Life from a Different Perspective

Today's newsletter is dedicated to our son, Jonathon, who is celebrating his 34th birthday in Taiwan, where he especially loves the ancient Chinese culture and symbolisms that are assimilated throughout their modern world.

Happy 34th Birthday, dearest Jonathon!

This story and poem was inspired by a day Jon and I shared, when I was his age then. That day, we were transported to a world beyond the visible to the mystical.

Somehow, I came across slides exactly when the most astounding moment occurred. Who took these photos? I am sure we were alone. Why did these four slides suddenly surface after 30 years? It is all still such a mystery to me...

Life from a Different Perspective
by Laura Richardson

This is an amazing experience and life-long lesson I am delighted to share with you. One summer day when my son, Jonathon, was about six, I took him to visit an old plantation ground in Virginia. Their acres of gardens had grown over a hundred years cared for with artistry. They were designed in different themes representing cultures all over the world.

We felt as though we had passed through a portal to Heaven. The lake spanned before us as dark as moss green, deeply mysterious with large round stones leading like a bridge far out to its center. Jonathon carried a long reed of bamboo. He was enchanted by the mystical pondside garden and tranquil landscape.

We walked and talked, chattering about life, philosophizing on how we should look at life from different angles to see what is hidden on first glance, for there are things less obvious that we can learn by taking time to see the world from a different perspective.

We playfully balanced on the large stepping-stones over the pond, each separated by the mysterious, dense water while briskly skipping towards the center of what seemed like an enormous green lake. Jon was just a little guy following on the stones behind me, happily carrying his long stick of bamboo from the enchanted forest.

Suddenly I was inspired to illustrate my story to him by suggesting that we crouch down to look at the lake from a different angle of light on the water, seeing it from a new perspective. We then quietly bent down low to look together below the water's surface.

What had appeared as a beautiful green opaque pool a moment before, transformed into a swirling sea of gigantic koi fish surrounding us completely, hundreds of them each two to three feet long swimming just inches away from our feet. The pond was full as far we could see!

I felt faint, it was so overwhelming. My arm with a mind of its own, stretched behind to grab Jon on this living pool of koi that surrounded us with just a stone between. We were but a spec to the teeming life below us. Where we had been alone in our thoughts on our walk, we were in reality among a crowd of mature, intelligent creatures that were fully aware of us!

To both our amazement, in an instant, my words had been transformed into a living reality. We tread carefully back to the lake's edge in awe of the spectacle we had seen, stealthily stepping one stone at a time back to land, while what lay below the water's veil was already invisible again.

Years later, I woke one morning with all the elements of a poem swimming in my head, shaping itself in complete sequence as it is written today.