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Though seen, hidden to our eyes
A few days ago, I was watching a celebration of the ninetieth anniversary of the local Volunteer Fire Company. It was a wonderful opportunity to try and take another type of photos than I am used to. The firemen were dressed in official light or dark blue uniforms, fire engines and equipment – both new and old – were displayed in the local pitch and procession was walking through the village including a small band playing to set a marching step. I was absorbed in the celebration and focused on taking the photographs as the light was changing all the time, people were moving, regrouping, talking, so much to figure…
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Following trail markings
“The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant.We have created a society that honours the servant and has forgotten the gift.”― Albert Einstein When I was going home from work last week, I started to think about Felix Felicis, a potion playing an important role in Harry Potter’s adventures… Well, I need to insert a little intermezzo here. Afterwards I pondered about the occurrence of that idea in my mind, why Harry Potter all of a sudden? And I realised that I could start many of my posts with the words “When I was going home from work, it occurred to me…”. I…
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Perspective
“We are set in our ways, bound by our perspectives and stuck in our thinking.”― Joel Osteen The other day I was going home from work, driving my car and listening to the radio. I was in a bad mood because I made a great deal of effort at work and credit for it was given indirectly to my colleague. I was listening to the broadcasting, both news and music and was drowning disappointment in self-pity. Then a song started and though I wasn’t listening to it carefully, I suddenly heard two words prominently among other words. True seeker. TRUE SEEKER. The words were screaming in my mind and I…
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Meeting warmth
One of the things that make me happy in my garden is a little clump of chives that I love to add to soups or to scatter them on boiled potatoes. They are best in late spring or early summer before hot days dry their juiciness out. I usually cut them a lot at that time prior to their flowering and keep them in our freezer for later use. I’ve learnt to use more herbs and spices lately and a week ago I remembered a spice mixture which I used to buy years ago. I decided to buy and taste it again so I made a mental note and when…
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Message left by a dream
From Monday to Friday, my husband’s alarm clock goes off at 5:00 a.m. My alarm is set for 5:01 and follows shortly. I like to stay in bed for a few more minutes to wake up properly so I stop the ringing as soon as it starts and try not to fall asleep to get to my workplace in time. Surprisingly I rarely fall back to sleep. This Tuesday morning belonged to those rare exceptions. When I heard my husband’s tender voice calling my name, I opened my eyes with a start to find out that it was almost half past five. To get even bigger shock, I woke from…
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Stepping twice into the same river
Have you ever heard that you cannot step twice into the same river? I have met this saying for the first time probably when attending a high school and learning about ancient Greek philosophers and their teachings. I was taught that it means the following: Everything changes and nothing stays the same. When you step into the same river for the second time, the water is not the same anymore and you are not the same either. At least your cells got older but you may also be more experienced, see life from a different perspective. I liked it and used the saying many times, emphasizing that when you do…
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(Un)Important trivialities
A few weeks ago I asked my older son to hang the washing. It’s usually my job to do but I was ill and needed help. Later, when I came to the room where the clothes were hanged, I was taken by surprise to see that all T-shirts and sweatshirts were hanging upside down. I mean upside down from my point of view, clothespins attached to the shoulder parts instead of to the bottom parts as I do that. My first reaction was to go and redo that immediately but I remember too well how I hated when my mother told me to make beds and when I made them,…
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Playing roles
When I was a little girl, I assumed that people are either good or bad and play just one role in their lives. The role of their identity. When I was about 12 and my mother was complaining that teachers at school praised me whereas at home I was not that cooperative, I didn’t agree and couldn’t understand quite well what she was speaking about. It came much later that I realised that there was not just one role I played in my life and that there was nothing wrong about it. We take on many different roles, whether the traditional ones like the role of a mother, wife, boss,…
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Light and shadows
Sometimes there are details which appear repeatedly in a short time span of my life bringing together new meaning to me. It’s like when you take a lemon, sugar and water and prepare lemon juice from them. By taste, you can still distinguish the ingredients but you cannot separate them anymore and even their taste is not entirely the same. It is how it started with light and shadows this time. I like Robert Ludlum and his spy stories and yesterday I finished reading the 3rd instalment of his Bourne series. I came across a sentence there: “Hugging the shadows of the successive storefronts, Jason crept slowly forward.” My breathing…
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Lost in translation
Some time ago I read a book in the Czech language and came to a statement saying literally that every cloud has a silver lining. It sounded strange to me as I’d never heard anyone to say such a phrase or saying in Czech. It didn’t fit in at all. As the book was a Czech translation of the English original, it occurred to me that the phrase might have been translated literally regardless of its possible figurative meaning so I went to look it up in a dictionary. It proved my suspicion true explaining that the saying means that every sad or difficult situation has a positive side. Properly…
