Welcome to a Jurassic swamp with dragons in the deeps and dinosaurs hiding in the grass. A child sits watching with open-eyed wonder. It’s the stuff of children’s fiction. But it’s real and better than any made up story or computer game. There are things going on in that garden mini pond that are guaranteed to catch the imagination of any child. Not least our granddaughter. Then all of a sudden, as if from nowhere, out crawls a monster breathing fire and looking fierce. What prehistoric creature is this?
Our knowledge tells us it’s a dragonfly nymph, but to our creative imagination it’s a new discovery of a real life ‘mini dragon’. No wonder that in such situations children are fully involved imagining themselves as explorers of the deeps. Just watch their faces when engaged in school gardening, in ‘forest schools’ and pond dipping. There’s no inattention here! All eyes are open and full of expectation as they explore a new outdoor world outside and beyond the school ‘curriculum’. This elemental hands-on contact with soil, water and damp vegetation, proves that we learn best by personal discovery.
Thank God for children’s creative imagination, they teach us all a lesson. If we parents and our schools have set up our youngsters for a life of imaginative exploration and adventure, learning about themselves in a wonder -filled world, newly discovered, then we have done them well. On this theme see my earlier post ‘Nature’s Classroom’
Where is our Creative Imagination?
A few years ago the National Geographic magazine had an article about an 81 year old guide in one of America’s famous national parks. After a busy day with tourists he was back at base sitting with a heavy heart. One of the tourists had said that since she had only one hour to spend in the park, what should she do and where should she go? The old park ranger replied:
’Dear lady, only an hour? If I had only an hour to spend in this wonderful park I would just walk over there by the river and sit down and cry!’
A sad story of an over-busy adult who has forgotten their childhood imagination and sense of wonder. Thank God for that park ranger. Would that we were all like him.
The Echo with new music in it.
In his poem ‘Personal Helicon’, the Northern Ireland poet Seamus Heaney described his childhood fascination with wells. He loved ‘messing about’ in the damp moss, fungi, slime and around the wells themselves with their sense of mystery. He recalls seeing the reflection of his own face in shallow wells, and of shouting down into deep wells and hearing his own echo coming back up to him, but ‘with a clean new music in it’. He had discovered something new about himself through his interaction with the natural world. Later in life, he sensed a call to be a poet against the dark background of the ‘troubles’ in Northern Ireland. These childhood experiences no doubt played their part in that ‘call’.
“Now, to pry into roots, to finger slime,
To stare, big-eyed Narcissus, into some spring
Is beneath all adult dignity. I rhyme
To see myself, to set the darkness echoing. “From ‘Personal Helicon’
Young and old we all need to hear that childhood echo and discover that ‘clean new music’ coming to us as we explore and delight in the wonder of this natural world. We can then discover our ‘calling’ and seek to live so as to ‘set the darkness echoing‘ with light and hope.
Thank God for grandchildren and for the lessons they teach us. Building a mini-pond can be a pathway to adventure!
A Listening Heart 
Wonderful!
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Thank you. I can sense you must have had grandchildren yourself ! They’re one of God’s great gifts.
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Sadly no grandchildren. I remember the fun I had when my children were young!
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I think curiosity is one of the most important traits to have – to experience the world with curiosity means there are always wonderful things to discover.
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Yes indeed. Creative imagination, sparked by curiosity, has been the basis for all new discoveries. That there are always new things out there to explore, is an exciting prospect. Enough to keep us all learning for all of our lives. Having been trained in the sciences, I’m now relishing tasting what’s new to me, the world of poetry, literature and the arts – and blogging! As a literary friend jokingly said to me ‘I won’t speak of a misspent youth, but of a well spent retirement!
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Creative imagination needs food to start it off and sustain it – like your pond, or a good story. We are all guilty of being in too much of a hurry these days; not sure where we’re going, but certainly in a hurry to get there. At the risk of sounding a little curmudgeonly, it is perhaps a feature of our modern, youthful, world to seek instant gratification, instant results. If only we had time, the results might be better…
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I’m right with you here. The natural world is rarely in a hurry, yet achieves far more than we humans do. When we learn its lessons and slow down, it does us all good. There’s plenty to inspire creativity if only we make time out of over-busy schedules for some ‘outside-the-box’ thinking. I’m so glad to be retired and to have time for this – a precious thing..
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A poignant post, Richard, and kudos to you for sharing the wonders of the natural world with your granddaughter. My sister-in-law just created a new “Jurassic” section of her garden for her 2 year old grandson. Her granddaughter still enjoys the “fairy garden” that is her special place. The natural world is a wonder to children; I spent most of my childhood wandering the woods with delight and now live surrounded by a small stand of them, living with the same sense of delight and joy. And it definitely the source of all my creative ideas – you are so right about that.
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Thank you again for an encouraging response. In a beautiful piece by Malcolm Guite on C.S.Lewis’s writing, he talks about ‘nurturing the child still within us’.Creative imagination stirs within each of us if we let it! http://www.cslewis.com/growing-up-with-c-s-lewis-and-staying-young-with-jack/
Do look after your own precious piece of wood. Trees are an essential part of a healthy lifestyle.
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I love C.S. Lewis, thank you for the link. There is an interesting book on children and the importance of contact with nature called “Last Child in the Woods” by Richard Louv that might interest you, if you haven’t read it already.
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Yes, I’ve read ‘Last Child in the Woods’ and quoted from it in my post in January -‘Nature’s Classroom’. I’m deeply interested in the idea of ‘Forest Schools’. My daughter helps with one near here. Young people today need to be shown how to get back in touch with nature.
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Lovely. And you took me right back to my childhood.
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Good to hear. I think your own ‘Myrtle the Purple Turtle’ may have had something to do with this! One of the joys of being a grandparent is the excuse to be a child again for a moment. A welcome relief from this over serious media world of today!
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