Returning to myself

The best things in life are nearest: breath in your nostrils, light in your eyes, flowers at your feet, duties in your hand, the path of right just before you. Then do not grasp at the stars, but do life's plain, common work as it comes, certain that daily duties and daily bread are the sweetest things in life.
~Robert Louis Stevenson

So I took my own advice from yesterday--not that I realized I was giving advice--and went for a walk at the beach today. "Happily I recover. . . . / Happily I go forth. . . . / With lovely feelings may I walk. / As it used to be long ago, may I walk." I had woken up this morning feeling off my game. After a week of being a bit under the weather, I was finally feeling better . . . so my Intellect gifted me with a flurry of thoughts that supposedly needed urgent attention. I realized that this tension I've been feeling in my neck and shoulders is a direct result of stress, which always surprises me. A year ago, I was working a crazy schedule plus a hellish commute for a job that I hated. What do I have to be stressed out about now?, I ask myself.

But that's not really how it works. Whatever is going on your life is always the largest thing you've ever had to deal with. Not true, I know, but especially as time passes and you adjust to life as it has become, the things that happened in the past lose their full color and whatever is up for you right now feels HUGE. You can hear about starving children and domestic violence and rights abuses and whatever else makes the news today and think, how do my worries compare to that? Well, they don't. But not because your challenges are inherently less important--it's really that life isn't relative. Sure, you can always do more for those other folks you're hearing about it, and they may or may not receive relief from it or appreciate it. But none of that will make what's going on for you go away. You are living your life in this moment, the present moment, the only moment there is, and therefore this moment is the most important moment in your life, in your world.

Which is how I came to be at the beach today. I realized that I'd allowed all the relativity, the shoulds, the external stresses to become more important that this moment. None of it really matters. Sure, I could use a larger income. Sure, very little would make me happier right now than being able to move. Sure, I have work to do around my house, for my clients, for myself. But when I stop experiencing the present moment, stop recognizing its importance, stop taking care of myself in this moment, then I have completely missed the point of living.

Now that I am back home again, those issues that felt oh-so-important this morning are still there, lingering in the back of my mind, but they no longer feel urgent, no longer feel larger than life. Because now I remember the smell of the ocean, the majesty of the seagulls and the pelicans, the feel of cypress bark on my skin. The work flows easily now, the stresses roll off me like water, and I am grounded, present, centered, and truly alive. Order has been restored to my small corner of the Universe, and all is well again. Life truly is good. Namaste.

Photo: "Old tree branch on a sandy beach, " originally uploaded by René Ehrhardt

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Annie Dillard quote

Every day is a god, each day is a god,
and holiness holds forth in time.
I worship each god,
I praise each day splintered down,
and wrapped in time like a husk,
a husk of many colors spreading,
at dawn fast over the mountains split.

~Annie Dillard

Happily may I walk

I've been a bit under the weather this past week. One part lots of pollen in the air, one part working more than usual, one part socializing during the time that I'm accustomed to taking for myself, and it adds up to exhaustion. Unfortunately, my body is still operating on old patterns--assuming I won't take care of things myself, it stirs things up with the occasional illness to force me to take it easy for a time. I've been trying to convince it that times have changed, dialing things way back this weekend and even canceling my Saturday plans to ensure I had plenty of time to recoup. But no luck--the run-down, allergetic feeling I've been struggling with all week has finally turned into a full-blown cold.

So this week my plan is to return to the basics, focus on taking care of myself, staying present with what's going on with me, and just take things one at a time. I pulled out my old standby (best friend, really) Earth Prayers this morning and was struck by this Navajo chant. I loved the sense of balance, of bringing things back into alignment, that it conveyed. Hope it appeals to you as much as it is appealing to me today. Namaste.


House made of dawn.
House made of evening light.
House made of the dark cloud.
House made of male rain.
House made of female rain.
House made of pollen.
House made of grasshoppers.

Dark cloud is at the door.
The trail out of it is dark cloud.
The zigzag lightning stands high upon it.
An offering I make.
Restore my feet for me.
Restore my legs for me.
Restore my body for me.
Restore my mind for me.
Restore my voice for me.
This very day take out your spell for me.

Happily I recover.
Happily my interior becomes cool.
Happily I go forth.
My interior feeling cool, may I walk.
No longer sore, may I walk.
Impervious to pain, may I walk.
With lovely feelings may I walk.
As it used to be long ago, may I walk.

Happily may I walk.
Happily, with abundant dark clouds, may I walk.
Happily, with abundant showers, may I walk.
Happily, with abundant plants, may I walk.
Happily, on a trail of pollen, may I walk.
Happily may I walk.
Being as it used to be long ago, may I walk.

May it be beautiful before me.
May it be beautiful behind me.
May it be beautiful below me.
May it be beautiful above me.
May it be beautiful all around me.
In beauty it is finished.
In beauty it is finished.

Photo: "after the storm," originally uploaded by alex de carvalho

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