“My 10th Sonata is a sonata of insects. Insects are born from the sun… they are the sun’s kisses.” – Alexander Scriabi

“I love insects. They are amazing.” – Andrea Arnold

” Nature will bear the closest inspection. She invites us to lay our eye level with her smallest leaf, and take an insect view of its plain.” – Henry David Thoreau

“Love has its own instinct, finding the way to the heart, as the feeblest insect finds the way to its flower, with a will which nothing can dismay nor turn aside.” – Honore de Balzac

When I was in 4th grade, back in 1948-49, I read a book about a boy close to my age who became an ant for a day. It was amazing the things he learned and how his view of ants changed after that experience. And through the years it has made me wonder, what lessons can I learn from the lowly bug?

I came across this photo while playing around in Lightroom this morning. I didn’t realize that there was fly on the flower until I enlarged it in the Develop module. For some reason that fly made me stop and wonder…How does that fly see the flower? How does he (I checked, it’s a male!) see this wonderful place I call home? Does he appreciate the freedom, the joy, the sense of just being? Does he know his life is just a moment in time to us humans? And if he does, does he care? Does he live life to it’s fullest, enjoying the simplest of pleasures like just taking a sun bath on the petals of a flower?

I am much more advanced than the fly. My brain is bigger, I can reason, I can think, I can talk, I am a human being. But do I enjoy my life any more than the fly? Do I worry about things I can’t control? Do I get so involved in the problems of life that I can’t enjoy the simple things? Do I ever just enjoy being? Do I savor the moment or worry about the future? Where are my priorities?

So, I stopped working on the photo and sat back, relaxed, looked out the window at my woods, the sunshine, the shadows, the beauty and took a deep breath. And for that short while, before I let the pressures of life back in, I was as free as that fly.

“Be still, sad heart! and cease repining;
Behind the clouds is the sun still shining;
Thy fate is the common fate of all,
Into each life some rain must fall,
Some days must be dark and dreary.” – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

“I beg your pardon I never promised you a rose garden
Along with the sunshine there’s gotta be a little rain sometime
When you take you gotta give so live and let live and let go oh oh oh oh
I beg your pardon I never promised you a rose garden” – written by Joe South, first recorded by Lynn Anderson

“Into each life some rain must fall
But too much is falling in mine
Into each heart some tears must fall
But some day the sun will shine” – written by Allan Roberts (lyrics) and Doris Fisher (melody), recorded as a duet by the Ink Spots and Ella Fitzgerald in 1944

Years ago there was a gospel song that had a line that went “Back of the clouds the sun is always shining…” Sometimes in life I lose fact that it’s the clouds that get between the earth and the sun, the sun never stops shining. Its rays still go forth as bright and powerful as they always have. It’s not that I have days when the sun doesn’t shine, I just have days that clouds get in the way and hide it. The sun hasn’t changed but my perception of it has.

And to me, that is the way life is. There will always be times of clouds, with or without the rain and that’s okay as long as I realize, up there, the sun is still shining. I need the rain from time to time to make the seeds sprout, the flowers bloom and the grass grow. I need the balance of sun and rain, the yin and yang as it were. And maybe in my life I need the days of rain to stop the treadmill of life, take a step backwards, relax and reflect not only of where I am but who I am. Maybe I need those days to really appreciate the sun filled days when I can dance in the meadow, enjoying the warmth of the sun, the brilliance of the sky and the joy of just being alive. The golden days of life – After the Rain.

”Sometimes the path you leave behind is more important than the path ahead of you” – How to Steal a Dog by Barbara O’Connor

The father of one of my “summer” neighbors decided that instead of buying a new Harley this year he’d purchase a brand new Corvette convertible! It’s a beautiful car and he brought it up to the lake to give her and the kids a ride last weekend. I was on my way to pick up the mail and had my camera as they drove past, up and over the hill, kicking up dust from our main dirt road . I was struck by the way the dust hung in the air, in front of a shaft of evening sunlight, so I took a few shots.

The car was gone, the sound of its powerful engine receding as it got further away but the dust sill hung in the air, obscuring the view of what lay over the hill. For that few minutes that dust was the trail they left behind. It was all that I could see. Not where they were going, not why they had left, nothing else remained, the dust was their statement of existence.

And it made me wonder, what do those who follow in my path see? What have I left behind that shows I was there? What have I left that will last? They can’t see where I’m going, my good intentions, my dreams, my plans. All they can see is what I left, the tangible evidence that shows where I was. To them, I am the trail I left behind.

I can’t change the past, but today I can start marking my trail in a positive way, leaving things that count along the way. I can leave sunlight, moonbeams, clouds and blue sky. I can leave love, trust, kisses and prayer, things that matter. I want to leave something far better than dust!

What do you want to leave?