UpSometimes the world stops. Life is quiet and if you listen to the beating of your own heart you might recognize a quiet place to retreat, to find a moment alone with a coffee or a book. Or maybe you breathe in the early morning, while sitting on your yoga mat with your lemon water counting your breaths with your fingers.
You have turned off the sound that garbles your phone filled with angry posts of world issues, a sickness hanging in the air and turn inward to self, to thought and find a wide open space that’s so wide you are surprised by the expanse of ease and grace just within reach when you allow yourself to let go of the technology at your hand, the online classes, the live feeds, the opinions of what’s wrong with the world, what’s wrong with that group, what’s wrong with your food, what’s wrong with your thinking…
TOO MUCH INFORMATION.
The sun shines so bright you peel off your T-shirt just so you can feel rays warm your skin, brush your face, and remind you to BE STILL.
Take time to be quiet, pray, dream and believe in all of the beautiful dreams you knew were real before the sickness found in the air. A quiet place to retreat when the the world is chaotic and restless with anger, pointing fingers at who is wrong and no one is right.
Where is the light? Where is there a place to find the grace that grows in the sacred places of our own heart?
Place a towel on the floor. Cross your legs and sit in easy position with your spine upright. Place your hands on your knees and lift your rib cage, your heart space and soften your shoulders…
Just breathe.
Close your eyes and imagine that favorite place you liked to visit as a child and try to remember the goodness you felt in this memory and hold it close to your heart.
What does it feel like? What does it look like? What does it smell like? Can you remember the smudged edges of that
perfect memory and remind your heart that moments like this will exist again. The lake you sat by in Montana with your family as a child on holiday hangs like a tapestry of beauty. You see the jagged edges of the mountains line the blue sky in the dewy morning of your memory. You can taste the black coffee you drank out of the paper cup, while your wore your blue windbreaker with pride and a baseball hat because at heart you were a tomboy. You sat next to the fire as your parents made bacon and eggs–and you remember the crispy taste of bacon blending with the coffee grinds. You witness the glory of being alive and at peace next to the mountains with your family on a holiday one summer many years ago before the sickness lived in the air and life became surreal like a Ray Bradbury short story.
Everyone has an opinion. Everyone has their freedoms. Everyone has their anger for what is taking place, their reaction and their troubled thoughts of how can the carry on when their world has stopped. Who is right? Who is wrong? When death needs an opinion you begin to wonder about the new normal.
You discover what’s real and what’s not. What relationships in life count and which ones do not.
You scan your recent choices and feel as if before Covid-19 you were on the verge of a better you and you on the threshold of those newest dreams come true.
The pause, the moment of quarantine, the hundreds of box smashing moments behind the front counter at your family’s business has taken your mind into a tranquil place of sifting through the memories of your life; sifting through the choices of the past…
Make a choice. The light turns off. The house collapses. The world is quiet. Unplug the phone. Airplane mode.
Take a seat on the seat of your dreams. Take seat on the floor of your sacred space inside your mind.
Relax. Breathe in. Breathe Out. Pray.
Be Still. Stay in. Don’t touch. Be quiet. Remain calm. Wash your Hands. Do as you are told. Repeat.
Go online. Connect. Repeat. One more day.
Okay. Relax…
What is real? Your beating heart. Your breath. Your smell. Your memories. Your moments that frame where to begin in an unstable world. Is it safe to dream? Is it safe to remember beautiful moments next to a mountains on a lake with of your family on holiday? Is it safe to dream? Is it safe to remember beautiful moments next to a mountains on a lake? Remember what it feels like to believe in the beauty of tomorrow, the mystery or what lies ahead?
Is it okay to kill a rattlesnake? Smash boxes, save snapping turtles? Pull over. Step out of the car. Pick the down turtle. Walk down thes away from the road. Set him free. It feels good to set the snapping turtle free.
It also feels good to grocery shop for the 90 year old that has more gumption and health than every customer that comes into the fruit stand. You sift through grocery items wearing gloves and a mask and hope that you find each item because you love this woman for being so strong and resilient. “They don’t make people like that anymore,” you silently think…You wonder if you have time to buy prunes for her…You forgot the prunes. Those might have been important. You will text her later today.
Sunshine Club feels hot and muggy. Your coffee is liquid. Your discover the Blue Zones and realize you are close to mastering your diet. Anchovies are good for you. You buy them and eat them with gratitude.
Food has become a necessity for living.
You wonder. You stop. You think. You wonder. You stop. You think. You wonder.
Back to the mat to breathe each morning…those 11 breaths; each side, repeat. Stretch hands overhead. Repeat.
You meditate. You pray. You memorize Bible scriptures. You bond deeply with the man you already love. You stare at empty houses online and feel as if house hunting is the most overrated waste of time in the world.
BE STILL and KNOW THAT I AM GOD.
Thank God!
Thank God, for that place where my mind can find a moment of peace from the crazy new world that we happen to be living in. Thank God for the fruit, for the animals, the books, and for the memories that remind me that now is IT. Create. Live. And, yes, STILL DREAM.
Believe in the goodness this
life has to offer that you deserve to find peace, achieve your dreams.
What can I do for God? What can I do to be a better person? What can I do to serve? I keep finding these thoughts bubble up from the well of uncertainty and I hear only one thought.
I’m Trying.