Tag: beautiful

The Surprising Predictable

“Even the predictable turns into surprise the moment we stop taking it for granted”

David Steindl-Rast

So a local walk that has been made many times and is completely predictable … isn’t, when you are consciously being alert and mindful and grateful for what is around you.

David Steindl-Rast’s saying is so true!

Glancing at the local, familiar landscape, The Wrekin seemed lit up by the golden views of harvesting…

And just looking up at the sky reminded me to wonder…

And then on the path in front of me was a beautiful common darter…

It was a case of the surprising predictable that wasn’t predictable at all!

David Steindl-Rast, in his book Gratefulness, goes on to say that in the surprising there is also the element of the gratuitous. Humans didn’t make this beautiful earth, or the clouds.

So the least we can do is wonder at, and appreciate, its surprising predictableness!

Local Beauties

It’s easy to miss the everyday wonders.

Small brown birds are so common in the UK (and perhaps beyond!) that many birdwatchers call them “LBJs” (“little brown jobs”!), but on a recent early walk around the Rea Brook in Shrewsbury, the sweetness of this drab dunnock caught my attention, and he was so busy singing he let me capture his plain beauty:

Everyone knows a blackbird, but their song can be so magical in the dawn stillness, empty of all human noise. This one was really pouring out his heart!

And finally, the humble woodpigeon. They look chubby, comical, and are easily dismissed as common-all-garden – and yet the rays of the sun highlighted the iridiscence on this bird’s neck as it sat beautifully framed in spring blossom:

What are your local beauties?

Or do you need to go looking and listening with fresh eyes and ears?

A Beautiful Dawning

The world can be so beautiful.

I took this photo earlier this year, at dawn,of The Wrekin, in Shropshire.

The colours of the morning were so fascinating, and perhaps all the more special as they were constantly changing, and I knew that soon they would change from sunrise to morning.

I draw strength from the beauty of the world I see around me.

Maybe we all can?

Emerging from the Mist

This week, the Wrekin – that beautiful distinctive hill of Shropshire photographed here – was crowned by cloud and mist. It was something beautiful but indistinct.

Just as life sometimes is so confusing, so disorientating, such a muddle.

The end of the day can be an opportunity to discover the meaning of the day. Was it in a beautiful sight? Was it in a precious relationship? Was it in a powerful moment of experience? Was it a day without anything special, just the usual, wonderful gift of life?

Isn’t life good when we have had a meaningful day?

What causes you confusion in life

And what brings you meaning ?

The Wrekin, Shropshire, May 2021

Meditate on Things…

“Sure Man was born to meditate on things,

And to contemplate the eternal springs

Of God and Nature…”

Thomas Traherne, “Dumbness”

Colemere is small, tranquil lake in North Shropshire, which I have posted about before, and this beautiful mute swan lingered near the banks on a recent visit.

Reflection seems to be as natural for us as humans as it is to the surface of water, and it is something that is distinctively human.

Colemere

I saw beauty in these simple, but complex, reflections of light and dark on the surface of the water, just as I did in the simple white beauty of the swan.

And I agreed with Thomas Traherne: “Sure Man was born to meditate on things“.

His lines are from a beautiful, thoughtful poem called “Dumbness” (in the sense of not being able to speak), and you can read the full poem here.

When the world speaks to us in such beautiful, reflective ways, it is good, very good.

I hope these reflections, and Traherne’s poetry, have spoken to you.