A delightful encounter on my way to work

iris reticulata

This week my walk to work was brightened by this becoming bed of blue irises! I loved them because they are a stunning surprise of color. And because they are so fresh and perfect, especially in comparison to the other foliage I have walked amidst for the past few months--dead grasses and decaying leaves mostly. These little blossoms are blooming up heartily and healthily even in these inconsistent days, somewhere between winter and spring. It brings me joy to see signs of life. And not just any sign, but beautiful, bright, bold flowers leading the way into a livelier season!

I am so grateful for this hopeful, happy gift of life! And thus, I am taking a cue from these lovely perennials and preparing for life after winter!

Let it come quickly!

And with much more gorgeous flora to make everything seem just a bit
more glorious!

Loveliness

I just don't think you can understand how much

I really LOVE butterflies!

The joy of my day was stumbling upon this lovely collection of butterfly photos on National Geographic! (I also really love NG- you won't find as much awesomeness anywhere else, I'm pretty much positive!)

Butterfly wings are just so utterly incredible and intriguing! They are so delicate and graceful; so breathtaking! And they are patterned in such astonishing ways! How did butterflies get so lucky? How is that their wings were endowed with such vibrant colors and intricate patterns and such an incredible iridescence? Let's face it, the loveliest humans with the clearest, most comely complexions really don't hold a candle to the glorious beauty of a butterfly! I mean, can you imagine having skin like a butterfly's wings--we would all be so exotic and lovely and vibrant! Though, perhaps a bit fragile...

all photos via National Geographic

oh pretty please

let this mean that it is going to be Spring soooonnnn!

These little flowers keep popping up in my front yard... even after it snows.
They help me believe it won't be Winter forever.
In fact, it makes me hope that maybe Spring will be here any day!
And with Spring must come all good things.

Fingers crossed.

I want to be a human too!

"The New Humanism." What a perfect title. I couldn't help but be intrigued by this article in the NYTimes by David Brooks. He briefly discusses the science now supporting the idea that we are not just reasonable, logical beings (which many of us could probably know from personal experience). Our highest achievement is not pure rationality and the lack of all emotion, but the balance between passion and reason--our connectedness to each other and our understanding of the world based on the intertwining of fact and feeling. We can't ignore the human and social context of our lives. I love this:

"we are not individuals who form relationships. We are social animals, deeply interpenetrated with one another, who emerge out of relationships."

And listen to all of these lovely words he introduces us to:

Attunement: the ability to enter other minds and learn what they have to offer.

Equipoise: the ability to serenely monitor the movements of one’s own mind
and correct for biases and shortcomings.

Metis: the ability to see patterns in the world and derive a gist from complex situations.

Sympathy:

the ability to fall into a rhythm with those around you and thrive in groups.

Limerence:This isn’t a talent as much as a motivation.
The conscious mind hungers for money and success, but the unconscious mind hungers for those moments of transcendence
when the skull line falls away and we are lost in love for another, the challenge of a task or
the love of God.

Basically, I want to have attunement, equipoise, metis, sympathy and limerence. I want to use my heart and my head when I view the world and other people. I want to balance logic and passion; skill and emotion; reason and feeling. These are integral aspects of who we are. We cannot see accurately without taking into account both the emotional and rational aspects of the world around us.

And I think these qualities will be central to creating policies and practices (personally, locally, nationally and internationally) that will address issues properly; by viewing the world not as a statistical problem to be solved, but as a collective humanity that must be united in bringing peace and prosperity to all.

(At least, that is how I like to see things in my probably slightly more emotional and less logical mind... oh well. I'm still working on it.)