staying humble – Page 27 – twenty-one words

Stop and smell the roses

November 9, 2015May 26, 2022Posted in gratitude, moments of beauty, native flowers, nature, solace, spring, staying humble, staying true, What I love about ...Tagged gratitude, moments of beauty, nature8 Comments

Native plants and vegetation are my passion.
(We all know that.)
So you won’t be surprised when I say I haven’t always been the hugest fan of roses.
They’re not native to Australia.
Sometimes they seem overblown to me, and showy — blowsy, even.

But once a year, the rose bushes outside a library I visit frequently put on quite a show.

Somehow, these roses please even my curmudgeonly spirit.

They are, simply, quite lovely.

They bring joy, not just into my day …

but into my very soul.

I think I’m slowly joining the rose-lover’s world …

Late spring

November 5, 2015May 26, 2022Posted in native flowers, nature, solace, South Australia, spring, staying humble, staying true, What I love about ...Tagged nature, solace, spring3 Comments

In late October, I went for another bushwalk.
In blossom were fan flowers:

muntries:

and those papery, daisy-like flowers, the common everlastings:

I encountered other inhabitants of the area, too —
many of them.

It was mid-morning — grazing time, I think, before the sun gets too hot.
I don’t like disturbing roos:
when threatened, they can be aggressive, especially if they are guarding joeys.
And besides, I’m aware that I’m on their territory, not vice versa.
So I stepped away and left them happily to it …

… Do you think it’s comfortable in that pouch?
It doesn’t look it to me!

When all is said and done

November 2, 2015October 20, 2015Posted in a thought, anxiety, favourite quotes, solace, staying humble, staying true, Uncategorized, What I love about ...Tagged anxiety, mental health, solaceLeave a comment

Other people’s words about … staying still

Do you ever have the urge to just move?
Metaphorically, I mean — not physically. That feeling inside — that longing not to feel stuck anymore.
I do. (Midlife crisis, anybody?!)
I don’t think there are any answers to this longing. I think the more we try to move — to push on, to change — the more we forget the grace there is in surrender.
In simply staying still.
Maybe you’re not an ABBA-tragic like me (I know! I know!). But today I give you a song that helps me with this.
Have a listen.
See what you think.

Listen to the song: ‘When all is said and done’, by ABBA*

* Note:
Click on the orange ‘play’ button at the top of the page in this link to listen to the song. It’s one of my favourites. The song is about the end of a relationship … but I think it works equally well if you think of it as talking about the end of a phase in your life. (Bear with me here. I know ABBA aren’t known for the literary nature of their lyrics! I did warn you I was an ABBA-tragic … )

Me and Mrs Jones: Telling it like it is

October 29, 2015October 9, 2015Posted in a thought, anxiety, favourite quotes, health, solace, staying humble, staying true, UncategorizedTagged blogging, solace1 Comment

Other people’s words about … social media

As I’ve mentioned before, I don’t do Facebook or Instagram .
(Or Pinterest … Or Snapchat.) And I never, ever take selfies.
Blogging is as far as I go.
One of the reasons is this:
It’s a bright, shiny world out there on social media.
Everything is beautiful in Insta-World.
But that’s not real life.
Life is a series of moments — some of them beautiful, some of them not —
and social media doesn’t capture that.
Here’s what lovely blogger Sheena has to say on the subject:

Social media is great, right? It’s the perfect way for me to stay connected to friends, see the world from different points of view, I can use it to work from home, and let’s all agree….it’s fun! It’s also the WORST….we all paint this picture of the perfect little world we live in–only showing our best of the best moments….it’s not at ALL a real representation of life. And I think sometimes it’s too easy to get caught up in that, don’t you think?

You’ve heard the term “Keeping up with the Joneses”, right? Did you know the phrase dates back to the early 1900s? I mean really, what was it that Jones Family was doing that was worth keeping up with–growing better potatoes? Riding a faster horse? Now, with social media, we know every little detail of the Joneses life. Where they are going and who they are with and how they got there! What they are eating and when they are eating it! What their perfect house looks like, what their perfect kids look like, and what their perfect face looks like, because now the Joneses share lots of pictures of their outstretched arms and close-up faces. They definitely didn’t have to worry about selfies back in 1913.

