When I'm in quiet, green places everything feels... just as it should. When I'm in the city, working in the hospital, watching the news, listening to the cars, the people arguing and criticising each other, all this suffering... then I'm not sure. But to get to the green, quiet places I have to do those other things too. I wonder how I would feel if I had infinite quiet, green places and nothing to compare it to?
Two days up north with @dwam (who took the above picture while I was sleeping in the softest grass in the sun in the restful place, an island in the middle of Scotland's only lake (the rest are lochs!) where the ruins of an Augustine Abbey remain among circles of yew trees, hazel and horse chestnut) gave me the energy to work the last two days in the hospital and further inspiration to spend as much time as possible in nature. People are nature too but I think we are lost.
And I tried to take the patients into nature as much as I could this week too, even if it was just brining some little herb plants to those who couldn't leave the ward or sitting outside facing the oak tree and not the hospital buildings with some who could. But how grateful I am to have my friends and the opportunity to see and to appreciate such beautiful places. I really despair in people who live here and say Scotland is rubbish, just get yourselves outside and look at this place and if you aren't satisfied with how it functions then it's time to take some responsibility for that. This can be done by voting YES in the referendum on the 18th of September.
"I still live, I still think; I must still live, for I must still think. Sum, ergo cogito: cogito, ergo sum. To-day everyone takes the liberty of expressing his wish and his favourite thought: well, I also mean to tell what I have wished for myself today, and what thought first crossed my mind this year, a thought which ought to be the basis, the pledge and the sweetening of all my future life! I want more and more to perceive the necessary characters in things as the beautiful: I shall thus be one of those who beautify things. Amor fati: let that henceforth be my love! I do not want to wage war with the ugly. I do not want to accuse, I do not want even to accuse the accusers. Looking aside, let that be my sole negation! And all in all, to sum up: I wish to be at any time hereafter only & yea-sayer!" (Friedrich Nietzsche - The Joyful Wisdom)
I was just reminded to post this wonderful painting that Tom Bagshaw did. The really wonderful thing about it is he also painted quite a few of my friends, @dwam, @gogo, @lass... and so we all appear in this beautiful together. That makes me feel very honoured. You can see all the images here - http://shop.mostlywanted.com/category/black-lodge
Hope you have time for some peace, some nature and the opportunity to say yes to something. Wish us luck x
