When we spend a lot of time with someone or something we love, we quite often, and in a strange way, get use to her/him or it. They become so part of our lives that we cease to see them for the very reasons we fell in love with them in the first place. We can even become disrespectful and thoughtless. The extraordinary becomes ordinary.
We were fascinated by everything around us, when we were young. From on
e day to the next, everything was new again. As young children, we gawked.Brian Swimme, a quantum physicist, describes gawking as something quite different from the dictionary's understanding of the word. For him, gawking is the act of becoming fascinated with what is being seen, to stare at life, in order to capture the depths of things and to seek the gift that is there for the taking. Gawking is the deeply spiritual act of allowing ourselves to become present to that which is before us. And, in that act of gawking, the ordinary once again becomes extraordinary and the gawker receives as does the gawked. When we, as Palliative Care Practioners, are earnestly present to our patients and families in body, mind and spirit, we know this to be true. We feel gifted by their very presence, by the mystery of who they really are.
Our Earth vibrates with Mystery. Our Earth is extraordinary. To re-discover this, we need only to pay attention. We need only re-learn the art of gawking and "coming home" will be the gift we receive.
This Week's Suggestion:
GAWK... at the clouds, at the trees and how they are changing, at the leaves floating to the ground, at each other, at the great flocks of birds migrating south, at gardens, at your dog, or cat, or other people's dogs and cats, at the weather. Every chance you get, this week, re-discover the joy of gawking. And while you gawk, don't forget to gawk at yourself, at how you feel and at what you discover about yourself.
Get To Know Your Neighbours:
With all the migrating south, i thought it might be interesting to name the various groupings of birds we see.
We know that a group of geese are a gaggle...but only while they are on the ground or water. They are known as a skein in flight and as a wedge in v-formation.
Here are some other group names:
a paddling of ducks on water and a team of ducks in flight,
a band of jays, a cast of hawks,
a murder of crows, a convocation of eagles,
a parliment of owls, a chattering of starlings,
a host of sparrows, a whiteness or herd of swans,
and a congress or unkindness of ravens.
Finally, these three: a charm of hummingbirds, a descent of woodpeckers and a run of hens.
A Fact or Two:Bottled water is the single largest growth item among all beverages including alcohol, juices and soft drinks. In North America, per capita consumption was 10.5 gallons in 1993. "According to a 2006 Statistics Canada survey, three in 10 Canadian households opted for pre-packaged water, which is seriously bad news for our landfills, since an estimated 88 percent of water bottles -- typically made from polyethylene terephthalate (PET) -- aren’t being recycled." (Green Living) Deciding to use a reuseable water bottle and filling it up with tap water is the best choice for the environment and your wallet.
What Can We Do?
Click onto this website below. It's informative. It helps us realize how much we are already working as a Team to care for our ailing Mother, Earth. It gives us more ideas of how we can be involved and it gives us hope. All that, and it's fun, too!
Media:
Books The Universe Is A Green Dragon by Brian Swimme (very readable)
The Dream of the Earth by Thomas Berry (so is this one)
Last Week's Suggestion:
i discovered that two of my neighbours are a tulip tree and a ginko. i hadn't noticed them before.
Have you met some new neighbours?
Well, it's time to sign off until next week. Even though this blogging thingy has been (and continues to be) a real learning curve for me, i think, in the end, it will work out and grow. i hope you can work with it, too.
Have a happy week gawking.
maureen
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