There has been a wonder growing in my life, a wonder I can’t and don’t want to keep hidden any longer:
a relationship with a timid little robinbird who means the world to me.
Today I want to celebrate that wonder.
Thank you, little robinbird, for sharing this life with me, and for the immense, wordless delight you turn my days into.
Thank you for the promise of so much more to come, for saying you’ll be mine.
Spring is here – a time of joyous growth, a reminder of the exuberance of life.
Yesterday I saw a weaver building his nest, and I stopped a while to look at the intricate ways his bill wove the grass stems into something he wanted to offer his prospective mate. It was followed by that moment of holding your breath: would she accept his home, or would she rip it apart, dissatisfied with something which looked perfect to me as human outsider?
This morning I saw the nest intact. All is well in the world.
Being an architect, I’m naturally fascinated by the way folk build their homes and offices. Clean lines, eco-friendly building, and a minimalist approach is what usually works for me.
Take traditional Greek building, the style you associate with Santorini and other Greek paradise spots.
The practice to build shelves, benches and even beds right into the architecture is a style which appeals to the minimalist in me. It enables the home owner to travel lightly. Can you imagine going through life with possessions you could fit into a small truck? No huge beds, wardrobes, bookcases, or suchlike to concern yourself with. It further relieves the strain on the earth’s wood resources. If you can build the house from recycled bricks, you have a home which is much more eco-friendly than most abodes.
These images, from the Perivolas Hotel in Greece, illustrate the style perfectly. It is something I can bear to see more of, any time, an ideal sanctuary to live in.
Immersing yourself in an environment which is as clutter-free as this, is a sure-fire way to invite peace into your everyday existence. Life is too fast-paced and too demanding to afford ourselves anything less!
A very dear friend closed down her blog today, for reasons I know are both personal and admirable.
The world is a wee bit poorer today for this loss, but I know it won’t be for long.
Pippa, all the very best of luck for spreading your wings, finding new horizons, and living your dream.
May the energy you pour into your new venture make it grow beyond all your highest expectations!
You have been an example and an inspiration to so many, and I know you will continue to be.
Fly high, little bird!
EDIT:
Pippa is back on The Porch, and I know I am not the only one ecstatically happy about it.
Pip, the world’s a better place for having you here.
Well, seems time flies when you’re having fun! Just look where we are, in June already!
Pippa wrote a wonderful post about giving awards to the people and things which thrill, delight and inspire you, as a way of lifting your happiness setpoint. It is advice I accept with a smile and the resolution to do exactly that this month.
And I agree, it works, too. Giving an award for the best cappuccino of the day just made me appreciate every sip more. An award for the friendliest highway driver of the day made me realize how grateful I am for the people who calmly go with the flow and allow you space in traffic, not succumbing to the greediness and road rage which seem such temptations to folk lately. An award for the coolest computer program reminds me that I’m definitely grateful for something which offers me a DELETE option and a SAVE option, instead of having to do complex architectural plans over after I had made a mistake. And the award for the sweetest mom (I think I made her blush) heightens my awareness of how blessed I am that she still shares this life on earth with my sis and me. These all served to lift my own day even higher than usual.
Of course, the rain receives the top award. Dry as our winters are, I’m especially thrilled to hear the gutters gurgling this evening.
They seem small, insignificant things. Hardly worth writing over. But musicians hardly ever write about their music, do they? Rather, they compose. And where the addition of another instrument to the score might seem insignificant on paper, it is in the melody where you realize: it makes all the difference. It is what changes a composition from acceptable to OUTSTANDING.
And that is what I want my whole life to be: experienced as OUTSTANDING, lived as OUTSTANDING.
To you, Pip, goes the award for spreading such sweet, bright light!
Life is a forest journey.
It is something I think about regularly. And it struck me the other day how much of life can be seen in the metaphor of plants. Even Jesus drew parallels between life and the growth of the vine.
The same with depression. We all struggle with dark times when life seems unbearably difficult and our spirits fail, almost to the point of giving up. But think about darkness in terms of plant life and you see how important it is to have that balance of dark and light in your life.
Plant roots form best in darkness, burrowing down into the ground, becoming stronger, gripping the soil, sending out fingers able to absorb water and minerals. Enormous trees are kept anchored in the ground because of their enormous root systems, digging down deep and spreading wide. A tree cannot exist without its elaborate root system.
