one of the most fascinating kingdoms on earth. A hidden kingdom; from tiny single-celled organisms to the largest living creature on earth … the kingdom of Fungi.

Those magical little red and white toadstools which pop up seemingly out of nowhere, are just the fruit of the fungus, the living body is hidden under the soil, in wood or other food sources. Underground is a mycelium made from a web of tiny filaments called hyphae - some can branch out as much as 1km a day. Until the mycelium produces fruiting bodies, the fungus remains hidden from our sight.

Without fungi, we would effectively be lost under piles, many metres thick, of dead plant and animal remains. Fungi, together with bacteria, are responsible for most of the recycling which returns dead material to the soil in a form in which it can be reused.

They are the vital decomposers in the ecosystem, breaking down dead organisms and biological waste, freeing nutrients for use by other organisms and clearing away their remains. And fungi, unlike bacteria, can continue to function in temperatures as low as -7 degrees.

Fungi were once thought to be plants but actually have some features like animals. They are now classified in a kingdom of their own in equal rank with plants and animals. There are thought to be somewhere between 1.5 to 5 million species. It is estimated that only 6% of the world's fungi has been discovered and named.

It's a fascinating and intriguing kingdom.

On an average, about eighty-five BILLION tons of carbon in the form of carbon dioxide is returned annually to the atmosphere mainly by fungi.

Hat throwing fungi distempers and ejects their spores at a remarkable speed which is 100 to 200 times faster than the speed of sound. Human eyes are unable to detect the speed of fungi spores ejection with unaided eyes.

Armillary ostoyae (discovered in 1998) is said to be the largest living organism on earth. It is a 3.5-mile-wide mushroom located in Oregon's Malheur National Forest. This honey mushroom covers more than 2,200 acres of the forest floor (equal to 1665 football fields). Sadly I haven't had the privilege of photographing it!

The cap of the mushroom is full of spores, it sends its spore-children as far away as possible, so the offspring don’t compete with their parent for nutrients. When it's time to eject their spores, mushrooms release water vapour. The water evaporates, cooling the air immediately surrounding the mushroom. This cooler air is denser than warm air, and so it flows out and away from the mushroom, creating lift. This lift can carry spores up to 4 inches (10 cm) both horizontally and vertically.

Researchers from Yale University have discovered fungus in the rain forests of Ecuador that eat polyurethane. It’s the first microbe found to survive exclusively on plastic and it can do so in anaerobic (oxygen-free) environments, meaning it could potentially thrive at the bottom of landfills. Could this be a solution to some of the world's waste problem?

In the Italian University of Torino they have found a way to use fungus to strip iron from asbestos so that it is no longer carcinogenic.

In the Patagonian rain forests of South America, there is a fungus called Gio cladium roseum that grow inside Ulmo trees and produces a number of hydrocarbons and their derivatives. This fungus eats cellulose - stalks, sawdust and wood chips and produces diesel fuel and more efficiently than any other known method, according to researchers.

I can't help wondering about the wild possibilities in this seemingly unlimited kingdom ... the yet-to-be-discovered wonders ... that are quietly, unnoticed, fulfilling their purpose.

Lichen is a type of composite organism which consists of a fungus and an alga living in symbiotic association.

Little did I know when I first started photographing fungus, what a magical world I had stumbled upon. It was their quirky beauty which drew me to them in the first place, but I had no idea of the extent and versatility of the kingdom. The more I've learnt, the more amazed I am at the magnitude and intricacy of God's creation.

I love every little detail of a life cycle that disposes of rubbish while providing the exact nutrients that are needed for the ecosystem. I love that it all goes on quietly, largely unseen but absolutely vital to a healthy environment. What a picture of God at work in our lives – largely unseen until the fruit appears.

This hidden kingdom reminds me of a quote by CS Lewis, " We may ignore, but we can nowhere evade the presence of God. The world is crowded with him. He walks everywhere incognito."

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No regrets

3/14/2017

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My friend and her husband were planning for retirement; organising an overseas trip, dreaming about the places they’d go and the things they wanted to see. It couldn’t come fast enough. Then without warning her husband had a fatal heart attack.

I remember sitting with her as she grieved and tried to come to terms with her shattered dreams and the loss of the man she loved beyond reason. She talked about her regrets and one of them was a beautiful nightee and negligee that her husband had given her, which she’d put away for that special trip. She wept as she realised he would never see her wear it and how she wished she hadn’t saved it for later.

Maybe we are all a little bit like that, planning for the future, thinking about what’s ahead rather than living as if this were the last day of our life. There’s such a temptation to save things for a special occasion but what if we determined to make each day memorable, each day a special occasion.

