Seeing Everything As A Gift – Inspirational

Photo from Corlay, a small village in central  Brittany,

Walking around with my camera as I tend to do,  I never know what’s around the corner. It could be everything. Or it could be nothing. I keep putting one foot in front of the other, until something appears I want to photograph. The picture here is of a path, one I regularly visit.  While shooting  the photo, I’d focused on the trees only, thus, had not seen the lady with the white dog. Sitting later in the computer room, editing the photo, the lady in the far background suddenly became visible.  How had I missed her? She was wearing  a red coat, a colour that stands out, but somehow I had not seen her. Now, I wonder was she real or was she a phantom?  I will never know. She is a pleasing gift for this photo though.   Thank you lady in the Red Coat!   

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“As we traversed rural India at the speed of a couple of miles per hour, it became clear how much we could learn simply by bearing witness to the villagers’ way of life. Their entire mental model is different—the multiplication of wants is replaced by the basic fulfillment of human needs. When you are no longer preoccupied with asking for more and more stuff, then you just take what is given and give what is taken. Life is simple again. A farmer explained it to us this way: “You cannot make the clouds rain more, you cannot make the sun shine less. They are just nature’s gifts—take it or leave it.”

When the things around you are seen as gifts, they are no longer a means to an end; they are the means and the end. And thus, a cow-herder will tend to his animals with the compassion of a father, a village woman will wait three hours for a delayed bus without a trace of anger, a child will spend countless hours fascinated by stars in the galaxy, and finding his place in the vast cosmos.

So with today’s modernized tools at your ready disposal, don’t let yourself zoom obliviously from point A to point B on the highways of life; try walking the back roads of the world, where you will witness a profoundly inextricable connection with all living things.”

–Nipun Mehta, PATHS ARE MADE FOR WALKING: Four steps to take on the road of life

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Here are several other favourite paths from central Brittany, France. “Photos of Fall”
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a favourite path