These sculptures down on post office square always entertain me. The shining stainless steel reflect the blue neon and the lights from the surrounding buildings. Definitely far more engaging at night than in the day. The mad squiggles remind me of reflections in water. I also can imagine them being expressions of people – tall, aloof, wanting to reach out, and then horrors – recoiling away with a shudder and a shiver.

It’s not always easy to reach out to people. You have to stretch out beyond your comfort zones.

Manifesto
04. Every day is an opportunity to cultivate the promise of the future.
10. Every day connect with somebody.
18. Every day express love. Some people need to hear it. Most people need to see it. Don’t take it for granted.

They don’t seem to pay much attention to the writhing words of global warming, pollution, recession, depression, recovery, woe is me … cherries just seem to figure it’s getting to be more hours of daylight, let’s get on with it.

Maybe they measure time in different ways – their clocks and calendars are more attuned to how our would’ve been just a few hundred years ago. Unlike us, cherries don’t have a profit motive warped into their every act. They do the best they can with what they’ve got. If we were humans we’d think they had something we aspire to – cherries have got faith in themselves, and faith that Spring will come around again, no matter how hard the Winter.

Manifesto
19. Every day make time for yourself.
20. Every day say thank you.
30. Every day use all your senses. Touch. Smell. Taste. Hear. See.

lying down
      with quilts over the head
such a cold night — Basho

As if to celebrate the long weekend (more, more) the roof was hammered all night long by the rain. There’s something soothing about being in bed with the sound of rain on the roof, however I could feel a cold growing away in me.

Sure enough, in the weak dawn, I’m up for a hot lemon tea and back to bed to try to fend it off. Go, you immune system warriors, go! I pull the covers up and flag work for the day.

Manifesto
13. Every day be better than you were the day before.
19. Every day make time for yourself.
28. Every day you will be tested.

If we were the size of butterflies, we would be able to rise up in the cool stillness of the early morning. We would be able to take our first breaths of the morning air and we would be able to breathe as if it were the first day ever. We would feel the clean air rushing into our bodies and with each escaping breath we would release the staleness from our souls freely. Gratefully. Calmly.

We would feel the warming day and the cooling night parting company. We would smell the dawn rain and the damp earth and we would feel vibrantly energised and alive.

If we were the size of butterflies we would be able to sip the cool water and be cleansed and we would drink and drink again until our thirst was quenched. We would feel the refreshing purity of the water reaching the very essence of our being.

We would hear the hum of bees and the rustle of insects and the birds calling the way that they have forever and our world would be filled with the joyous noises of life. We would hear the stems of plants squeaking, rubbing, stretching as they grow past each other.

If we were the size of butterflies we would care a great deal more about the vibrations of green – the tone-on-tone harmonics – and our world would seem like a very, very large, mysterious, and beautiful place indeed.

If we were the size of butterflies.

Manifesto
01. Every day is a fresh new day.
05. Every day is now. The present moment.
39. Every day trust that there is a bigger picture. You are a part of it even if you may not know what it is.