I do not live in a vacuum. When I started blogging it was because of a long held desire to write. To get the words out. To share. To be understood. To express.
But since then I have learned that often the important thing is not what I say, what I write, what I express, but rather what comes back. Knowing that your words resonate with someone, anyone is a joy and a privilege.
And getting to know the words and works of others who resonate with you is one of the absolute best things about putting yourself out there. To discover someone that is writing what you live, who is expressing what you are experiencing, who is describing things you are still struggling to define - there is something magical about that.
Something wonderful. Something scary and intimidating too sometimes.
Because sometimes you read the words you wish you'd written, sometimes you feel like others are doing a much better job of it than you will ever do. But that intimidation is nothing compared to the inspiration. Especially when you can connect with that person, get to know them a bit, collaborate, share. And when they value what you are doing too. The thing you felt was not good enough, becomes good enough.
Such was the way when I discovered Naomi's beautiful words at Days Careen. I stumbled upon this post about swimming in the sea at dawn, and I knew I had found a kindred spirit. Which is why I am thrilled to be able to share some more of her words here. I know you'll enjoy this post. Do.
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Timely Reminders by Naomi at Days Careen
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| Days Careen |
Weather that makes you notice nature, real weather that heaves and sighs like the earth is breathing and exhaling it's woes. I can feel the rain heavy in the air about to fall and I'm alive and rushing trying to beat it. I walk faster and fumble for my key, then the door is open and I'm in.
And all of a sudden the noise stops, all is still again, my skin bites from the waves of freshness that have just washed against it. Every inch of me is wide awake and ready because this is what it is to be alive isn't it, feeling things with every inch of yourself, connecting to this world with your physical body, knowing this world with your mind and feeling it with your soul? I can hear the wind roaring and rumbling around the house, the rain begins to throw itself against the window, but the sound is muffled by the walls that now surround me.
The wildness of that walk followed by the stillness of home, is not lost on me. It makes me want to jump with joy, exclaim and dance for this earth of ours and this life of mine. The abundance of energy that is there for the taking, to be seized and transformed into something of my making.
The whirling weather today perfectly reflecting my whirling thoughts. One idea thrown around after another. That somebody I know, just a few years older than me has been diagnosed with terminal cancer, how can that be?
How can our human minds make sense of or comprehend such a thing? To be told you don't have long to live, that there is a limit to your days here at my kind of age, when, at my kind of age, I feel like my life is just beginning, that I am just sorting out who I am and starting to edge in a direction, choosing my path and stumbling along it. I can't imagine being told, well you'll never know whether your stumbling will turn into long, powerful strides because your path is being clipped short in the stumbling, finding your feet stage.
It is playing on my mind. But there has to be good out of terrible things else the human race would never cope and would have given up a long time ago. So I'm searching for the good and the good is the people it has brought together again and the effect it is having on people's lives in reminding them to enjoy what you have got right now, to see every day as a whole life lived. To not wish for things in the future at the cost of ignoring the vast opportunities and wealth of potential we have in each moment we live in the present.
This is a written reminder to myself, this whole post that life is a wondrous, far-fetched, all consuming thing, that events work out the way they do for reasons that will one day make sense.
'What matters is not whether we preserve our lives at any cost, but how we preserve them. I sometimes think that every new situation, good or bad, can enrich us with new insights. But if we abandon the hard facts that we are forced to face, if we give them no shelter in our heads or hearts, do not allow them to settle and change into impulses through which we can grow and from which we can draw meaning - then we are not a viable generation.' Etty Hillesum
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Thank-you Naomi, for sharing your beautiful words with us. I do hope, if you like what you see, you'll pop over to Days Careen and have a good look around. You won't be disappointed.
What has been an important and timely reminder for you?
Listen to Florence + The Machine Breath of Life
Top Image Licensed Under Creative Commons
Next Image via Days Careen
Top Image Licensed Under Creative Commons
Next Image via Days Careen
