#Earthschooling365: Day Forty-Three
Inner Work Meditation (Heart): My favorite thing about this picture of the hawk today is the way his eye is highlighted by the afternoon sun filtering through the branches in the woods. In fact, we are often captivated by the eyes of both animals and humans. Without knowing why they convey more information than we are consciously aware of. By looking an animal or person in the eyes you can connect with them in a much deeper way. Today meditate on different ways you can take some time to look into someone’s eyes and spend extra time looking people in the eyes today. If you have a child, spouse, family member, friend or partner spend five minutes looking into each other’s eyes. If you do not have someone with you look at your own eyes in the mirror for five minutes. You may be surprised at what happens! If you want to learn more about how to read the eyes of those around you take a look at our Iridology Mini-Course or Iridology Certification Course (payment plan here).
Nature Walk Idea (Head): Different animals have different skills to help them navigate in the wild or urban areas they live in. Today on your nature walk try to guess what some of those skills might be and why they might need them. One good example is the hawk (and other birds of prey). And interesting fact about them is that they have very good eye-sight but they don’t have a very good sense of smell. This is because they need to be able to see (and aim) from where they are flying high in the sky but they don’t really need to smell things up in the sky. It is not a sense they are dependent on. This is also why birds of prey are the main danger to skunks (other than cars). Most animals – even cougars, wolves and bears – will not eat a skunk because they don’t want to eat something that smells so awful. However, birds of prey don’t care about the smell so they like to feast on skunks. To learn more about wildlife check out some of our wildlife education classes here.
Photography Notes (Hands): Today we will talk a bit about aperture. This is one of the three pillars of photography along with ISO and Shutter Speed (both of which we have already explored). I’ve saved this one for last because it was the most difficult one for me to comprehend when I was first learning about photography. However, it is arguably also one of the most fascinating as it can be used to blur the background of photos (like the one of the hawk above) or can be used to bring everything into focus. To help you understand aperture and how you can use it to add dimension, excitement and precision to your photos I am going to take you through the lesson very slowly. I think part of my problem when I first started with photography was that the teacher tried to teach the subject too quickly and that I tried to understand it in one day. So today, enjoy taking photos and while you are doing that consider the very basics of what aperture is and what your camera is doing while you take photos. Try to notice what aperture you are shooting at (even if it is on auto the screen will tell you) and think about what your camera is doing as you shoot. Try to visualize what is happening. I will describe it below (note that a typical smart phone aperture is f2.4 but that is a complex topic we will tackle on another day).
Every camera has a diaphragm/hole within the lens in the camera that opens and shuts according to what aperture is set. The really amazing thing about this is that it is designed like the human eye. The cornea (black part) of our eye is like this element in the lens.The cornea gathers light and then bends it and then passes it to the iris. A camera lens works in the same way. You may have noticed that when you are outdoors your pupil is smaller and when it is dark out or you are indoors your pupil is larger. Why do you think this is?
You are right! Your pupil needs to get larger when you are in darker places to let in more light. In the same way the camera lens does the same thing. You can see how this looks on a camera below (we will review this again tomorrow and explain the numbers).
Verse: Eyes**
Copyright Kristie Burns
Jewels of the head
Matchmaker of dreams and hands
Skylight to the heart
**Haiku: A Japanese verse form of three unrhyming lines in five, seven, and five syllables
*These poems have been created for many purposes – from early childhood circle time verses to inspirational or expressive. They vary from day to day so you may find the way you use them or enjoy them also varies. If you would like to set these poems to music consider our tutorial: Creating Your Ow Waldorf Verses or Finding Your Inner Voice.
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What is #Earthschooling365?
This series takes you through an entire year of our nature walks and is part of our non-profit project #Earthschooling365 at www.Earthschooling.org. The photos and posts in this series are all copyrighted. Please do not share or re-print them. Instead, share the link to this blog with your friends.
Along the way I will be sharing our favorite photo of the day, an inner work meditation for the day, photography assignment/tip for the day, nature walk theme for the day and a short verse for circle time (children) or meditation (teens/adults). We invite you to “walk along with us” this year, take some time to use the inner work meditation, be inspired by the nature walk theme of the day and perhaps even start a photo series of your own. To join the community on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram please tag your photos #Earthschooling365. To receive these inspirations in your e-mail inbox daily please subscribe to our blog alerts HERE. Don’t worry about missing days – you can join us as many days as you want this year!
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