Today started with me feeling agitated and out of sorts…an uncomfortable feeling, one that needed an immediate intervention  .. or to put it another way a feeling that demanded that I grant myself a mental health day.

My preferred form of self intervention and form of mental health day is to disappear and go fishing. There is something about being around water that is healing. I love sitting by the water and just watching the world go by while I sit, exercising my patience.

For a raft of reasons fishing has a lot of parallels to life and provides an opportunity for some zen moments. Moments to absorb the scenery, like that in the photo above that I took today, and moments to think about many and varied subjects…. like poetry?

My heart leaps up when I behold
A rainbow in the sky:
So was it when my life began;
So is it now I am a man;
So be it when I shall grow old,
Or let me die!
The Child is father of the Man;
And I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety.

                               – William Wordsworth

Well not really.. as much as I love poetry, I was actually thinking about remembering to view the world with the joy and wonder of a child, because far too often we don’t notice the beauty that lies right before us, and Wordsworth’s poem is a beautiful expression of those thoughts.

When sitting by the water and letting the agitation wash away, I start to notice things.. the bird life, the movement of the water, the clouds, the interaction of the wind and trees and I am reminded about how connected everything is. The more I notice the more amazed and interested I am.

The more amazed and interested that I become the more a quote that I shared on Facebook the other day (well a paraphrased version of it, if I’m honest)…. a quote by Albert Einstein came to mind.

As our circle of knowledge expands, so does the circumference of darkness surrounding it.

It caused me to reflect on just how little I actually knew about the fish I was fishing for, the birds that I was watching, the trees, the interactions between them all. Sure I knew some of their names/species etc.. but in reality I knew very very little about all of them, and so began a cycle of being amazed at how much I do know, and how much I don’t know…..and how as one grows, so does the other.

An afternoon of fishing is a great antidote to the feeling of agitation.