get outside!

Sometimes when Pete and I are up after the kids go to bed, we get to talking about these little human beings we are raising and what the most important things we want to teach them are. Kindness, compassion, patience, gratitude... One thing that we really want to impart is a deep love and respect for Mother Nature.

In a society where most of us live in urban centres and are surrounded by pavement and buildings, it is easy to think that you need to leave the city to really connect with Mother Nature. Yet even in the midst of all this urban sprawl, we can generally find a little green space where the opportunity presents itself to commune with nature in much of her resplendent glory.

Take our back yard for example. There's a whole microcosmos out there where all the laws and mysteries of nature's rule shine through with fierce determination and blinding colour. Insects, plants, animals, earth, weather, man - all interacting and striving to coexist with one another.

So we venture outside as often and as much as we can with the boys, even just into our own back yard. And when we're there, we remind ourselves that we are part of nature, not above it or beyond it and that her laws and mysteries apply as equally to us as to the birds, the flowers and the beetles. We get outside to find our centre, to breath, to relax and to enjoy and celebrate this wondrous life and magical world to its fullest!

Update: My sweet husband always reads and edits everything I write before anyone else sees it, because lets face it - I need an editor. Usually its just a few grammatical errors scattered throughout the piece which need some tweaking. Yet this post, apparently it needed some major TLC, and now when I read the finished product, it feels more like a joint effort. His thoughts and words shine through ever so eloquently (I didn't even know what 'resplendent' meant!) and I just wanted to mention that. Pete is an exceptional writer, yet he never writes. But ask him to talk about living in harmony with nature, and away he goes! So I am just tickled pink to share this space with him :)

Be well,
Shannon and Pete