Use the best china, burn the candles, use the nice sheets. Don’t save them for a that special time ahead; today is special

Love and appreciate your parents. We are often so busy growing up, we forget they are also growing old

‘Waste’ more time with your children. Play with them, listen to them, enjoy them; make their childhood memorable and fun. Create wonderful memories for all of you. Teach them to live in the here and now

Stubbornly refuse to hold a grudge or live with regrets; they rob you of the freedom today offers

Make a point of encouraging, appreciating or surprising someone everyday; grab this moment to write a note, make a phone call or visit; make someone’s day a little brighter

Make time for yourself; time to relax, to read and reflect or be creative. Time to develop nourishing relationships. Take a bubble bath or have a massage, exercise with a friend or learn something new, whatever refreshes you and helps you be more fully alive

Connect with nature; take time to enjoy the blue of the sky, the song of the birds and the calming influence of being surrounded by nature; the beach, the bush, the park … the wind in your hair and the sun or rain on your skin!

Be generous with your time, your talents and your belongings. Hold all you have lightly and share willingly; be hospitable in every sense of the word

Live every day with gratitude

Sort out misunderstandings, forgive before it’s too late

Embrace and enjoy what you have, life is too short to waste time longing for what you don’t have. Today is special.

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Three trees

3/7/2017

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All my life I have been passionate about trees; deciduous trees that signal the seasons and evergreens that seem to give a sense of changelessness. But three trees stand out in my memory and in some small way give a glimpse into the story of my life.

The old Camphor Laurel tree

My education began in a row of weatherboard portables, lined up like soldiers along the edge of an asphalt playground. My most vivid memory was of an old Camphor Laurel tree. Thirty feet tall and almost as wide, it hovered over us like a protective parent, providing a cool respite from the harsh summer sun.

Under that tree secrets were shared, sandwiches swapped and skirmishes settled. Its gnarled trunk had been used by generations of hide and seekers and the hard packed soil around its base was the perfect marble pitch. It was the background for our school photos and the marshalling point for all activities, including drinking that horrid warm milk they decided would do us good!

That tree became a friend from my first day at school. My mother often told the story of that day. Most children were crying or clinging to their mother’s hands, reluctant to leave. I marched straight through the gate and never looked back. She told me she felt rather sad, but there began for me, a love affair with learning that has never waned.

It remains today 60+ years later, now crowded out with more and more portables but still for me a lovely memory of wonderfully happy times that began some of the best years of my life.

Recent photo of the tree now crowded out with more portables ... so sad.

The Crepe Myrtle tree

The bedroom window of my childhood looked out on an old Crepe Myrtle tree. It flowered like a huge mauve cloud and as the wind coaxed its blossoms to the ground, they lay like a carpet around the clumps of bluebells and violets that huddled underneath. It was a window to childhood dreams. I could see the blue sky and the wispy white clouds, the rainbow and the rain, the lilac when it bloomed and the tall white azalea at its feet. I did my homework under that window, wrote letters and shared my thoughts and dreams in a diary. It was my favourite part of the house.

In some ways it represented the beauty, love, wonder and nourishment of my childhood. My Dad had taken a very ordinary block of land around our home and turned it into a masterpiece of beauty, fragrance and colour in every season.

It inspired me and as a young child. There was something very dependable about that garden ... every Spring bulbs would burst into life and the lilac bloomed ... summer brought roses and the crepe myrtle blossoms and autumn never failed to change the leaves to apricot and gold. It taught me an expectancy and love of gardening that has stayed with me all my life.

The White Magnolia tree

I’d always loved the poem The White Magnolia Tree by Helen Deutsch. It tells the story of a young couple who planted a white Magnolia tree the first spring they married. She was twenty-one and he was twenty-three.

"This tree," said John, "shall grow with us,
And every year it will bloom anew.
This is our life. This is our love."
And the white magnolia tree grew and grew... “

The poem follows their life and love, their youthful passion, the loss of a child, and how real a word like courage can become. The things they came to value in old age, friends, faith and satisfaction in a job well done … and the beauty of the old Magnolia tree.

When my first child was born I planted a white Magnolia tree. Like the little boy who tumbled into our lives and taught our hearts a love we didn’t know was possible, it grew and grew. Every year it blossomed anew as he grew from childhood, through the teenage years, to a young man heading out into life. It grew to full maturity and every spring it was a “thing of beauty and a joy forever”.

Its creamy white and pink blossoms covered the tree completely, stately and elegant and a constant reminder of the years that had passed. My son became a woodworker ... maybe something of my love of trees was handed on to him.

He fell in love, married and had children of his own and like the old Magnolia tree now each of them bring me beauty and joy untold as the years pass and they grow and grow.

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Heart Eyes

A hidden kingdom

No regrets

Three trees

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Heart Eyes

A hidden kingdom

﻿No regrets

Three trees

Author

Archives

Categories

No regrets