Our days are filled with special moments that naturally fill us with gratitude, wonder and happiness. Unless we are present in our lives, we won’t be there to notice and appreciate them.
I want to share with you one such moment: “Fresh bed-sheets”.
Here on our farm in Cantabria the very first signs of spring are visible. One cannot be outside without feeling the quickening (arousing surge of life and energy). My eyes are drawn to the hundreds of dandelions which like magic, suddenly pop into existence. Their bright yellow faces, call out to the insects: “come. Here is food. Pollinate me!”. Quite simply, the more one watches, the more one sees. Just sitting and watching one starts to notice tiny flowers, pinpricks of colour against a green background; buds closed tight but ready to explode into colour at any moment; the tight green buds of the trees giving a green tinge to their naked limbs. Also, the delicious cacophony of birdsong, as the males sing to any females that will listen: “Look at me! look at me! so strong and handsome; choose me!”
Yesterday we were blessed with a lovely temperature, an infinite blue sky, passing fluffy clouds, life-giving sunshine and a gentle breeze with pleasant cooling gusts. We are first aware of these gusts as a gentle roar, almost a purring as it passes through the woods at the top of the farm. Then, a minute later, the gust arrives and we feel it as it lovingly caresses our faces.
All is a-buzz. The lizards, insects, tiny mammals that share our farm know that they have not a moment to lose: hunting, feeding, house-making, contentedly following their biological song, their evolutionary imperatives.
Our bed-sheets are washed and hang on the clothesline, gently undulating as they dry in the sun and the breeze.
The day is ending and time now to rest.
That wonderful moment has arrived. Bedtime! Rhea and I slip into bed, thankful, pleasantly relaxed and ready for sleep. The sheets are divine − the coolness, that outdoor freshness and that smell which contains the gentle sun, the breeze, the meadow, the buzzing insects, the fluffy clouds. They are all right there with me in my sheets and pillows. This is a moment of true “natural goodness”, where without any effort one is simply suffused with a sense of wonder, gratitude and a deep sense of happiness.
Moments of natural goodness are all around us, wherever we are. Moments where we connect with and appreciate the immense good fortune simply to be alive, the gift of our senses, moments where the ego disappears and we simply “are”. We just have to get out of our own way to experience what is there rather than what is in our heads.
Be aware of these moments, they feed your spirit.
