” I’m passionately involved in life. I love its change, its colour, its movement. to be alive, to be able to see, to walk, to have houses, music, paintings- it’s all a miracle. I’ve adopted the technique of living from miracle to miracle.” ~Arthur Rubenstein
I invite you to write on a piece of paper: “I am passionately involved in life”, then add your own list. How will you adopt the technique of living from miracle to miracle?
Put it somewhere where you will see it every day. Breathe it in as your mantra. When you stop seeing it, take is as an opportunity to revise it, and move it somewhere else.
“You never know what you will discover, once you decide to do something, rather than dream about it.”
What’s the first thing that pops into your head when you think of adventure? Months of planning? Death defying feats? Taking a sabbatical from life? Do you then sigh and then tuck it way on a bucket list somewhere? Yeah. Me too.
And then there’s the someday list, usually beginning with “I’ve always wanted to “ or “someday I will”. On my list, these are smaller, more obtainable. And still, they get set aside.
But.
What if…..
You shift your perspective a little?
I remember doing some home improvement projects before selling a house years ago, and they were much more enjoyable, and not nearly as troublesome as my procrastination let me to believe.
The other day, I decided to go somewhere I hadn’t yet.. on my someday list, and chose to take a back roads way. On twisty mountain roads. Past random bee yards. “Eggs for Sale” signs. Where cars coming the other way slowed down to see who I was because they didn’t recognize my car. I took a hike on one of the mountains, and turned back when it started feeling too “snakey”. There was no phone reception, and I didn’t have a walking/whacking stick. As it turned out I was right about the snakes, according to a local.
All within 15 miles of home, and one of the largest cities in the nation! I came home feeling I’d had a mini-adventure, and also had done something on my someday list.
A few years back, I felt lonely on a holiday, and went on a hike in a park near me. I wondered how I’d managed to live here over ten years and not done the hike? It changed my life, and now I go out searching for parks near me to go hiking on a regular basis.
What is on your someday list? What are you willing to do on that list this week? Today? Even the smallest of adventures can be life-changing. You never know what you will discover once you decide to do something, rather than dream about it. Now get out there and make it happen. Let me know how it went!
This week’s topic is mindfulness. It’s showing up everywhere.. being taught in schools, as workshop and retreat topics. There’s even an organization called the Mindful Leadership Network. If you are in a leadership role of any capacity, I highly recommend it. https://www.mindfulleader.org/
Beyond it being a buzzword and a catch phrase to fill workshop seats though, what does it mean to be mindful? It’s more than a form of meditation to me; it’s a way of being.
To me it means to be in a
state of active attention to the present. Not scrolling through social
media while listening to a podcast and eating. Not replaying over and
over what you wish you had or hadn’t said earlier in the day. Not
having FOMO about some event you are not attending. Not taking a
picture every few steps of your hike. Being fully and completely
engaged in the moment you are in, breath by breath. As Consciousness
observing the experience that your corporeal body is having.
I have two invitations for you this week.
For the first one, turn off your devices, and pour yourself a glass of water. Observe the glass or cup you chose for the water. Really look at it. All its variations. Is it smooth? Rough? Hand or machine made? Notice and appreciate everything about this container, and how water takes the shape of whatever container it’s in.
Next observe the water. Is it flat or bubbly? Clear? A little cloudy? Are there reflections in it? Is it warm, cold, hot?
And finally, drink the water. Do you drink it all in one go? Bit by
bit? How does it taste? How does it feel in your mouth, going down..
can you feel your body taking on the hydration? Did it make you more
aware of your mouth- your tongue, your lips, your teeth?
An alternative would be to take something like a single raisin or an almond, observe all its textures and colours. Smell it. Squish it if you like (hehe), and then eat it, slowly, fully experiencing how it feels in your mouth. How it tastes. So often we grab a drink or something to eat and consume it without experiencing and savoring it.
For the second exercise, get outside! For the good old 15 minutes, at the very least. Again turn off your device. Fully experience being outside. What does it smell like out there? What do your footsteps, bike, or wheels sound like. Is there a breeze? How does it feel? or the sun? or the fog? Do you hear other people, birds, animals? I find getting outside for even just a couple of minutes can revitalize me and reset my brain.
This all can translate to any creative practice- to any interaction with living beings.
If you sit down to create music, how does the instrument feel? Are there worn spots where your hands have traveled for years? If you write, consider the feel of pen on paper, or how the words flow from your brain to your hands to your keyboard. How does it feel when you squeeze that tube of paint? Chop the garlic? Put the spade into the earth, present your ideas to a committee? And so on.
There’s much more to mindfulness and mindfulness practice than all this, certainly. Shifting one’s perspective to be more fully present as one experiences the day can be a most satisfying part of it.
I invite you to create your own version of a mindfulness practice this week, and let me know how it goes!
Today while walking, two men passed me. They smelled of old books.
Not long afterwards, I saw them admiring a tree. One patted it with affection and said “I’m sure this tree has stories to tell.” The other nodded.
Later I saw them again, looking at the plants in the garden. First one would say something about it, then the other. Sharing their knowledge, not in competition, but in conversation. They looked at each other often in the way of loving understanding that only people who’ve been companions a long time do. In my head I named the men Verso and Recto… facing pages in a book.
I sat on a bench and began to doodle, as I sometimes do there. Doodling for me is a way to turn off my Inner Narrator- that constant voice in my head. I don’t think about what comes next; I just let the pen go where it will on the paper. This time, I realized.. I was drawing the way the garden sounded and felt. I was drawing sensation.. not what I saw. I tuned in and continued with this focus. I will leave it to you to interpret what I was hearing, seeing, and feeling.
I’ve done this with creating music, or dancing before, but not drawing, and it felt amazing.
Will you take a moment to let your Inner Narrator settle and silence? What do you hear? What do you feel? What does that look like?
I was at one of my favourite places the other day. I call the route the Sacred Mountain hike. I could drive to the destination, but I like to park at the bottom and walk up to the top of the mountain. There is a lot to see along the way. Sometimes I chat with people who live in the neighbourhood. Sometimes I need the exertion of one foot in front of the other until there is nothing but the step and the breath.
The whole area has always felt special to me, and several of the people who live in the area have told me it’s been a sacred place since it was inhabited only by the indigenous people.
I looked up from watching ants and saw a man stop at the cactus garden, then kneel. Maybe he was doing as I had done.. kneeling to look more closely at things, then I realized he saw that garden as a sacred place. I witnessed how he used the place for healing, and it was a beautiful thing to see.
That to which we attach meaning becomes sacred. It can be a place designed as such, used in reverence over centuries, or something as simple as a rock one finds while walking.
I’ve been reading some of dancer and choreographer Martha Graham lately. What she says about dancers applies to us all.
“Wherever a dancer stands ready; that place is holy ground”
“The body is a sacred garment. It’s your first and last garment; it is what you enter life in and what you depart life with, and it should be treated with honor. ”
“There is a vitality, a life force, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique, and if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium, and be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is, not how it compares with other expression. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open. ”
If we are mindful to be standing ready, opportunities begin to emerge…. things we were not able to see when our minds were too cluttered with the detritus of the every day.
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