Sometimes I find that if I just look up and see the vast expanse of the sky I can feel calmer and get a sense of perspective on the foibles of humankind. We're just a small part of this very big world. And right in the middle of Wellington is this well-tree'd hillside, part of the quite extensive Town Belt. I find it provides a refreshing backdrop to the central city and Parliament Buildings - this is the capital of New Zealand. Storms in recent years and maybe the drought we have just experienced have killed a number of the trees. The rather ghostly presence of their silver skeletons contrasts with the deep green of the live pines and other evergreen trees.
So life, death and regeneration are there for us all to see, in the trees of the Town Belt. And transience and change is even more evident in the rapidly changing cloud patterns and colours of the sky at sunset - it was golden, then pastel blue and pink, then soft grey all within a minute.
No matter how much human effort is put into being certain and in control, we are subject to the same forces as the sky and the trees. Maybe if we paid more attention to being in tune with the natural world, we would be more accepting of things that are out of our control, less fearful, stressed and striving, less prone to look for what's wrong and who to blame. It's a different energy.
