#Earthschooling365: Day Seventy-Three
Inner Work Meditation (Heart): As part of our journey learning about the 12-senses we will talk today about why learning about them is important. Yesterday we learned about what the 12-senses were called and we thought a bit about what those terms mean to us. Today your inner work assignment is to think about how important this awareness is.
In today’s world we suffer from sense imbalance and sensory deprivation. These two problems impact our health, our relationships, our spirit, our happiness, the way a child develops, and much more. Deficiency in these areas can cause asthma, heart problems, anxiety, depression, divorce, ADHD, social disorders, anger management problems, obesity, and much more. The senses must be balanced and nurtured but we cannot do that without being aware of what they are. It is like in history where the sailors used to travel over the seas and many would die of scurvy. Without knowing they were lacking the essential vitamin C they had no idea they were depriving their bodies. They didn’t do it on purpose, they all had the best intentions, they were all healthy and strong men and definitely wanted to do everything they could to make the trip a success. But how could they reach their destination without knowing about this essential vitamin? Many of them didn’t or they did but ended up with life long health problems as a result.
Nature Walk Idea (Head): My computer is near a window overlooking a maple tree. Lately all the maple seeds have been turning brown and falling to the ground. During the course of the day I see chipmunks, birds and squirrels all eating these seeds. When I was a child, however, we called them helicopters and we used to gather hundreds of them up and toss them in the air just for the joy of watching them spin to the ground again. As an adult I still enjoy watching the seeds spin to the ground but I see them differently. Now I see that each one of those seeds will probably grow to be a tiny maple tree I will need to weed out from my lawn or garden before it takes over the other plants. So to an adult these are weeds, to a child they are toys but to the animals they are food. Your assignment today is to find as many items in nature as you can that are food to animals, birds and insects. You will be surprised as you look around. As a human we just see the physical beauty of the plants around us but an animal might see a buffet just like we see when we enter a family gathering at Thanksgiving time.
Photography Notes (Hands): In the third picture I selected today you can see a squirrel getting ready to eat a nut. The moment is captured as he holds the nut in his hands just before the process of eating it. We have talked before about capturing candid moments. This photo does that. The squirrel is so occupied with the nut that he has not yet noticed the photographer. We have also talked about action. This photo implies action. When looking at this photo you can also think about framing. I had a couple choices with the framing of this photo. I could have cropped out everything except the squirrel and the nut to focus on the squirrel’s interaction with the nut but I chose to include the vast background around him. When I compared the two photos I felt that the contrast of the small squirrel and his nut against the empty background made his focus on the nut even more powerful. When I cropped the photo it had a different feel. Imagine cropping the photo. What decision would you have made? Both are good examples of cropping.
Today’s assignment is to add another element to what we have already practiced. Today your assignment is to find an animal or person interacting with something else in nature. Some ideas might be a person smelling a flower, a rabbit sniffing at a log or a bird tugging at a piece of twine or a twig. When your subject is interacting with something else in the frame this helps bring the viewers attention deeper into your photo.
Verse: Helicopters
Copyright Kristie Burns
We gather them up in the morning sun
Hundreds and hundreds, one by one
We toss them to the bright blue sky
We laugh and chase them my brother and I
Slowly they hypnotize us as they spin
Spiraling and whirling we do it again
*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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