BEAUTIFUL BEACH
As the birds chat to each other in the
trees around me, I marvel at the beauty of autumn sunshine. There is
something so incredibly clean and beautiful about autumn.
I remember one time walking through Fawkner Park in Melbourne. (It is a city of many beautiful parks). The sky was perfect and clear, the warmth of the sun so soothing but not searing, and I felt compelled to simply lie down and enjoy the sunshine for a while. This was enjoyed so immensely that I took a photo of the sky as I lay beneath it, even though there was nothing in the photo but blue. It was simply for my memory.
The seasons changing bring different moods and activities. And I love this season above all else. The nights are chilly enough now for the collection of wood from the paddocks. It won't be long before we are sitting outside around the fire of an evening, singing and talking by the stars.
Thankfully though, it is still somehow warm enough to be swimming in the ocean. Yesterday was a beautiful swim. It is getting cooler, definitely, especially when drying off afterwards. But the water is incredibly clean and clear at the moment, and the beaches amazingly deserted. The beach in the photo is where we swam yesterday. How can I not feel blessed to have access to such places?
During summer we snorkelled out near the rocks in the top left of the photo. There was so much life out there, lots of small stingrays, and all sorts of fish. Apparently just around the corner though is where a school of grey nurse sharks live. I'll take other people's words on that, without needing first hand proof myself.
Most sharks are a protected species in Australia, and rightly so. The ocean is their world after all. I've seen a few over the years when scuba diving, mostly just reef sharks. Like the grey nurse, they are pretty passive animals if left alone. It still sends my heart a-flutter to see them though. So when snorkelling in summer, I stayed this side of the rocks just to be sure.
It's a bit like when I was living in the Northern Territory and people told me that freshwater crocodiles are pretty harmless. They certainly are if being compared to the saltwater variety (or 'Salties' as we Aussies call them, since we are prone to abbreviate almost everything). But a croc is still a croc. And after seeing bubbles surface from below the canoe I was paddling in one day, I didn't need to test the theory about the behaviour of 'freshies'. I paddled on well out of there!
The ocean brings its other creatures too though and yesterday it was dolphins. In July and August, from the point this photo was taken from, we will be watching whales migrate. What an amazing planet we live on. Really, every day there are such incredible displays of nature.
They don't have to be as grand as whales migrating or dolphins flipping out of the water though. Watching the intricate and busy lives of insects always amazes me. As does watching flowers blooming and leaves unfolding, or at this time of year, leaves falling. It overwhelms me at times that life can be so beautiful, that so many gifts of nature are available to all of us. Even in cities there are acts of nature unfolding everywhere.
Yesterday I was swimming at this beautiful beach. Today, with the chill of the autumn night still lingering, I've worked on the verandah all morning, in the autumn sunshine. Despite the distractions of nature, it always turns out to be efficient work time when I am out here.
Perhaps I've had my last swim for the season. But it was clean and incredibly refreshing. And as I think about the mighty ocean, I give thanks for the planet we live on. It doesn't matter whether you can swim or not. The ocean can still soothe, just by looking at it, or listening to it, as can any aspect of nature.
How can it be possible that we are blessed with such gifts day after day? And yet we have become a species of greed and ignorance, losing sight of true priorities and the beauty of our home, the Earth.
I guess those of us who can see it and do what we do positively, just have to focus on the beauty as much as possible, and on making our own positive difference. It would be too overwhelming to always focus on the destruction if not. There is beauty and it is healing. For that, we must count our blessings.
Every day there are blessings from nature. I hope you too are finding some in your world. It only takes a little time to slow down enough to see them.
And that time my friends, is some of the best time you can ever give yourself.
I remember one time walking through Fawkner Park in Melbourne. (It is a city of many beautiful parks). The sky was perfect and clear, the warmth of the sun so soothing but not searing, and I felt compelled to simply lie down and enjoy the sunshine for a while. This was enjoyed so immensely that I took a photo of the sky as I lay beneath it, even though there was nothing in the photo but blue. It was simply for my memory.
The seasons changing bring different moods and activities. And I love this season above all else. The nights are chilly enough now for the collection of wood from the paddocks. It won't be long before we are sitting outside around the fire of an evening, singing and talking by the stars.
Thankfully though, it is still somehow warm enough to be swimming in the ocean. Yesterday was a beautiful swim. It is getting cooler, definitely, especially when drying off afterwards. But the water is incredibly clean and clear at the moment, and the beaches amazingly deserted. The beach in the photo is where we swam yesterday. How can I not feel blessed to have access to such places?
During summer we snorkelled out near the rocks in the top left of the photo. There was so much life out there, lots of small stingrays, and all sorts of fish. Apparently just around the corner though is where a school of grey nurse sharks live. I'll take other people's words on that, without needing first hand proof myself.
Most sharks are a protected species in Australia, and rightly so. The ocean is their world after all. I've seen a few over the years when scuba diving, mostly just reef sharks. Like the grey nurse, they are pretty passive animals if left alone. It still sends my heart a-flutter to see them though. So when snorkelling in summer, I stayed this side of the rocks just to be sure.
It's a bit like when I was living in the Northern Territory and people told me that freshwater crocodiles are pretty harmless. They certainly are if being compared to the saltwater variety (or 'Salties' as we Aussies call them, since we are prone to abbreviate almost everything). But a croc is still a croc. And after seeing bubbles surface from below the canoe I was paddling in one day, I didn't need to test the theory about the behaviour of 'freshies'. I paddled on well out of there!
The ocean brings its other creatures too though and yesterday it was dolphins. In July and August, from the point this photo was taken from, we will be watching whales migrate. What an amazing planet we live on. Really, every day there are such incredible displays of nature.
They don't have to be as grand as whales migrating or dolphins flipping out of the water though. Watching the intricate and busy lives of insects always amazes me. As does watching flowers blooming and leaves unfolding, or at this time of year, leaves falling. It overwhelms me at times that life can be so beautiful, that so many gifts of nature are available to all of us. Even in cities there are acts of nature unfolding everywhere.
Yesterday I was swimming at this beautiful beach. Today, with the chill of the autumn night still lingering, I've worked on the verandah all morning, in the autumn sunshine. Despite the distractions of nature, it always turns out to be efficient work time when I am out here.
Perhaps I've had my last swim for the season. But it was clean and incredibly refreshing. And as I think about the mighty ocean, I give thanks for the planet we live on. It doesn't matter whether you can swim or not. The ocean can still soothe, just by looking at it, or listening to it, as can any aspect of nature.
How can it be possible that we are blessed with such gifts day after day? And yet we have become a species of greed and ignorance, losing sight of true priorities and the beauty of our home, the Earth.
I guess those of us who can see it and do what we do positively, just have to focus on the beauty as much as possible, and on making our own positive difference. It would be too overwhelming to always focus on the destruction if not. There is beauty and it is healing. For that, we must count our blessings.
Every day there are blessings from nature. I hope you too are finding some in your world. It only takes a little time to slow down enough to see them.
And that time my friends, is some of the best time you can ever give yourself.
