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Welcome! This is a place to share how we celebrate & deepen our relationship to Nature. Here you will find stories, images, & ideas about wilderness, human nature, & soulfulness. Drawing from the experiences of everyday living, the topics on this blog include: forays into the natural world, the writing life, community service, meditation, creativity, grief & loss, inspiration, & whatever else emerges from these. I invite you on this exploration of the wild within & outside of us: the inner/outer landscape.



Friday, May 22, 2020

Kindness Feels Better

I just came across this post from a year ago. What I find so remarkable is that every bit of it is true today, despite "life" and the world being so utterly changed.

Kindness feels better than …

angrily debating right and wrong, 
judging others’ “meanness,” 
fearing a lack of reciprocity,
being closed-hearted,
serving only oneself,
shutting out others, 
avoiding vulnerability,
holding a grudge,
or
carrying a burden of unspent love.

Kindness is soft.
Kindness is necessary – for others and for ourselves.
Kindness is needed, always, as an antidote to the fear of difference.
Kindness is a bottomless well. Or at least it can be replenished by nurturing, tending, loving the soul.

And kindness is very, very simple. 

I have received great, unexpected, and unconditional kindnesses recently. (I might have offered a few small ones, as well.)
The kind that make a person weep.
The sort that evoke an immediate hug-response.
The type that rock the spirit right back to equanimity.

As the robin sings her morning lullaby and the moist, Earthy breeze crawls in my window to caress my heart, I am suddenly moved to indescribable elation. This is kindness – strong kindness - too.

(Originally posted in May 2019.)





All blog images created & photographed by Jennifer J. Wilhoit unless otherwise noted. Please circulate images with photo credit: "©2020 Jennifer J. Wilhoit/TEALarbor stories. All Rights Reserved."