I have been wondering why I bother to collect and to keep these photos and those of others in my family. Is it as a form of “witnessing” my life? Or is it more to trigger my emotions and memories? Or is it a combination of these? I feel it is a combination. I look through these photos and remind myself of all the things I have done, places I have been to, people I have met, and all trigger the senses and emotions as my memories stir within my heart and mind.
I have been observing myself aging as I examine photos in various activities and geographical placements. A small black and white snap capturing me on my first day of school. It is a moment in time that is captured and yet in looking at that photo…that moment of time…I feel the energy of me and the promise and excitement of learning… of life yet to be experienced.
I allow my mind to travel to that moment and I can vividly recall the excitement of being “grown up” enough to go to school. I have my leather satchel over my shoulder. It is holding the array of coloured pencils, a new notebook with clean pages, the pencil sharpener, the new eraser, and the new HB2 yellow pencils with my name on them. I remember the excitement as Dad took his pocket knife and carefully cut away just enough of the yellow paint to expose a wood surface suitable to place my name. These pencils were my tools for learning. Getting ready for school was a family affair. Even my grandmother and great aunt were included in this excitement. These two women were with me when I was allowed to select my tin of coloured pencils and instead of getting the required set of 10, I was gifted with the big tin of 30 different coloured pencils. This was bounty indeed! I can feel the excitement now as I vividly recall this memory.
The Monday morning arrived. I was going to school! I was awake early and dressed and sitting at the breakfast table complete with my satchel over my shoulder. After breakfast, Mum took me outside to stand on the grass tennis court, near the tulip tree to take my photo. It was a brilliant day. The freshness of the morning, the scent of the salted Pacific Ocean, the distant cry of seagulls, the sound of farm animals, even the sun felt fresh and bright to me. Everything felt brighter and better and more brilliant than ever. I was off to school!
The excitement of learning has not lessened over the years. I read the following from the flyer for the upcoming conference on Spiritual Philosophy and my excitement rises. It is several weeks away and already I check that I have my notebook with plenty of pages ready to receive ink, that I have ink cartridges for my pens, and that I have back-up pens. I am prepared with my tools and my mind (our greatest tool) is primed to learn… Accepting Our Spirit Consciousness Energy … … Know Thyself! Understand the Invisible Properties of Energy. We never hide the truth of ourselves. ..the subject is exciting to me. I will be awake and ready to learn on the morning of the 24th of July, and on the 25th and 26th. For more info on this event….go to www.kathyoddenino.com …
We have not been taught that we are Spirit Consciousness Energy, therefore
we have created an internal mental “block” against accepting that we are Spirit Consciousness
Energy that continues to come back into new physical lives for countless
lifetimes. Religion teaches us that we live only one physical life. This is the simplicity
of ignorance—as human beings we are far past the concept of ignorance even
when we act ignorant in our physical belief of living only one physical life. Our
archaic belief that we live only one physical life keeps us from understanding ourselves
as eternal energy beings. When we look carefully at the multiple ways in
which we use our internal energies, we begin to think differently about who we are.
The first step that we must take towards understanding ourselves is to acknowledge
to ourselves that we are eternally energy beings that live multiple finite lives in
physical matter as a means of learning about and understanding ourselves and our
journey of growth. Our life is about being energy, which we live in the physical
matter of our infinite human bodies. If we were not energy beings, we would not
live a physical life of activity and growth.
Each physical life that we live supports our thinking mind, loving emotions,
and Spirit Senses in their eternal growth, which reflects the internal pattern of our
human growth potential. Our cellular memory is eternal, so it behooves each of us
to learn the nuances of living our love as human beings. Because we consistently
reflect the level of internal growth that we have reached, we can never hide the truth
of who we are from other people and most of all we can never hide the truth of who
we are from ourselves.
I have thoroughly enjoyed my morning of memories and the feeling tones they have provoked. Life is really (as in really, really) good!
2 comments:
Photographs...aah, photographs! I love this blog, Raewynn, and can totally relate...having tubs, boxes, albums stashed in every closet, on bookshelves. Often, I too have wondered why I have kept them all (including negatives!) for I can cast my thoughts back and see the places, people, times in my mind. In part, many were to share my journey(s) with those who could not, physically. A greater part was to leave to children for their memories, to share with grandchildren...not just the faces but the family stories. Now I wonder why I still have them...and yet if there were a fire, they'd be one of the first things to grab and get to safety.
I don't have a pic of my first day at school but, gosh...do I remember it! Clinging to Mum...no tears, though! I laugh when I do think of it for it so typifies the me who still is...quiet, observing but keeping a tight grip on my 4yr. old reality..mother. A little boy was crying...funny, of all the children in that Primary 1 class with me, his is the only name I have never, ever forgotten. Drew Walker. We shared Primaries, teachers, classmates until we were about eight years old when his family emigrated to Australia. He cried all that first morning. I didn't but was very happy when, at 4pm. school let out and Mother was waiting for me at the gate. I was going HOME! But, back to the pics...they depict more than what our eyes see, taking us back to whatever was going on at the moment. The faces may be smiling, sometimes the hearts inside are breaking and somehow, despite what we are holding in our hand, black or white, raving technicolour everything comes back to us. A thought just occurred to me...I'm reading a book at the moment, "Soul Identity"...unusual and curious concept and "plot". Haven't gotten very far with it but so far it's a group which has been saving soul memories (and finances) by tracking others into their future lives. Hmmm...photographs, wouldn't that be something to retrieve from a hard drive in a subsequent reincarnation? Or would it.........
Love this post!
thank you for the support and wonderful comment...you have spurred me on to put old photos onto disc as a way of preserving them.
I just love the memories that can flash into my mind at the sight of a moment captured in time.
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