Glorious sunlit day.
I feel the rays being absorbed.
They warm my body.
The rays flow over and through me.
They create heat in my body.
I feel alive.
The sun energizes me.
It refreshes me.
I feel alive.
I begin again.
I own my breath.
I am renewed.
I am alive.
I am grateful.
I have had a lot of thoughts rumbling through my brain the last several weeks.
One which has reverberated around quite a bit is the passage of time. A couple weeks ago, this realization hijacked my mind as I was tried to clean out a closet of children’s toys which dated back to when my oldest was 5 or 6 years old. The closet stacks of old VHS tapes. Arthur. Rugrats. Barney. Even the dreaded TeleTubbies. I hesitated toss ing them out. Even though they were simply taking up space. I am not even sure we have a working VHS player. Nor could I tell you the last time we even watched a VHS tape (or give you a reason why we should).
I thought about why it was bothering me so much to depart with these tapes. My kids surely did not want them. My wife wanted them out.
It was an acknowledgment. An acknowledgment that time had indeed past. It is not returning. A little part of me had died….but had it really?
It is still a part of me. It is a part of who and where I am.
We live in today’s instant. The past is already past. Who cares. We have lived it and enjoyed it.
New adventures lie ahead. If I am open to them.
Keep to the process. Think. Live in the moment. It’s the only on of which we are assured.
The tapes went out that day to the dump. I don’t miss them.
I sketched out these thoughts about six weeks ago, on a beautiful fall sunny day in New Jersey.
Surrounded by falling leaves in my Zen Grotto. Leaves peacefully falling to the ground around me. The ground was covered that day like the first snowfall we would soon have. Ankle deep in some places.
The quiet of the leaves falling through space was soon penetrated by a leaf blower in a neighboring yard. Actually, an army of leaf blowers. An ironic counterpoint to the peacefulness of the falling leaves. The suburban homeowner’s weapon of mass destruction against the falling leaves and the end of summer. Leaves which had just died after fulfilling their life’s mission of providing oxygen.
When I sit in my my grotto and journal, the exercise typically begins as a compilation of what I see around me. An approach that typically makes me be present and opens my mind. This might be the one time in a day that I stop. I look. I listen to the natural world. A world unrelated to a brick attached to my ear.
I can hear birds chirping. Watch the birds and squirrels coexist. See the leaves die their natural death.
This particular day the noise rang out and smacked me. The blasts of the leaf blower entered my consciousness as an image for the noise in my daily existence. Noise which I must continually navigate in and through. Some days worse than others. Leaf blowers appear and disappear outside of my control. Each are obstacles that I need to pierce through to see, hear, and feel what is going on. To be present. Mindful.
The distraction of the noise, of the leaf blower, is just that. Distraction. A distraction to be ignored. Allowed to wash over me and permit a focus on the here and now. The important. As opposed to the trivial.
Transcending the metaphor, the individual making the most noise is to be ignored. We need to ignore the leaf blowers in our lives. In our politics. The leaf blowers spew noise but do not affect the beauty and existence in front of us if we push them to a mere passing sound in our consciousness. Instead, focusing on the quiet beauty around us, enveloping us. The dying leaf falling to the ground. The wind lightly blowing. The distant, soft sound of the chirping cardinal
Focus on the silent. The white space between the noise. The leaf blowers will always be ready to barge in if we let them. If we let them affect us. But why?
A few days ago, I sat in my self-described Grotto of Zen. A small rock garden existing in the corner of my yard where I have hung Tibetan prayer flags and installed a small Buddha. My place for mindful meditation.
It was a brisk morning. I had just finished my 10 minutes of Mindfulness (using Sam Harris’ Waking Up app www.waking up.com). Sitting in my Adirondack chair, perhaps procrastinating until I moved on to the rest of my day, I fixated on several bird feeders about 20 yards away. The interplay of the birds, squirrels, and chipmunks on the ground, in the trees, and through the air entertained me.
They flew or scurried in and out of my consciousness.
After a few minutes, I was struck by their coexistence. They moved in a orderly manner from a feeder, to a tree, to the next feeder, on and then off the ground. Very little conflict occurred between them. On the ground, the birds, squirrels, and chipmunks picked at the remnants of food falling to the ground from the feeders above or another’s leftover seeds.
A break in the action….now the next shift swoops in. Just as orderly as the prior one. This continues for some time.
It struck me that their behavior is instructive for us so-called sentient beings. An allegory perhaps.
These “lesser” species cooperating and co-existing. Without a spoken word.
Enjoying the sweet smell of early fall air, I took in the chirps and squeaks of the birds and their friends.
Most importantly, I took the time to Stop. Listen. Observe. Hear. It was very instructive as I transitioned to my day.
I observed and covered my breath. I absorbed the singing above. It soothed me.
I took a break. I listened and I breathed.
For those few moments, my mind was focused and I was not distracted.
It was a welcome change.
Preparing for the Second Half 