Change

A mountain smiles cheekily at me. A fear of being ground to dust, of failing.

The sun beams gently down on the rippling pool; puff daddy clouds linger casually in the sky; it darkens like it could rain; the sun emerges again and my heart lifts.

I love this place but i feel the impending loss of my family, and am all too aware of spending hours tapping away at a computer rather than being able to fully enjoy them. All things change, especially children. At what point do we start trying not to change? Very strange behaviour that runs contrary to everything we see around us. And i've been just as guilty as the next adult of trying to hold on. And now bravely embracing whatever is i'm overwhelmed at times. Like now.

My little jade/money plant struggles back to life, just two little leaves on the end of one branch a bunch of little buds that have not moved in weeks. A little more love, a little more light, i want it to change, to grow.

Persistence

Persisting is not really not one of my best attributes. I'm more like the autumn leaves making swirls of crunchy colour in the wind rather than the damp incessant persistance of winter rain. Both have their place. Perhaps i should go more for the intense persistence of the summer sun, or the boundless persistence of the ocean waves.

I come back to the breath

I’m in a sea i’ve not navigated before; wrestling with a demon in whose grip I’ve been helpless for what seems an age. The gusting wind brings the stagnant comfort of familiar smells just often as the enticing fragrance of undiscovered flowers yet to bloom. The sea surges, fear ebbs and flows; at times the water towers above me; at times I sit, slack sail going nowhere; at times I bend into the fast wind of change; at times the sea drops in sheer cliffs either side.
Drenched and weary from the last storm, raw from the confusing chaos of stress, memories, emotions, work and dreams, my anxiety squirms and wriggles, trying not to be seen. I keep looking, holding it in both hands, breathing, aware of the ebb and flow of panic underneath wrenching in my gut, eating at my mind.

And I stay with it, out of sight of familiar land. At least the stars are still familiar; well as familiar as a sky only a couple of months old can be – since the last time the sky slid into the ocean leaving an infinite black dome through which stars slowly, mercifully emerged: pin prick holes into worlds of light.

And as it always will, the sun rises, eventually. I know that chasing it just lengthens the night. You do not find the sun by hunting it, but by being open to the dawn while hunting in the world of shadows. So I stay with it, riding my anxiety with my breath, going deeper into places I’ve not dared tread before, consuming and being consumed, knowing that something, somewhere, will change, hopefully sooner rather than later.

Knowing that dawn will come, I come back to the breath.

Body thinking

The rain soaks into the earth. The earth moves as one body, the sun shines with it's whole being, everything dedicated to the task.
I need to think with my whole body. When i sit to work my awareness tends to concentrate rapidly in my head, i lose connection with my body. I lose presence. This phenomenon is, i would think, not an uncommon occurrence. For me it manifests in distraction, in skipping across the many things i have on and struggling to immerse myself in any one task. I boil rather than simmer. In other people i'm sure it manifests in all sorts of other ways.
A fun challenge.

Lost

Lost in the mazes of my mind, the world slips away from me.

Saying what you need to hear

I've been telling her everything i need to hear.

Persist. Keep going. Of course having a vision is going to kick your arse - it's the point, just keep going forward with open eyes.

Strange how we do that, and totally sensible. People and situations show up that help us to find exactly what we need to hear, even if it's out of our own mouths. Even if it takes us a while to realise it. Even if it's a tsunami bearing down on us. Such strange parallels shifting past within around each other.

I stand knee deep in a shallow water of pool gazing blankly at my reflection. The water creeps slowly up my pants like wax up a wick. Transfixed i try to work out who i see, lost in trying to see the depths of my reflection while the fish wriggle past and the stars wheel slowly overhead.

Depth isn't enough.

The act or art of doing

...i don't think it really matters what i do, it is more that at some point i must do something, and hold the course, and feel the world change. But the more what i do is from my heart, the more likely i am to hold the course and persist, and i know it is only in doing my purest heart desire that i shall attain the vision i hold of myself.

But to find that purest of intent? Ah, i must act....