I was watching Stealing Beauty last night. Lovely film set in rural Italy. At one moment though I paused the DVD to fetch a drink from the kitchen and stopped to gaze out the window into the court yard. Only the very tops of the trees were lit by the setting sun, as it feel into eclipse behind my apartment building. Yet in this twilight I noticed a falling white feather and wondered at the random grace of its decent, only to disappear amongst the gravel stones.

It then struck me as sad how much of our natural green spaces fall to the advance of man and machine. Much like virginity, once taken, never to be reclaimed. All that remains are the small islands of green and calm. Decorative after thoughts of a city or town, where once there was field or forest.

People come in droves to the French Riviera for the summer sunshine, azur blue sea, and overall beauty of the region. Then I wonder how beautiful this region was before the invention of sun tan lotion, camper vans, and tourism. Instead of a natural Zen paradise, man creates a Zen garden in it’s place and calls it beautiful.