One thing you can be sure of in Montana.  Winter is coming.  This year it may come early.  My 87 year old dad says that when the quack grass grows taller than the fence posts it’s a sign that the winter will be coming early.  He has many sayings like that and I don’t know where he got them.  An old indian friend or trapper probably.  I listen and I know winter will be coming.  Now is the time to do all the chores that you can’t during winter and get all the machines maintained for next spring and summer.  Tie up all the loose ends and I’ve had one here. 

Sorry I haven’t been paying as much attention as I should to my blog.  I’ve been extremely busy with the folks place and trying to wrap up Dad’s pavillion project for his little park.  It’s taken a month or more and it’s nearly finished.

Today I’m leaving you with a thought starter.  Something we should all do from time to time.  Hope you enjoy it.

                                                Embrace your Child

There is a child in all of us, young with energy to spare.

It moves the dusty old limbs of the tree gone stiff and manages to sprout a few green shoots from time to time.

Embrace your child.

Search him/her out.

Find pleasure in the innocence of discovery again.

Search your memory for dreams long since abandoned.

Forget for a moment what you’ve been told or taught about how unrealistic those dreams were.

Discover them anew.

Act on them now with the experience you’ve gained since having them and no matter how farfetched they seem, hold them to the light of your scrutiny to see them in their true elemental innocence.

Feel the excitement of the process as your thoughts carry you through the possibilities they promote. 

Bring that youthful optimism back to your resigned reality.

Surrender to the exercise.

Embrace those dreams that you’ve kept locked up in your “someday” box.

Feel your pulse quicken.

We’ve invented these responsibilities of adulthood.

We’ve capped our optimistic view of what could be.

We’ve settled for the way things are.

We’ve suppressed this child long enough!

The one who was happy to whittle on a piece of wood.

The one who found pleasure in looking with wonder on a bug crawling across the floor.

The one who couldn’t wait to go out in the snow and get wet and freezing cold and then experience the love and warmth of a mother doetting over us, plying us with hot chocolate, admiring our snow fort from the warmth of the kitchen.

Be that child in you again, who for hours could find a use for the box that boring gift came all wrapped up in.

Throw off those thoughts of responsibility for a while today and take a moment to sit under a tree and just listen. 

Think about what you’d like to do when you grow up.

Just use an hour or two for you.

The end of that innocence has only come because you have let it escape.

It’s still there tucked away in the corner of your minds eye and can be a blessing if you’ll only let it overcome the needs of having to get things done.

You have plenty of time for the statesman, warrior, or industrialist to do their bidding, but you need to find the child again or all your well laid plans and goals will have little meaning.

Accomplishment will never take the place of the magic that is seen through this child’s eyes and the discovery that looking on the surroundings with a youthful attitude of possibility can bring.

Like the family dog, who will never be more than a pup, we have a child within us that will never be more than a child no matter how old, knowledgeable, or jaded we become.

Embracing that child, for its energy, enthusiasm, and optimism about what could be, will carry you through the toughest times and help you in miraculous ways!

Sing!

Dance!

Ponder!

And Wonder again.

Light hearted you’ll find yourself, and with that, laugh at what unreal pressures you’ve brought upon yourself.

Seek the child and grow.

Age will become an indifferent consequence of new possibilities!

Jw 12/24/00

I’m tying up some loose ends.

john