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Posts tagged ‘choice’

Oct 31

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Every thing is a choice

Every Thing. It’s a sentiment I keep coming back to, keep waking up with, keep telling others, keep reminding myself. I drank some water, played my cello, hugged my son, ate a cookie for breakfast, refused a plastic bag at the shop, sent an email, didn’t send another. Time is ticking and suddenly I’m noticing. all. the. choices.

I know I sit in a position of privilege. I have shelter, food, I washed this morning with running warm water. Most people reading this will also be in a similar position of privilege -and we have the privilege to make choices. I realise the increasing importance of recognise choices and actions. For me, recognising, actively choosing, and owning those choices is where the motivation comes to grow.

Can you imagine the thought of not choosing?

I don’t mean nothing: Choosing nothing is something. Sometimes I choose to rest and be quiet, and that restores me. But not choosing at all seems unimaginable.

Every thing is a choice. and yes, some days it’s harder than others to keep making all the good choices. Keep noticing. Keep choosing. Run. Walk. Stop. Look. Smile. Read. Learn. Eat. Vote. Grow. Notice. Care.

All the little things add up.

#YesICan

Mar 11

Finding the words

It has been a month since I posted anything. A month. Sometimes finding the words to express joys, sorrows, and for me now – the digestion of thinking – it’s a translation issue. It is hard enough to go between words and music, let alone begin translating living into words. The past month has encompassed a lot of living and it is through the people we meet and the stories they tell that inspiration takes hold yet again.

I seem to listen best when the lure of routine is broken and there is the luxury of space. What do I mean? Every so often my job includes travel, and personally I crave connection and interaction with those beyond my immediate experience. When in a different setting, physically, culturally, environmentally, there is a necessity for either adaption or calcification, as a form of perseverance or protection I suppose. I would like to think I am open to experience. There are also times we (certainly I) am not always receptive to stories, life, to the water we swim in and the air we breathe, but over the past month, I was. Read more

Oct 4

Walk of life: freeing the butterfly

Over the summer, when the weather is warm we have the house open. In England where we live there are no screens on windows or doors and so the breeze and all it brings sometimes comes in. Mostly that means sunshine, sometimes rain, and often bumble bees. We get huge bees that are just shy of golf ball sized, really they would just fit in a tablespoon, and they are very silly. We have to rescue them as they get stuck in the kitchen’s glass conservatory roof. Once a blackbird came in and we simply said – ‘silly Mr. Blackbird, can you go back outside?’ and he did. That was a relief! Sometimes a butterfly comes in and they are the hardest to rescue because you have to be so careful not to damage their wings.

This one came in and we rescued it. My son asked if he could set it free. He has a beautiful reverence for life and I am honoured to spend time with him. He didn’t plan this and he thought I was taking a still photo, not a video. He gave me permission to post this (in return for some Pokemon cards).


I come back to it and watch it from time to time, to remind myself of many things:

  • The various glass jars that trap us within our lives and within the confines of society – from inhibitions to doubts to feeling pressured into ‘being‘ something or someone – are only glass and when you take off the lid, you can leave them behind.
  • Both the compassion that exists in the world and the beauty of children are wonderful. I am reminded that I should work to keep that always, no matter how old I may get on the outside.
  • I watch it to remind me that we are privileged to have a choice: stay in the jar, or look outside and fly.

There, there, Mr. Butterfly.

You can go if you want, or you can stay;

your choice. 

 

(Thank you to my son for letting me post this.)