29 April, 2024
A wider view with a focus!
28 April, 2024
The overcoming resilience
During a visit to a historic place recently, I noticed that two which trees cut, were sprouting again.
In the Book, The Gardener, a Spanish best seller, the author Grain, who published two other books, Beyond the rainbow and the Path of Life, narrated story of a gardener, who noticed a recently cut olive tree in the hills. 'Grieving over the lack of sensitivity of the tree's owner capable of cutting off in an instant the life of a tree, many centuries older than himself, the gardener sat down on a rock, remembering the powerful aspect of the tree, swaying in the wind with its silvery leaves'! (p44).
When he visited the hills sometime later, noticed new shoots in the stump, growing vigorously upwards.
'Stroking the tender shoots of the old live, he whispered: there exists a stronger will that that of man! Who, old live tree, can triumph over the will power and desire to live'!
Seeing the two trees cut with new shoots growing out of them in the photos above, I recalled the above story, narrated by a trained psychologist with profuse involvement in music and theatre in the book, The gardener.
What captured my attention while walking in the woods, was the river at the edge of the property, winding its way all along the boundary of this property. Although the forty feet wide river looked shrunk to look like a stream in summer, it is an overflowing river during monsoon months, but not flooding, where people gather to fish and have picnics at the river bed.
The above trees would have roots spreading in the subsoil to distant places to find their nutrients.
To my surprise I noticed the roots of a small uprooted tree in the wooded area, which fascinated me. The root system looked larger in bulk than the trunk itself.
The roots steady a tree and allow it to grow and sprout again when the stem is cut. The teak trees which were cut in our garden, have new shoots sprouting from the stem.
This is precisely the reason why there is lot of attention needed for children in the early years of their childhood to have rootedness in the family ambience to feel emotionally secure, feel loved, protected and provided for and grow up with an inner readiness to grow, live, relate and become their beings. When they experience the rootedness in a loving and affirming family, they grow up with fulfilling attachment behaviour that would steady them during troubled times and story scenes of life. On such occasions they feel protected from post traumatic stress, due the inner resilience that hey have grown up with, to develop the emotional quotient arising out of rootedness in the family, experiencing sense of belonging and flourishing relationship.
The trees have resilience to return to life! Humans too have such strength to overcome!
For that to be a reality, the pre-school period is to be years of experiencing rootedness in the soil of an affirming family ambience!
M.C.Mathew(text and photo)
27 April, 2024
We belong to each other!
23 April, 2024
A new observation !
14 April, 2024
The strength in fragility !
13 April, 2024
The morning chant !
The two Magpie robins perched about 150 meters away from each other, on coconut palm trees in our garden, engaged in bird calls at twilight. It was likely that the first one was a male bird as its tuneful singing was different from the hushed brief calls of the second one in the photograph.
I remember hearing the reciprocal calls of Magpie robins from elsewhere in our garden on another two days during this week at similar times.
The bird calls are the earliest indications of stable friendship between birds which might lead to courtship.
The call is a hearty response to each other.
During this election time in India, the news is all about how harsh and critical one can be, while speaking about the candidate from the opposition party ! It is a competition to win voters by criticising other candidates standing for election!
Do we have to drag the other person down and invent stories to denigrate a person! Instead, what if a candidate can speak about his or her agenda of action for the next five years! I wish the language and tone would be motivated by the good work that one has in mind rather than attempt to score a brownie point by talking about acts of commission or omission of the other candidates.
The Magpie robins bring another message at day break! Offer something of yours to others!
I wonder whether the thoughts and aspirations of people are driven by selfish pursuit of taking pleasure by hurting others!
The Magpie robins had a hearty language of giving and taking!
I kept thinking on this theme during the day. One can bless others with words! The words of James, in the epistle of James in the New Testament of the Bible, came to me while pondering over the language of communication. " For we all stumble in many ways. If anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is a perfect man, able to bridle the whole body as well" (James 3:2) ! Later in the same passage, James, stated something in a moving language, " ..tongue is a small part of the body, and ...behold how great a forest is set aflame by such a small fire" (v5) !
The Magpie robins had a language of hearty communication between themselves!
I carry that message within me!
M.C.Mathew(text and photo)
12 April, 2024
Growth and the environment!
The first photo in both the set of flowers were taken about two weeks ago. The second photos were taken about two weeks later.
I did not anticipate to see more flowers, but new buds kept appearing and opening to make both the bunch of flowers different at the end of two weeks.
During the two weeks the plants received the regular care-watering and protecting them in shade, as the temperature soared high during the day.
I have recently been disturbed by the hurried conclusions parents come to about their pre-school child with regard to their behaviour, attentiveness, social and communication skills.
