Flo

Lately, I find myself resisting my meditation practice.  My resistance shows itself in many forms. (1) I don’t even think of meditating.  (2) I decide it’s “too late” to meditate since it didn’t happen when I first woke up. (3) I say “I’ll do it later”, but don’t schedule a time so it doesn’t ever happen.  All of these create another set of issues of negative self talk, related to “practice what you preach” and “walk the talk”.  Some days it feels like the best I can do is talk of my meditation practice, for in that talk I find myself drawn back to the reason I do it to begin with.  It reminds me of why it’s valuable to me and why I need to begin again.

 Flo

Today I stood in line and gained an admirable amount of appreciation for mothers.  A woman behind me displayed the fine art of management as she placed the items from her grocery cart on the checkout stand while telling one daughter not to hang on the rope for the adjacent checkout stand, she guided her son to hold the coupons, and she calmly discussed the swimsuit her second daughter had chosen. While explaining how easily the snags would show up on the new swim suit, particularly getting out of the pool and asking her daughter if she wanted to take it back, she gave her store card to daughter number one and asked her son to walk her second daughter back to the swimsuits.  Daughter number one was asked to get the coupons and stay close with the card, while daughter two yelled across the store “can I pick out another one?”  The woman instructed her daughter how to find the right size and continued moving the groceries, while she remained calm, focused and on task.  She displayed amazing organization and the family, great teamwork.

 She couldn’t have orchestrated it better. 

I was told, at a metaphysical fair on Saturday, that I need to increase my self-care and open my heart.  Nothing too surprising about the first part but the second has made me start looking inside a little differently.  I consider myself a fairly open person, yet was reminded with my friend’s gentle comments how long she knew me before I ever mentioned my spouse or family.    

“Open your heart.  People are drawn to that in you.”  The words were kind.  The words sound important.  This week I am practicing opening my heart.

Tonight I caught myself staring at the sky, mouth agape.  (Even reading it, can’t you picture it?)  I was just walking around my Pathfinder to get my bike bag out of the passenger seat, when I heard them.  The sound started with a few honks and was followed by more and more until the sky in every direction was polka dotted and the honks were directly overhead and I could hear the wings flapping as hundreds of geese flew toward Fort Collins.

I’m not sure why this is such a spectacle to me, but I’ve been known to rush out of my house to observe the same thing.  It’s as if my skin can’t get quite close enough, I want to be a little taller or them to fly a little lower so I can feel the wind their wings creates. 

Several years ago I had a picture taken with a tiger, an adolescent tiger whose handler was there the entire time.  I remember telling myself to “stay present”.  I wanted to be immersed in the feelings of the moment.  The entire experience was much too short to me and disappointed, I had to move on so the next person in line could rush in for their photo.

Being immersed in the feelings, in the moment.  I wanted to shut out everything except the honking geese, the sights, the sounds, the smells.  It lasted only a minute.  That was enough for now.