Today, I noticed some large white magnolia flowers in my yard.

As I went in closer to hear, smell, and touch the tree, I remembered viscerally how much I loved them in my childhood.

• What did you love to do as a kid?
  
• What would bring back strong, pleasant memories and emotions for you?
  
• Are you taking time to do this regularly?
  

Yesterday’s Episode on Frederick Buechner’s Listening to Your Life helped me this even more clearly.

– The magnificent Southern Magnolia (Magnolia grandiflora) I’m looking at, smelling, feeling, and remembering from climbing trees in my childhood.

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• Connecting with Nature and the Outdoors
  
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(Sound: The rough buzz of a honey bee at close range.)

[0:13] That was the sound of a bumblebee (actually, a honey bee ) gathering nectar off of a magnolia bloom in my front yard.

The smell takes me back.

It’s kind of crazy. how smells work. This magnolia is not that tall. No, it’s maybe 14 or 15 feet tall.

It’s not very big around and I am comparing it saying it’s not very big to the one that was in my backyard when I was a kid.

I remember climbing it, and going all the way to the top and seeing the entire town and man I didn’t do that very often but that smell it’s funny how you get right back to that time.

[1:24] It’s interesting. So yesterday, I recorded an episode from a quote from Frederick Buechner, where he said, listening to your life is, very fruitful, very, I guess I’d say, very life-giving.

[1:44] And so listening to your life. That’s kind of what being next to this magnolia.

[1:56] Feels like and smelling it because when I was a kid and you’re climbing a tree man you’re literally in the midst of it.

Magnolias have this kind of a smooth yet rough texture to it and a little bit of flake comes off if you grab a branch

That smell is I mean there’s nothing like it so these blooms that are that are happening in my front yard I mean I’m 54 years old almost 55 and I was probably 8 or 9 years old when I would climb those trees climb that tree it’s just amazing how that smell connects you.

And of course the blooms are gorgeous. This is a Southern Magnolia, I’m pretty sure. Big old white bloom, just this cup that just opens up to the sky and holds like the bee sound that I was trying to get you to hear at the beginning of this.

That bee was was at the bottom of one of those petals where some of the, I don’t know, stamens had fallen and it was getting the pollen off of them.

[3:16] Just amazing. If you pay attention to nature, you will never be bored. You will be constantly amazed.

You will constantly be in awe, and your life will be better for it.

So I encourage you, reconnect with something that you knew from your childhood, or just reconnect with everything, because as a species we’ve got so many, many, many connections to plants, animals, places.

If we just paid attention to, we could feel it, feel connected just like I am when I smell that magnolia tree and those blooms.

So that’s my thought for today. That’s how I’m and listening to my life. I’m David Bourne.

See more of this kind of stuff at davidbourne.com.

Hope to see you there. Cheers.