The sun rises, the sun sets, we wake, we sleep, we work we rest, we entertain, we get entertained. These are the daily chores in our everyday lives...and we live in different worlds with different experiences, but one thing remains...we are human and we have emotions which differ and change throughout our daily lives.
We are all different from each other in much the way that we are similar. We all experience the same set of emotions, and since we live different lives these emotions come in different ways at different times and in different intensities. We have all learnt to understand our emotions and the emotions of others, and we have all learnt to manage them. It has been said that one of the biggest developments of mankind is understanding this thing called emotion, and through this understanding we have been able to develop relationships, maintain them, and end them. Some say the most important thing in life is to understand and manage the relationships we have with other people, be it our parents, peers, or acquaintances, business partners etc. This is how we have learnt to live with each other and how we have learnt to manipulate the daily activities of our lives and what we have set out to do. The fundamental aspect of all this is, Emotion: sadness, anger, fear, happiness, excitement, nonchalance....the list is goes on and on. These emotions guide our thoughts, and consequently our actions or vice versa and through action we are able to achieve many of that which has led to where we are as mankind today.
So lets simplify this and move inwards so as to put this into context of how this relates to colour and the seasons. We are living in an increasingly fast paced world and there is a great deal of expectation that we put into our daily lives, and this plays havoc with our emotions which change countless times a day as we go through our daily activities and this may leave one rather exhausted both physically and mentally or otherwise. Any person that wants to cope in this fast paced world we live in would realise that the most important aspect of our being is to keep things in order both inwardly (in our minds) and outwardly (in our physical being). As we attempt to do this we deal with a lot of our emotions by putting them in their right place and right mind. We expose ourselves to pleasures and pain; and we seek justification for each time we do this. This pleasure will come from satisfying our desires, through any of our senses together or individually - sight, smell, taste, touch (feel), hearing. These all tie back to thought of the mind, which is in direct connection with our emotions.
We satisfy our desires by indulging ourselves in that which gives us pleasure, both knowingly and unknowingly. When we knowingly indulge in that which gives us pleasure, we are stimulating one or more of the senses either in isolation or in unison, but we can never really address them all, and that always leads to temporary or incomplete fulfillment of our emotions, of which the feeling ceases once the stimulus is removed. We then have to question as to whether there can ever be complete fulfillment of our emotions, and what of this unknowing fulfillment of our desires..?
I will explore unknowing fulfillment....
....you know it is sometimes said that happiness comes from enjoying life's simple pleasures. I have often wondered about the simple pleasures that were being referred to. I have often observed this, and also come to my own about this, and it seems it is enjoying the best of what nature has to offer. Some often have fulfillment from just taking a walk in nature and completely immersing myself in the moment taking in the colours. Walking along a crystal clear stream, listening to the water trickle along the rocks, hearing the birds sing, seeing the explosion of colours as the sun pierces through the clouds and trees, the fresh air, the hills, the sway of trees, and removing all of life's complexities that have been created by man, removing the ego from the self and actually realising there is more to life that all the superficial satisfaction thats put before us.
The beauty of all this is that I can never really get bored of all these stimuli, they keep fascinating me as nature has a way of keeping itself interesting. It changes throughout all the year, as it cycles through all the seasons and sheds its skin of the old and brings about renewal. This always tends to bring about a renewal in our emotions aswell, and most of us do not even realise this...it is involuntary. I would like to use spring as an example because of the explosion of colours as nature restarts its engines for yet another cycle of life. Nature and man celebrates spring in different parts of the world, through different religions, festivites, rituals and cultural acknowledgements. Each season has its own story its own joys and its own sorrows, the harshest of which is winter, which represents struggle and survival for all life on earth. The colours of nature seem to tone down during this period as the plants lose their leaves and the leaves lose their colour. It has been investigated and it has been proven that colour has an effect on the way we feel, it is a stimulus that has a strong correlation with our emotions.
What is colour anyway..? We see colours as light bounces off objects, and light is a wave with different wavelengths and each wavelength represents a different colour; this is what has given rise to what scientists call the light spectrum - a representation of light of all different wavelengths giving different colours. A physicist who has studied this at depth will tell you that different waves with different wavelengths carries with it different energy levels. Our eyes are the receptors for colour and there is a limit to the wavelength of colours we can see. It is often on the two extreme ends of the colour spectrum infrared light and ultraviolet light, but all that is in between we can percieve. This got me thinking that, all the different energies of the different colours gives us a particular type of energy as we see it - it is all transfer of energy.
Colours on the low end of the spectrum such as reds tend to represent strong emotional responses, such as fear, anxiety, anger, love etc/ red is a colour with the longest wavelength and has the least energy, as we move up the spectrum to orange we tend to see a representation of warmth, happiness, hope etc.Colours in the middle of the spectrum such as greens represent a calm, serenity and nature and as we move up to the high energy colours such as blues and violets represent good energy, spirituality and upliftment. Thats just the general jist of it, and it is a lot more complex than I have put it out here.
We often share the best of natures colours, scents and tastes with our fellow human beings , from giving the gift of flowers to our loved ones, to sharing a drink, a fruit, a walk in the park....the list goes on. We are all trying to capture that piece of natures brilliance -the brilliance which has given us (man) that simple pleasure which has evoked emotions that bring us inner calm and peace because THAT is what has given us complete fulfillment. There is nothing wrong with allowing ourselves to stop once in a while and enjoy life's simple pleasures and completely immerse ourselves in the best of what nature has to offer.
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| As the first rains pour on the parched earth, new life beckon, new opportunities arise and it shall be all over again. |
I am reminded of a quote while reading a book from a philosopher:
"
...And beauty is not a need but an ecstasy. It is not a mouth thirsting nor an empty hand stretched forth. But rather a heart inflamed and a soul enchanted. It is not the image you would see nor the song you would hear, But rather an image you see though you close your eyes and a song you hear though you shut your ears.
It is not the sap within the furrowed bark, nor a wing attached to a claw, But rather a garden for ever in bloom and a flock of angels for ever in flight."
-Kahlil Gibran ( from the book "The Prophet" ISBN: 978-0-86852-048-3)
Cheers
kMoe
So, why the topic mopipi o thuntse?, well in the setswana language o thuntse is a verb used to describe the state of the tree, which is the time it has produced flowers, which translated to saying that it has blossomed. I wondered why the blossom of this tree was so important and something spoken about with the people of the region. It was interesting to discover as i had the opportunity to during the last couple of months, which is the transition from winter to spring to summer, which happens rather quickly in these parts.
Rainfall had been irregular and on a massive decline in the past two or three years, and the land had been very dry with dams almost empty on a cold July afternoon when taking a bush walk with a friend when we noticed this tree that was lush green with bright yellow dottings that resembled cotton balls strewn all over the tree. Now this being an unusual sight during the time of the season i was in doubt as to wether it was natural. As we approached the tree there were flower stems made up of thousands of tiny little flowers that would bear the fruit known as motlopi. I asked why this tree seemed out of place with flowering like the rest of the plants in the area and was later told that the tree grew only where there was lots of underground water, and the flowering of the tree is a sign that the lands thirst was going to be quenched with bountiful rain. Something that was hard to beleive since it was the middle of winter, but as time progressed I was shown many more signs in nature that showed the rains were coming such as the falling of a chichiboa from its nest tree the acacia was also a sign that rains were coming. So i waited and observed, and months later in november rains are showering the bush and the knowledge say that this is the earliest it has rained in four years and it was a sign that the skies were plenty with rain.
11/06/2012
kMoe
