How amazing is the natural world?

I spend some time every week out in a nature reserve somewhere with my son and there is always something that fascinates me. This week it was the Brimstone butterfly. I have known for some time that it lays its eggs in buckthorn. We were watching a female brimstone on Thursday fluttering around the hedge in a local reserve. It went from one to another then found one to settle on and lay an egg. She flew off and flew around before coming back to another similar branch of buckthorn. Now what fascinates me is this – how did she know which branches were buckthorn? Does the branch exude some kind of smell or what?

There are other things about nature that have happened recently, like the frogs and toads going back to where they were spawned. How do they know where to go? We, so-called superior beings, have to use maps or a Satnav to find places yet the humble toad and frog head off crossing roads and fields to get back to where they were born.

In the summer I spend hours watching dragonflies and damselflies during their mating dances and the laying of eggs. I have watched the birds displaying their mating dances too. How fascinating is all of this. They do these things naturally and know what to do and when. How clever they are. We do not understand a lot about our natural world but it fascinates me whether I understand it or not. I feel that we underestimate what animals, birds and insects can do. Photo taken by my son who has given his permission for me to use it here.

Questions and more questions

The last couple of weeks have had a lot of niggly things to sort out and have brought up a lot of questions in my mind. I got very frustrated on a couple or more days when I could not get answers from organisatiosn and officialdom. As I think of myself as a spiritual person and a Reiki practioner then getting frustrated should be a no-no. But after all I am a spiritual being living in a human body so can only expect to have human feelings at times.

So a few questions that have come to mind;

Why do we believe everything we see, hear and read about?

Can we not think for ourselves?

Are we unable to read between the lines and see when people are telling us the truth?

Why do we obey without any thought as to what we are doing?

Mantras are powerful and we have been given a lot of those over the last year. Do we realise what is being done here?

What is currently going on in our world has been in the pipeline for a long time and is reaching its final days. Are we allowing what has been planned to happen or are we going to make changes for ourselves and others?

Do we want to be people who do as they are told, without any thought to what we are doing or do we think about what we are being asked to do and protest if we feel it is wrong?

Are we too lazy to do our research and vote for the right people not those who will get richer at our expense?

Do we want our world to be a better place for all or for just a few?

Remember we all come from the same source whatever colour or beliefs we have now.

Gratitude and blessings

I feel blessed this morning. Although it is cold and frosty, the sky is blue and the sun is shining. I watched the squirrels scampering about in the garden and the blackbirds digging for worms. It was such a joyful experience and I feel truly blessed by this.

Despite the restrictions still in place I took a blood test the other day and then broke my already broken tooth in half. I need to now find a dentist but after I got home that day I discovered that the gardener for this place had made me a small garden patch of my own on a corner of an existing lawn. I can see this small patch of garden from my kitchen window and I am quite excited at the thought of what kind of plants to put there. My son will help with this of course as he is busy growing many plants from seed but they will not be ready to plant out for another couple of weeks at least. But another thing to feel blessed for.

My son is also taking me on one day a week to explore the local environment. There is a lot to see around here on the many lakes formed by old gravel pits and also by the river. This week we explored another one of these nature reserves and after a muddy start the walk was very enjoyable. Lots of fungi and the sighting of a great crested grebe on the water. Another thing to be grateful for and feel blessed.

I love jigsaws as I find them calming and meditative in some way. This week I am grateful for the large pile of jigsaws in the residents lounge which I can borrow and then replace. So a week of feeling blessed and many feelings of gratitude.

Expectations

Yesterday a post on social media caught my eye. It said something about expectations; ‘Don’t expect anything in life. Expectations hurt a lot. When you don’t expect, every moment is a surprise and surprises bring happiness.’ So is this true? Some years ago I wrote about expectation in this blog and I am reposting an edited version here.

Some time ago I saw some words which resonated with me in a big way. The words were ‘The expectations of others were
the bars I used for my own cage’ We all expect things of others but how much should this affect our lives. As a child my
mother had great expectations of me. I was expected to do well at the things she missed out on like going to the grammar
school then on to university, etc. Unfortunately I did not go to university straight after school as I was unable to take the A level subjects I wanted to do. So I left school and got a job. For the rest of my life I had to endure my mother complaining that I had not done what I should have done with my life and that I had let her down.

Luckily for me I was strong enough to find my own way in life and do what I wished to do so my life was mine and I was not
living the life she had wanted for herself. How much do others expectations affect our lives? Do we do what others want us to
do to keep the peace? Or do we strike out on our own? How many people do you know who live their lives according to the
wishes of others but are not happy? What is most important, to be ourselves or to be the person other people would like us to
be? I have always tried to be true to myself, to follow my heart and to do what I feel is most important to me. This did and still
does not go down well with some people I know. I remember saying to my children when they were in their early teens that it was not a crime to be different. They did not have to do what everyone else did if they did not want to.

So here I am, eighty in a couple of months, writing blogs and researching local and family history, creating wall hangings and other art work and being just who I want to be without interference from others. Is this wrong?

A final note; I have been out visiting a fairly local nature reserve the last couple of weeks. It is over a year since I last went there and was unsure what to expect. (That word expect again!) But I kept an open mind and knowing that spring was on the way I knew that there would be things to see. I was not disappointed and saw more than I thought I would.