A Day at a Time – A Daily Blog of Life in Lockdown
Yesterday I made a commitment to renounce the habit of hurrying. Today sitting in meditation, I notice hurry up mind arising. Ideas are coming to me about the Wigwam initiative – the online forums, people to be involved, fund-raising ideas and I can feel the energy in my body wanting to jump up off the cushion. Thoughts proliferate around an idea and the urge to get into action is there. I watch it happen. It is so clear, and I can see this is the way we miss so many of our moments by rushing into the next. I watch and sit and let the thoughts go, bringing my attention to sounds for a while to bring me back to presence. Then I am feeling a warmth in my heart, I recognise it as gratitude arising for all the ideas coming to me right now. Then I am in the deep, dark past to a difficult time of my life but it is the memories of the people at that time that are coming to me, their faces, their names and a feeling of gratitude that they were there and then a wishing them well. Back to thoughts about the day ahead, work, the house and the hurry up energy in the body arising again. I sit, I watch, and I see how patience is so key in all this. We have so many habit energies in the way we think, speak and react to life. Can we have the presence of mind to see, the patience to watch what happens and to wait until it passes?
At 6.00 o’clock, which is the only time of day I am aware of, I get an urge for a glass of wine. This last week I practiced watching the urge, seeing it arise, allowing it to be there and then choosing to do something different, like a walk around the garden or having a cup of tea. Not really that difficult. However, I do enjoy a glass of wine and yesterday’s beautiful sunshine coupled with intense delicious heat called for a chilled glass of wine at the end of the garden.
Talking to my son about breaking the habit of a drink at a 6 pm, he retorted “going to make it 5.30 pm?” Bloomin’ cheek! He he!
Lingering in Happiness
After rain after many days without rain
It stays cool, private and cleansed, under the trees
And the dampness there, married now to gravity
Falls branch to branch, leaf to leaf, down to the ground
Where it will disappear – but not, of course, vanish
Except to our eyes. The roots of the oaks will have their share
And the white threads of the grasses, and the cushion of moss
A few drops, round as pearls, will enter the mole’s tunnel
And soon so many small stones, buried for a thousand years
Will feel themselves being touched
Mary Oliver
Hint: Savour your pleasant experiences and let go of any future thinking that clouds the moment.
