Disconnected...

This morning, while our brain cells were still in that pleasant, slow spell of pre-caffeine Sunday morning, (so we were spending time thinking rather than getting on with blogging!) the laptop, naturally, went to sleep. We 'woke it up' again to get to work. Here is food for thought - the way we personify the inanimates of our world: the computer that hibernates, sleeps, is woken. The way we apply the natural to what is unnatural: the 'mouse' we use for the laptop; the 'blackberry' phone; 'raspberry' pie; 'apple'; and now 'crumble'.

This week Kate Bush asked her audience not to record her live performance on phones - not to erect a wall of technology between artist and that audience - in other words, not to interrupt the aesthetic relationship of art; the connection between the Self and potential beauty. Did those people listen?

This is our world, then: we dress it up in the vocabulary of the natural, while all the time we gaze ever more inwards, towards the unnatural and inanimate. We prefer the isolated thrill of online gaming to the shared lift of the spirit in the natural environment. And we can no longer experience the moment free-falling in time - we have to capture it as history even as the experience drifts past, unnoticed.

We are, then, in the process of disconnecting ourselves from the natural world; ignoring its time long rhythms such as the pull of tide and seasonal change. When did you last gaze at the moon, or the blaze of stars in a dark sky? When did you last smell clean earth and dew-soaked grass? We can call those inanimates what we like, they are nothing compared with real experience, captured in memory alone.

So we're putting the laptop to sleep now - off now to smell that dew-soaked grass and feel that late summer sun on our shoulders (which means walking the dog!) Hope your Sunday is one where you can re-connect with the Earth!