Nature giving well-being & hope.
The second year of Covid continues to throw up many difficulties. My issues are very small compared to those who have lost loved ones; have seen livelihoods disappear. Some have seen the breakup of their families as the strain has been too much. Restrictions on travel, especially internationally, has meant my client base have been unable to come to Scotland from overseas. I needed to take measures to avoid my inner world from imploding with all the gloom and uncertainties. For me this meant less listening to the relentless bombardment of the news by doing on-line searches instead for essential news announcements, and deliberately spending more time out of doors with Sparkie, my collie, and often my wife, family and friends. It has also meant creatively finding ways to make a living and of sharing what we have.
Seeing the rising of the dawn is a reminder that darkness doesn’t remain, even if it seems interminable when we awake with troubled thoughts in the middle of the night. The renewing rays of the sun just lift our spirits, for light overcomes darkness and disperses the cold. The spiritual metaphor is obvious. Holding faith in God keeps the big issues of our day in perspective. The cycle of the seasons points to growth and harvest, decline and renewal. We don’t need to be stuck interminably in one place. Look up and observe the progress around. This brings hope that current difficulties will pass.
Just in these last few days, our new grandson in the States was born. We are restricted from entering the States to share in this happy event. But the geese have started arriving back in Scotland from their summer holidays in the Arctic. It was not that long ago when I watched their number multiply in the field next to our house in an immense, thousand plus, stage gathering, which lasted several days before they took off north at the start of summer. They were replaced by lively house martins from North Africa, nesting around the eaves of our home that almost made me rename our house, ‘House of Martins’ when I had to repaint our house sign earlier in the year. It is the sure cycle of nature’s patterns that remind that we’re in the hands of some far greater power than the governance of our world leaders. And that makes all the difference. Like the geese and the house martins, we will have our opportunity to fly again.
