I've been meaning to publish this experience I had on my website, but
never seemed to be able to get round to it. It's a story about how we may
be able to recognize the many subtle ways nature tries to communicate with
us. It's my personal account and opinion. Here is the story. I hope you
like it.
A few years ago I took the picture below. I took it in a small stream, or
rather a ditch, bordering a small forest near our holiday home in The
Netherlands. A being evidently appears in the water and people I showed it
to, often recognized some sort of beast (like the one in "The beauty and
the beast") or sometimes a lion.
Since then, I have taken it for the nature spirit that takes care of this
stream. The stream was neglected and polluted with human waste (plastic
bottles, litter). Apparently the being wasn't very cheerful and seemed to
have a hard time to keep things going. That was my interpretation anyway,
probably inducted by the look on it's face...to me it looks quite
ferocious.
The picture below shows the being from a somewhat broader perspective.
In the summer of 2010 I was on the same spot with my camera and I tried to
contact the being again.
It felt right to clean up the ditch and so I did. I took out plastic
bottles and other garbage and I moved some branches so the water could
flow more freely again.
Then I asked the spirit if it would be so kind to show itself again and I
took some pictures.
Then I walked into the adjacent small forest and all of a sudden a little
bird appeared and sat down right in front of me in the middle of the
footpath.
It looked up at me as if it wanted to say something. But, of course, it
didn't. It allowed me to take a picture of itself and then disapeared into
the green again, making lots of noise...But apparently it was perfectly
allright, it didn't seem to be sick or have physical defects. This is a
picture I took of the bird.
When I got home, I examined the pictures I took of the stream. They didn't
seem to be "spectacular".
Still, something caught my eye. Something that resembled a bird's head (see
picture below).
I can see a bird's head and it's beak quite clearly, somewhat in the
middle of the picture. and maybe it's my imagination, but, to me, the bird
seems to be swimming with it's wings.
Here is the same picture, but I have darkened the background to make the
bird shape stand out more.
And then suddenly it struck me: the nature being chose another form this
time to make it's presence known. The shape of a bird, maybe forced by the
physical circumstances it had to deal with, maybe because it had a plan. A
plan to alert me? And in order to do so it had sent a messenger: the
little bird in the forest. To give me a clue what to look for in the
pictures. It gave me goose bumps! With a little help I had recognized it
once again...
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