Friday, July 18, 2008

A Source of Inspiration

When was the last time you allowed your imagination to take you to another place? Parks often offer unexpected flashs of inspiration into the world of playful creativity - a place our children rarely seem to visit these days. Such a "flash" overtook me recently when viewing the above photograph snapped at the Mapleton Preserve in Kingston. It occurred to me that any wanderer along the path might come to this spot and assume they'd stumbled upon a portal into some mystical world filled with inhabitants only found in an epic, long-ago story. Or, another might wonder if by stepping past the weeping branches a different time and place would reveal itself.

Parks are special places that not only offer visitors places to boat, hike, camp or bike but also can simply provide a place to close out the noise of our stress-filled days and allow our thoughts to wander to another place. For some they offer quiet niches for mediation and contemplation. While others find locations where, alone with their thoughts and the majesty of nature, works of writing, music, art or even glimmers of ideas to change our world for the better are inspired!

1 comment:

TowpathGuy said...

I like the sentiment about a "different time and place would reveal itself". I find myself with similar thoughts whenever I stand next to one of the locks on the canal. The noise of the water falling from the sluice gate drowns out the other noises while the size and shape of the lock itself helps one to "see" what the barges must have looked like as they worked their way down or up the canal. The 10 Mile Lock off of Weston Canal Road and the 5 Mile Lock at Davidson Avenue Lock are particularly good at inspiring that feeling of "another time".

TowpathGuy