Poem for you below.We're a bit short on wood drakes around here, but we have got herons and other triggers into a state of mindful calm. The thing about people knowing you are using mindful meditation is that sometimes they expect you to be a Buddha all the bloody time. Well, being mindful doesn't mean you never wake into fears of chaos and despair, but it sure does help to deal with it all.
And looking at this stuff helps, too - provided you are actually there, in the moment, in the place, so it can work on you.
Thanks to the impactED nurse for alerting me to the poem.
Pax vobiscum.
The Peace of Wild Things
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
Wendell Berry
I remember years and years ago sitting on my doorstep in Leeds with my dog and falling in with what she did - a bit of sniffing, a bit of gazing, attention caught and lost, enjoying the sun and the sounds and the companionship and the contentment. Nicest morning I ever spent.
ReplyDeleteDid you ever come across Mack and the boys in Cannery Row? they're pretty good at this stuff, too.
Must try it again.
Isn't it odd how difficult it is sometimes to do the simple but important things? I aim to do at least some of this stuff everyday, yet I often turn in thinking "damn, didn't get to it again today."
ReplyDelete"Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers."
But at least we know the value of a few moments outside it, and it's waiting for us when we are ready.
Time to field the dog again, Charles?
Oh yes, for sure. Excellent mindfulness practice. Fall in with a reposeful dog; dogs have everything to teach us about living in the moment. Cats ain't bad, either.
ReplyDelete