I am out walking to an art opening...
Seeing all the bats circling in the deepest blue night sky, my heart sings!!
I walk past a gate, where a little boy is holding tightly onto his Dad... He is pointing into the air, shouting at the top of his toddler lungs: "That's a bat!! That's a bat!!!"
As I walk by the bat-watchers, his gaze breaks from the sky to me.
He points in my direction, excitedly, and exclaims to his father and the rest of the street:
"That's not a bat!!!"
I laugh, and without looking back, flap my arms, slowly, deliberately, like a bat...
Mere minutes have passed. At the tram stop, I glance up at the night sky again.
But, alas, it is now too dark. I see no more bats.
The joy of the moment has passed.
But as I think of the small boy and the look on his face,
as he watched the bats circling overhead,
I smile.
The night sky may have eaten all the bats now...
But deep inside
this forty-six year old boy,
the joy remains.
(c) Brent Harpur, 16th October 2015.
“A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.” (Albert Einstein)
“The earth has music for those who listen.” (George Santayana)
“In the spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt.” (Margaret Atwood)
Mere minutes have passed. At the tram stop, I glance up at the night sky again.
But, alas, it is now too dark. I see no more bats.
The joy of the moment has passed.
But as I think of the small boy and the look on his face,
as he watched the bats circling overhead,
I smile.
The night sky may have eaten all the bats now...
But deep inside
this forty-six year old boy,
the joy remains.
(c) Brent Harpur, 16th October 2015.
“A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.” (Albert Einstein)
“The earth has music for those who listen.” (George Santayana)
“In the spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt.” (Margaret Atwood)
