New Eyes

via Daily Prompt: Imagination

IMG_0261-1.jpg

It’s known as Cathedral Rock (Windy Harbour), I get it, it’s quite large, it reaches skyward, spire-like. It was clearly someone’s imagination, and I get to share in that a little. However, if inclined, I can use my own imagination and come to my own sense of this rock, I thought of it as The Leap, the rock in the water having already done that.

I have met people who claim they have no imagination, or they only have a limited imagination. Initially I react to that with sadnness, but I question their premise. I think they have not had the encouragement, and probably the opposite in fact, to explore their capacity to imagine.

My imagination was given free reign. My mother indulged me in imaginative ways. She made cardboard castles and forts with working drawbridges (it’s amazing what bobbins and string can do), she taught me to imagine that my toys were real in the play moment, the cars, the plastic farm set, the soldiers, the trains. The best gift to my imagination was that mum read to me and taught me to read very early.

Reading took me to other worlds, and worlds I could extend, or place myself in. The Last of the Mohicans, Treasure Island, Pirates and Amazons, The Secret Seven, all fueled my mind and my play and creativity. These gave way to Asimov, Tolkien, CS Lewis, Donaldson, Moorcock, Rowling and more. Best of all were the poets from Donne to Oliver, and music, of course. It flowed out into writing, poetry, painting and more that I have passionately engaged. Imagination gave me new eyes, a different view. Which reminds me of one of my favourite quotes, which is related:

“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.”  Marcel Proust

23 Comments

Filed under beach, bush walking, Country, environment, history, life, nature

23 responses to “New Eyes

  1. Nasuko

    I like beach side:D

    Liked by 4 people

  2. I sometimes wonder if all our high tech gadgets, with their capacity to entertain,
    have dulled our imaginations.

    Liked by 3 people

  3. Your mother gave you a wonderful gift!

    Liked by 4 people

  4. Looks like you found the power of a good story and imagination….

    Liked by 4 people

  5. keeping our curiosity active is essential 🙂

    Liked by 4 people

  6. Cool post. Your mom sounds great!

    Liked by 4 people

  7. I’m glad to be your 501th followers

    Liked by 2 people

  8. Jerry Peri

    It’s captivating, a stone tower in the middle of the sea!
    It also looks like a camel in squat position in the middle of the sea!

    Liked by 1 person

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.