On a cloudy day!

 It was a cloudy day inward and outward yesterday!

As the monsoon of 2023 is only a week away, it is natural to have a few cloudy days ahead. 

It was cloudy inwardly, as I informed the management of the organisation where I work currently, of my desire to end my term of service, when my current contract finishes shortly. 

As I returned to my photo collection, I noticed three pictures above, taken during a visit recently!

One is that of a Magpie perched just before daybreak, when the morning light was yet to brighten the tree and its foliage. 

On that occasion, when I looked below, I noticed a bunch of rose flowers in the front garden of a house. 

When I turned to the garden of the next house, I noticed a single rose flower with its petals partly rolled, suggesting that it had been open for a while. The sun was just rising with its rays brightening the flower from all sides.  

All these images bring a symbolic meaning to me on this occasion when I pare to leave the place where I work after 11 years. They were fulfilling years and had enlarged my understanding more than any other time since embarking on pursuing to promote child development in 1983. The opportunity to promote a family based child development practices happened during this time. The first response to this approach from some families,  who designed a Child's corner at home and used the publication, Accompany Your Child, for home based developmental monitoring of children brought much encouragement. This is therefore a viable model for families, to have a close observational approach to child development of pre-school children. 

As I prepare to move on to a more disciplined writing projects, without working six days welcoming children for consultation, I feel that I am embarking into another phase in my life. It was while seeing the Magpie, a bunch flowers and a single flower, it came to me that a new day was before me, with the sunshine gently showing me the path into the day ahead!

It shall be another phase altogether, in making a greater sense of living with a purpose! 

I find an inner comfort in having been taken through this journey of the last forty years. It was not a journey that I chartered for myself! My interest was to specialise in cardiology and but Anna and I were shown the way into there discipline of child development! 

Anna and I found these forty years as an experience in learning from children and families and turning those insights to bring this Family based Child Development Practice as a contribution to families of developmentally challenged children. The ASHIRVD trust which facilitated this exploration and discovery was supported by friends of ASHIRVAD. We look back with grateful hearts. Now we look forward to live reflectively and intuitively!

It was when it was cloudy, the three symbols above became a path finder!

M.C.Mathew (text and photo)