Nature Experience

After three days of being a shut-in due to an overdose of a dilation medication for an eye exam, I am feeling somewhat hungry and empty of my usual intake of spiritual nourishment received by walking about Stepping Stones. I know what medication I need; to be outside working and piddling about the land I love. But that cannot be for now.

I am reminded of a painting that I bought to hang upon the fireplace at my previous home in the metroglobulus. (I know, Spell-Check, that metroglobulus is not in your dictionary but it is in mine. My made up word means that maze of concrete, asphalt, buildings, manicured lawns and superficiality of people and things of a large metropolis....yeah, you did not mind that word; however, metropolis is not descriptive enough of the emptiness that exists there while at the same time there is the over stimulation of the senses to trick one into believing that one is living and thereby feels as though one is truly alive.)

Back to the painting: it was entitled "Nature Experience" by Celeste Holmes (I believe that is correct). My take on the painting was the very thing that I was trying to escape upon moving to Stepping Stones; the experiencing of nature through glass represented by a dragonfly (in western culture a creature with sinister connotations while in eastern cultures, particularly Japan, it is imbued with positive qualities like happiness) on a window pane as the focal point in the painting amidst an abstract representation of a metropolis of angular buildings of glass.

Here at Stepping Stones I am surrounded by so much of nature's beauty but due to the dilation of my pupils, I must remain inside my darkened house, viewing the beauty through dark sunglasses which leaves me feeling detached, isolated and alone. Cold and apart from nature, as depicted in the painting, feelings from which I need escape.

I am truly a child of nature. With the awe and wonder of a child I usually walk about Stepping Stones in a trancelike state receiving nourishment from its vibrant abundance. Even sitting inside, before a partially undraped set of windows, I can suckle the nectar of the Rose of Sharon, the lantana, or a wildflower just like the multicolored butterfly I see flitting about the blossoms outside my window. Perhaps a dragonfly will do me the favor of presenting itself upon the window's pane.

Though experienced through glass, I am uplifted by the life cycles I see happening before me and I am satiated for now, until once again I can wander about like the butterfly or perhaps a dragonfly amidst the various plants and trees using all of my senses, not just what is visible through glass, to be suckled by the spiritual kinship that I have as a part of nature. That is, for me, Nature Experience.