As I explain every time I post on cultivated nature, such as my garden, rather than wild nature (wilderness), my love of nature is not restricted to bushland and forest, but also encompasses beautiful gardens. This year, as I photographed the family Easter egg hunt, I was in my element, enjoying the colours of autumn, the profusion of glorious trees that I have planted, (which my neighbours hate!) and the thrill of the chase.
I was also fascinated, not so much by the joy of the children – Easter is a fun family time – and a life force here symbolised far more by activity than the chocolate eggs they were hunting, but by their exuberance in the hunt. The images show rushing, urgency and the thrill of the chase.
But what if I explain to you that they are just running for the sheer pleasure of it? The rules in our family are that you rush to get eggs, sure, but not for yourself. No. You get the eggs for everyone and you put them in a communal basket. There are no prizes or rewards for being fast, or faster than someone else, for finding more or bigger. Later, after all the eggs are gathered, we take it in turns to take an egg from the basket until we feel complete, and then opt out of any more taking. If only society at large could operate like that!
So, all that running that you see here is just movement as an expression of joy; movement as an end in itself rather than a means to it.; movement as an expression of the wonder of partaking in life.
Meanwhile, the children ran like that for nearly forty minutes: 8.37 until 9.15 is the range of times in the photos’ metadata. No wonder they do well in beep tests, cross country and orienteering. No wonder it’s not a big issue to climb a mountain with me.
Probably 17 photos is a large number for a blog post, but I had real trouble culling it down to that!! I hope you forgive me the indulgence.