5:00pm – 6:00pm

Temperature: 34-degree Celsius

I went there in the evening. The sun was not gone yet. This is the perfect time of the day. The sun is not blazing hot and the night darkness hasn’t crept in yet. I went to sit at my regular spot, facing the guava tree. I could see that more of the flowers have bloomed this time. It is a season of marigold flowers here. The outside air felt good. The cold breeze was adding more to my beautiful experience.  Don’t usually spend my days outside, so every time I step outside, I feel rejuvenated.

This time I was observing any auditory tuning. I closed my eyes to focus on the sounds of the environment. I was trying to hear even the distant sounds. Something I felt strange was that the sound I heard would have never been heard by me if I hadn’t mindfully tried to observe it. The sound was dominated by the sound of dogs barking in the neighborhood. But within those loud dog sounds, nature was speaking in its own way. I could hear small birds chirping, leaves rustling, and mosquitoes buzzing. It felt like in all the hustle and bustle of human beings, nature was the only stillness. I craved for the stillness it possesses.

While I was devoting my complete attention to nature, I found a butterfly. It was a huge black butterfly in the small space next to me. At first, I thought it was dead as it not moving. Then, the wings moved a little bit. I wondered why it was not scared of me sitting right next to it. Which brought me to the question that why should they be scared of me? This is their place as well. They belong here equally as every other biotic and abiotic factors of nature.

Then I started looking for the second of the three objects from my first blog. It was to observe different flowers in my front yard. But instead of just looking for flowers, I went to look for plants as well. I wanted three plants I wanted to use to find out the name through the inaturalist app. The names are Aroids, Whorled Pennywort, and Pygmy Date Palm. The most interesting thing I found amongst the three was for Whorled Pennywort. Apparently, they are used for medicinal practices. And for Pygmy Date Palm, I found that they live for 5 to 6 years. The three organisms I saw were Western Carpenter Ant, Papilis Anchisiades, and Coccinella.

Looking at the names I didn’t feel like I should know them. It felt nicer to address them with simple names like ant and ladybirds. Scientific names disconnected me with them. With all this pondering and observing, my time outside had come to an end. I stood up to go inside feeling grateful like always.