Sticks and stones, leaves, and rainbows...
My little girl is magical. (That's not her in the photo).
Living with older kids she soon saw a mobile phone, Androids, and various game consoles.
She occasionally watches a bit of Pingu, Pippi Longstocking, or TellyTubbies.
But you know the thing she loves to do the most is to mess around with water. Stones, sticks, mud, water, painting, messing around with brushes, mixing colours, and generally making a mess.
Wonderful.
I'm happy with the mess. It's how it should be. Paint on my tables, water splashed on the floor. Bits of Playdoh on my sofa. Watercolour and pastel fingers.
That's fun. And she is fully absorbed by these things.
This won't last for long.
She'll one day get into YouTube, TikTok, or whatever else will be grabbing her attention.
She won't be interested in picking up worms from the kids' sand pit, or being fascinated by bees and flowers.
This will all be replaced by screentime.
This post isn't about her so much. It's about you. You and me.
Our bodies still have the intelligence of a two-year-old. They might not look like it, and may not be able to speak so loudly about what they want, but if they get ignored long enough, you'll hear alright.
Your body wants to splash in puddles, skip through leaves, lie back among flowers, and watch clouds drift by. It wants to skim stones across lakes, to get its hands into mud and dirt, to smell tree blossoms, or to make snow angels.
This is how we make the body happy.
But society is mostly interested in keeping the mind happy.
And that's a different thing entirely.
It involves scrolling through videos for something interesting.
It means sticking with the game until you make the next level and feel good about it.
It's about achieving your goals or not being a failure.
But the mind too likes to be led by the body. Only we've had it pretty much the other way around for too long.
The Take-home
Think of your body as a friend. If you have kids, think of it as turning two years old. Do the things a one or two-year-old likes to do. Switch off the boring mind for a while and it too will have fun.
Don't be too serious.
Dance beneath rainbows, sing your heart out in the kitchen, lie down among the flowers, feel the earth supporting your back.
Your body has Dude-wisdom.
You might not be listening to it.
Rev. Thomo
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