I’ve been thinking about the subject of change and embracing change. I can think of no better way than to breathe out well, literally as well as figuratively, and make space for the new. As surely as night follows day, breathing out is followed by breathing in. Renewal, change comes thus. There is no holding back, unless we want to drown!
Britain is excited this night. We have snow! Not that much but enough to remark on and frozen enough to take care when out and about.
Not knowing
when the dawn
will come,
I open
every door.
Emily Dickinson
Well, I’ll have to contemplate that one.
I’m not that surprised to read in this article How Users Read on the Web to find that…we don’t! We don’t read every word, apparently we scan. So I’m all taken up with reading (Applying) Writing Guidelines for Web Pages instead of doing what I really need to be doing! Which is READING a lot of on-line text. Like 79% of readers I will most likely be scanning to get the gist. And there in lies a problem. For me. Is it disrespectful of the author(s) to scan. Do I need to write differently to respect the need readers (in a hurry) have to get the point, understand, appreciate my point – fast? Faster.
Red faced
as the sky
in the
night.I can
write and
cause
confusion.OR?
Encourage
you to
think
for yourself?
So after all my on-line reading today I will probably not be changing my writing ways. Sorry to say. Jade is not an instruction manual after all. My wish and my hope is that it points you back into your own mind and heart.
Here seeming to float above the top of a gate post is a mossy star! Amazing! Here to show, once again, that nature decorates SO well! However sometimes nature gets a helping hand, for the fun and joy of sharing our human endeavours. Thus we have another collective wool crafting event in Eastern Cumbria. But anybody in the world can join in.
Help us to transform the woodland of National Trust property Acorn Bank with thousands of woollen artworks, in support of the Campaign for Wool. We are inviting schools, groups, organizations and individuals to make and send in woollen artworks, made using any wool craft technique or woollen material. Absolutely anyone can get involved! This new project follows on from our 2011/12 ‘Join the FLOCK’ project, that saw over 5000 people sending in pom-pom sheep to form a giant art installation.
Woolen Woods.
Inspired by a friend’s friend who had unraveled a home-knit and then knitted it into the most beautiful fine scarf I rifled through the local charity shop for wool this afternoon. But nothing turned up. At the very least I’d like to knit a spider and a butterfly for the woolly woods.
Yes, I champion such collective efforts, they bring people together. And I rather like the lone knitters who wrap up fences and lamp posts at dead of night with their home knits. Just why is that I wonder? Partly it brings me joy to encounter creative efforts freely shared, boldly displayed. And want to share that with you.
In this post titled A Joyful New Year on Field of Merit Rev. Alicia talks about joy. Doing that which brings joy. Perhaps I derive joy from others joy! Did anybody hear of Mudita one of the four sublime states? Mudita, sympathetic joy.
The sun came out this afternoon! It has been unremitting grey days since I returned to Eastern Cumbria so I took the opportunity to take a good walk. The going has been muddy under foot but with the light breeze and a break in the unremitting rain the paths were shoe friendly. The possibility of more rain is ever present though. I remarked to a couple of chaps as I passed, Wonder what that navy blue sky to the East is going to do to us! We smiled wryly together. Thankfully the navy blue over the Pennines turned to grey and dissipated.
The path I walk quite regularly had suffered over the winter. Leaves and debris litter the way and the washing of rain had carried gravel and stones down onto the path. And what do I see? A lone man, an older man, clearing the path with a shovel and making a really neat job of it too. What a pleasure to walk along the newly cleared path. Stopping to chat with him I asked him if this was his job. No it isn’t. he responded and continued, I walk this path every day and saw it had dried out so brought my shovel up to clear it. He had dug out channels to drain future rainfall off the path. He is a true volunteer. If a spade had been handed to me I’d have joined him in the work right there and then. There is something inspiring about such efforts. One person, on their own with no trumpets sounding, can ignite that true volunteer in many. It did so in me.