When we view spells of depression – when darkness enfolds us – as root-growing times, we see the value of these times, offering us the opportunity of introspection, re-evaluation, re-formulation of our values and goals, and digging down so that our foundations in life and in Christ may be made stronger.
These times finally result in better grounded people, more able to absorb the Living Water and to be nourished by God, more able to keep us anchored when the strong winds rage around us, more able to provide protection and shade to those around us who need it.
And that makes the darkness a good thing, an experience of inestimable worth.
To everybody out there dealing with darkness right now:
**Hang in there, you are growing some amazing roots!**
photo courtesy: www.batkhela.com
Suddenly today I am thinking of water and wine.
Came across a good article about putting resolutions and ideals into practice. The secret?
Take action!
That simple. Knowing what to do yet not doing it will not help you. Receiving inspiration yet not acting on it will not bring growth.
This is (hardly surprising) what Jesus said as well:
“Everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain fell, the flood came, and the winds beat against that house, and it collapsed; it was utterly destroyed!” [Matthew 7:26-27]
I reckon what He means is that learning things or deciding things without putting them into action is the same as building your life without a foundation. Sooner or later, especially when some storm blows through your life, you are going to find out that there is nothing solid to fall back on. Nothing stable to hold on to when the little things we fill up our lives with fall away. Theory is not reality – action is reality!
The good news? It is easy to build a strong foundation. Simply by taking action.
We need action to ennoble thought and knowledge.
We need practice to ennoble theory and plan.
And this is what I like most about the article, this one question, which is so entirely do-able:
“What action are you willing to take this week to bring you closer to your goal?”
It becomes easier when you think about it like that. You need to figure out only one thing this week which will bring you closer to your goal. Only one thing to start changing your dreams and goals into REALITY, something tangible!
And here is where the whole thing of water and wine enters the picture: What will you do this week to change theory into experience? To transmute water into wine?
Because that is what wine really is: Water with experience!
The water which fed the grape, together with minerals and sunshine, made it grow into a fruit. The fruit was harvested and pressed and fermented. Finally it is a liquid, just like water, but with much more added to it after all its experience.
Perhaps when Jesus changed water into wine He really just poured time and experience into something as ‘normal’ and accessible as water.
Perhaps that is all that is required of us, too. To take the water, the raw material of our intention, and to pour time and experience into it, in the form of real action.
To make wine from our lives!
do not despair, little child of Mine!
all is as it should be
call, and I will hear
-
and then, rest
stop fretting,
simply be
with Me
because all is as it should be
-
You became present on the day I called out to You.
You said, “Do not fear!” [Lamentations 3:57]
There has been much talk these past two years of foregoing new year’s resolutions in favour of just one word for the entire year. I think Christine Kane is one of the principal encouragers of this idea. It is a good one.
I’m not in favour of making resolutions which only get forgotten after 3 weeks, in any case. However, I am a-l-l for choosing a sharp focus for the upcoming year. To have this focus underneath you like a firm foundation for the whole next 365 days (or in today’s case, 359 
) on which you can build new habits, new thought patterns and a whole new life, that is a thought which greatly excites me.
So this month is for me all about setting the foundation. And the first thing you need to do to lay a foundation – after you have planned, of course – is to excavate the area where you are going to build.
Planning.
Excavation.
In this case, excavation means de-cluttering. Possessions, commitments, mental clutter, materialistic ‘needs’ … you get the idea. Leo Babauta over at Zen Habits has a Power of Less Challenge for 2009, with a free ebook download to get you going.
That’s where I am starting. For January my focus is all on excavation. Decluttering the site where I want to build this house of my life, this temple for God where His name may be honoured.
What is my word for 2009?
Clear.
To become clear in who I am, what I want to achieve, where I am headed in this year.
May it be a great year for everybody!
It is designs such as this one which makes me excited about my career and its fantastic opportunities to keep growing, and to make the earth a better place!
Have a look at the rotating homes designed by Solaleya. The domed shape is very pleasing to the eye, offers remarkable wind resistance, and the whole house rotates imperceptibly to follow or avoid sunlight for better temperature control and the optimal use of natural light. The rotation uses very little energy, in fact, it gains more energy this way. The design provides stability in seismic activity, as well.
And you can’t help but think of a very modern Hobbit home, can you?
