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Today's
Quotation:
When I found I no longer
had the stamina to work long hours clearing the fallen limbs
in the woods around my house, I began to bring a lawn chair
and a thermos with me.
I still work in the woods, but stop frequently to sit
and have a cup of tea.
I’ve identified birds I
didn’t know lived here and evidence that a bobcat
shares the property. Since
I’ve slowed down some, I see things I never saw before and
find that quiet solitude is not lonely but nurturing,
allowing my heart to open to the signs and lessons of nature
that surround me.
Sallirae Henderson
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Today's
Meditation:
I
went for a bike ride the other day, and after about a half
hour or so I started to realize just what I was
missing. I have a mountain bike, so I was riding along
a snowmobile trail that used to be train tracks many years
ago. The trail goes through beautiful forests, several
gorges that they created many years ago in order to lay the
tracks, and by some nice ponds and streams.
The
problem is, though, that I get so involved in the riding, in
watching the path for obstacles and rocks and such, and in
the thinking that I tend to do when I'm alone, that I was
missing the beauty that was all around me. For all I
knew, I might have ridden right by a herd of deer, a moose
or two, a hawk or even a bald eagle. I do my best to
be as mindful as possible, usually, but there are still many times when I
simply don't see things because I'm so focused on something
else.
Sallirae's
passage speaks volumes to me. For her, it took a loss
of stamina (I believe from sickness) for her to slow down
and look and actually see all that was around her. My
sincere hope is that as time goes on, I'm able to make her
kind of observations without having to be slowed down by
some outside force. I hope that I'm able to slow down
and look around me without being ill or unable to move as
well as I do now. I hope that I'm able to appreciate
life and living as much as I possibly can without getting
cancer or a tumor that will give me a different
perspective. If those things come, of course, I hope
to deal with them well, but I want to learn lessons from
people who have been there-- after all, they certainly want
to teach me. They don't want me to have to go where
they've been.
Have
you slowed down recently? Have you tried to see all
that's around you and understand it and appreciate it?
There's much more in this world for us to see than we
actually see, and it's up to us to make the effort to see
it. It won't usually make any extra effort to be seen.
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