Those Joneses are BUSY, and they are everywhere. Doing everything. And rubbing it in your face.

Behind the square (1 October 2015)
from the little red house

My take?
Life isn’t picture-perfect.
And that’s —
just —
fine.

(Wordless) gratitude

October 26, 2015May 26, 2022Posted in gratitude, native coastal vegetation, native flowers, nature, South Australia, staying humble, staying true, WinterTagged gratitude, meditation, nature, solace, wordless1 Comment

Variable groundsel on the dunes at Taperoo 19 July 2014 3.06 pm — Variable groundsel on the dunes
19 July 2014
3.06 pm

Deception

October 22, 2015May 26, 2022Posted in Australian bush, nature, South Australia, spring, staying humble, staying true, What I love about ...Tagged joy, nature, spring7 Comments

On one of my favourite bike rides,
I pass an empty field outside a GP clinic.
Most of the year, it’s just a bare field with long, uncut grass.
But in spring, it changes.

Such deceptive beauty!
These flowers, heralding from South Africa,
are considered weeds here.
They’ve spread far and wide, pushing out our own native flowers.

It’s hard not to admire them, though —
their abandoned spread;
their cheerful, bright colours …

… and their faces uplifted to the sun.

Spring joy

October 19, 2015May 26, 2022Posted in Australian bush, birds, native coastal vegetation, native flowers, nature, solace, South Australia, spring, staying humble, staying true, What I love about ...Tagged birds, nature, solace2 Comments

I took a walk through the bush again in late September.
Skinks rustled through the undergrowth.
Whistlers burbled; shrike thrushes sang; blue fairy-wrens and fantails darted about.
And there were wild flowers everywhere, including common fringe-myrtles;

Common fringe-myrtle (calytrix tetragona)

paper flowers;

Paper-flower (thomasia petalocalyx)

smooth rice-flowers;

Smooth riceflower (pimelea glauca)

and grevilleas.

Spider-flower (grevillea lavandulacea)

Every month brings a new season in the bush.
Every month brings a new, different kind of joy.

Irises for my mother: 2015 (update)

October 12, 2015May 26, 2022Posted in spring, staying humble, staying trueTagged spring6 Comments

Last year, I didn’t have much luck with my irises.
They sent up shoots, but there were no flowers.
This year …

The lone iris in my garden 9 September 2015 — The lone iris in my garden
9 September 2015

… Yes that’s right —
there was one lone iris in amongst all the green shoots.

One is better than none, right?

Soup for the soul

October 8, 2015October 7, 2015Posted in anxiety, cooking/baking, health, solace, spring, staying humble, staying true, What I love about ..., WinterTagged mental health1 Comment

Soup from my father’s kitchen

During winter, my father cooks up a weekly batch of vegetable soup,
which he and my mother eat for lunch each day.
The soup flavours vary —
pumpkin one week, tomato the next, broccoli and green bean the next.
And he always sets aside some for me.

Winter’s well behind us now, of course.
(In the first week of October,
the temperatures soared over 30 degrees Celsius.)

But I’m still enjoying my father’s soup,
which is tasty, warming and good …

… and which he makes, always, with love.

Abundance

October 5, 2015May 26, 2022Posted in a thought, Australian bush, life, nature, staying humble, staying true, What I love about ..., WinterTagged nature, solace1 Comment

My garden originally had several patches of arum lilies.
Also called calla lilies, these flowers are sometimes thought to symbolise death. They’re considered a toxic weed in South Australia, so I ended up reducing my lilies to one small, protected patch.

They spring up during the mid-winter rains, when the grass is long and wet and green, and the soil damp and crumbly — reminding me not of death, but of life.
Of growth.
Of abundance.