Most pre-school children in many homes are used to long hours of watching cartoons in the mobile phone or in the TV. Even the feeding is done while the children watch the animations in the screen.
With so much of domination of visual and auditory overload to the brain, brain growth which is developing to form the different functions around 2 to 3 years of age, gets deranged. Instead, children have more of visual and auditory stimuli with less exposure to social engagements, language interactions, motor activities of movements, and play, exploration of the environment, story and singing time, or play based entertainments!
No wonder they are less interactive, communicative or explorative! They were conditioned to be different by the way we altered their growing process by the prolonged hours of exposure to the screen time. In fact, parents notice that their child's language is cartoonish in composition, accent, semantics and pragmatics. Most of the programme that a pre-school child watch is in other languages than the language spoken at home.
The message I share with families in such situation, is based on the two flower patterns above. In two weeks time, in a normal environment, there were more flowers in the blossoms.
Let me suggest that, instead of parents becoming anxious about the delay in development of some skills of their pre-school child, if only they can begin to interact with the child with gradual reduction in the screen time, by about three weeks, parents are likely to observe a change in the behaviour of the child, with incremental interest in play, moving around in the house and outside to explore and get more tuned to a structure and plan!
Let me recommend that there is lot more in a pre-school child, which can be brought forth, when we take away the screen time and fill the day time with activities in which children ought to be engaged in normally. The surrogate parenting with the prolonged screen time is an aberration, which although looks comfortable to 'get the child out of the way' for parents to pursue what they want to do, is robbing a pre-school child of his or her childhood experiences essential for normal growth and development!
In two weeks, more flowers were added to the few that were in the beginning! It is an object lesson to parents about child development. If only we can turn the environment of a preschool child to be play based, activity oriented, socially interactive, exploratory, participatory with plenty of time to develop the attachment process between the child and parents, most parents would find dramatic changes in the orientation and behaviour of their pre-school child in about 4 to 6 weeks.
A child is born with an endowment of abilities, skills, and growth and development trajectory. It is for the parents to create the environment at home for that to unfold. The social milieu is what is needed for this to happen and not a screen dominated ambience!
The picture of the flowers above would stay with me as a message about who a pre-school child can be, if he or she had a parenting environment, instead of the screen environment! Many children get indulged in the screen time because parents substitute their presence to their child with screen time.
I write this with sorrow and grief, having seen scores of children every month in the recent years, more so during and after the COVID season. Parents engaged their child with screen time, when they worked from home during the COVID season. Older children had their on line classes, which legitimatised the screen time for children. The infants and toddlers by default got used to the screen time!
It is time that parents undo this by a proactive planning.
All pre-school children are to be occupied in play based activities and not by the screen time! We limit the development of a pre-school child with over exposure to screen time and think of him or her as having a developmental dysfunction. That is exceptional. What is more likely is that parents deranged the developmental process of their child inadvertently by offering screen time as a substitute for their interactive time with their pre-school child!
I get a feeling that parents are aware of this and a change process is in sight!
M.C.Mathew(text and photo)
11 April, 2024
The strain of the day!
A garden is a living demonstration of how the existential situations leave marks of stress!
The lawn below, has withstood the heat and humidity to some extent and still looks green and inviting. Although it receives the sun for most part of the day, its ability to withstand the scorching heat is worthy of attention. The brownish tinge is noticeable only in portion of the lawn.
10 April, 2024
The dew in a summer night!
During the walk, my thoughts drifted to the nations of the world. In the United States, there is an intense divide between two national political parties that the partisan views dominate in the election year with a diminished view of people, their needs and aspirations. The language of aggression and accusation that a former president, currently getting ready for contesting for re-election, uses defies normal civilised debate.
The way, there is an attempt to suppress the voice of the opposition political parties in India, with the national election only ten days ahead, speaks poorly of the current leadership, governing the country. The needs of people get marginalised with passion for power, position, and control to the extent, that the democratic system appears to be in peril!
The Russian insistence to fight the Ukrainian resistance to the invasion of their territory, has already left the Ukrainians in great distress and loss. But one wonders if any nation really feels the pain of those who suffer including the United Nations Organisation, except for passing some resolutions, which Russia dares to ignore!
Israel, although woke up a few days back, after causing death of over 30, 000 people in its fight against the Palestinians, decided to withdraw its land force from some Palestinian occupied regions, is a poor example of honouring human rights and right to have shelter, food, health care...! I feel hesitant to copy some of the photographs suffering, circulating in the media, as they took too cruel for human mind to comprehend.
I return to the garden, plants and flowers. The nature offers a place for each plant and the sun visits them every day with its radiant gift. The unending giving and nurturing is the inherent nature of Sun and the earth.