"The Simple Beauty of Nature"

"The best remedy for those who are afraid, lonely or unhappy," wrote Anne Frank, "is to go outside, somewhere where they can be quite alone with the heavens, nature and God. Only then does one feel that all is as it should be and that God wishes to see people happy amidst the simple beauty of nature."

She's so right, isn't she? Such serenity comes from ancient trees that weather storms, witness so many people passing and just go on growing and being what they are here to be without a care in the world; and rivers rolling on regardless of who is and who isn't in power, untouched by 'economic downturns'. You never see a dog that is worried about losing his job, or a duck fretting over the collapse of a bank, do you? You never see the sun in a bad mood, or the moon or stars concerned over the impression they make on their neighbours...And we, humanity, consider ourselves the wise ones! Nature teaches everything.
"Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor store in barns, and yet your heavenly father feeds them...Look at the lilies of the field; they neither toil nor spin, yet not even Solomon in all his splendour was arrayed as one of these!"

The World of the Heart and Imagination

"There are two worlds:" wrote Leigh Hunt, "the world we can measure with line and rule, and the world that we can feel with our hearts and imagination."
History, unfortunately, is dominated by only the sense of the former. That which cannot be measured or proved has so often been denied, mocked or even condemned as foolishness or madness. And where has that brought us to? A world where countries are marked in boundaries and millions have died to protect those boundaries; a world where we see only what is on the surface and seldom look into things to see their real essence; a world where we measure a person's worth by the size of their bank account or what they do for a living.
The world of the heart and imagination has for too long been seen as childish and irrelevant. To some extent, one might say that the masculine thinking of the patriarchal era is the world of rationality; the world of reason and measurement by line and rule. The feminine aspect of all of us (men and women) is that which understands through intuition, through the unseen, through the worlds within worlds...the heart and imagination. The denial of this aspect, and the suppression of dreamers and of women through the ages has led to a great imbalance in Nature.
In the heart and imagination, I believe utterly in the spirits of trees and lakes, in the presence of the Divine in all that exists. Reason tells me to balance this with everyday living, with the need to learn and to study and to go on learning and studying form and measurement - weighing up historical events, weighing up present day ethical and political arguments. One need not deny the other.
Still, there are rational minds that would say it is madness to believe we can communicate with plants and trees and the essence of the One Life in all creation; utter lunacy to believe in fairies or spirits of things. The other evening I watched the final episode of the wonderful BBC dramatisation of Anne Frank's Diary. At the end, as the writing came up to say what had happened to each member of the family, the sheer madness of that mass murder was quite overwhelming.
Which is more insane? To believe in what we know to be true in our hearts and imaginations, or to be rational and make rational arguments for wars and murder? I believe it is truly the time for intuition, for the heart and imagination and all the unseen that we sense in the core of our being to come to the fore. I think we have all had more than enough of that measured, solely 'mental' world, and it is truly the age for hearts to come into their own. We can return to the balance of how Nature is and all we are created to be by reclaiming our own identity and the courage to be free of outworn ideas, fighting other people's wars, following other people's scare-mongering, and simply knowing there is far more to all of us than meets the eye.

Well It Just Goes To Show...

It is great fun reading through some of the rejection letters sent by publishers, or words spoken by critics to authors and performers 'before they were famous' and it just goes to show....what it just goes to show!!

My favourite is the curt message to John Keats, "Stick to medicine, Mr. Keats, as you will never succeed as a poet."

Then there's the message of Simon Cowell to the multi-million-disc-selling Will Young, "Just average."

Going back further, George Orwell's "Animal Farm" was rejected because: "animal stories don't sell in the USA."

Sylvia Plath didn't have 'enough genuine talent for us to take notice."

Beatrix Potter's work was given to a junior partner with the idea that it would keep him busy - with little hope of success.

Stephen King was told, "“We are not interested in science fiction which deals with negative utopias. They do not sell.”

Didn't they say Fred Astaire could 'dance a bit' but was too unattractive to get anyway?

Dr. Seuss' book was described as: “…too different from other juveniles on the market to warrant its selling.”

And of the Diary of Anne Frank, a publisher wrote: "The girl doesn't, it seems to me, have a special perception or feeling which would lift that book above the curiosity level."

Well...it just goes to show....