body integration.
{reverb10 – day 12}
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This year, when did you feel the most integrated with your body? Did you have a moment where there wasn’t mind and body, but simply a cohesive YOU, alive and present?
Okay, I am cheating again. I hadn’t planned to, but once again, I have no better answer to this prompt than a post I had already written, back in April. And suppose it’s no coincidence that this post also had a hawk in it. Plus, now I will have a little extra time to catch up on some of the other fabulous reberb10 reading out there!
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dirty hands, warm heart
I pulled a million dandelions out of my garden yesterday.
Okay, I exaggerate. A tad. But you know what? I enjoyed every minute of it. Not the dandelions themselves, but the work. The labor. The being outside in the sun listening to the birds sing
while breathing in the wonderfully fresh spring air kind of labor.
A labor of love.
My favorite way to spend a day, when I have a whole day to spend, is in my garden. No rushing, no agenda, just me, the earth, the plants, the birds, and perhaps a worm or two thrown in for good measure.
The hours pass silently, the way they will when you are doing something you love. I don’t think about them, clock them, care about them. I don’t spend them worrying about how fast they are flying by, the way I do most days.
I am suspended in garden time like a lazy bumblebee drifting from flower to flower. The sun on my back, a little Joni Mitchell or Ben Webster in the background. And the good, hard work. Simple work. The kind that lets your mind wander where it will, and somehow nudges those wanderings in just the right direction.
Sweating, but not the small stuff. Folding life down into a tiny microcosm, a world that exists just outside my vision most of the time. An ant struggling with a piece of food three times his size. Tree swallows taking turns bringing food to their babies. The sudden hush when a hawk flies over… so quiet that you stop what you are doing without knowing why.
You have to be there to notice these things. In the present. In the moment. This one moment that you only have while you are in it. The young swallows will fly away, soon. The ant will finish his journey and live, or die. The hawk will take something precious to another, but the birds will sing again, continue on.
I am glad I stole those hours. They were worth the extra work that will have to be made up later. They were hours of peace. And quiet. The kind of quiet that lets you listen to yourself, the world around you, the birds in the trees, the rustle of the wind.
The kind of quiet that lets you take it all in and keep it with you.
Until it soars back out as a smile.
December 12th, 2010 at 10:11 am
Buddhist monks equate work with prayer. You testify their theory.
December 12th, 2010 at 10:23 am
This is really beautiful. Loved every word.
“I am suspended in garden time like a lazy bumblebee drifting from flower to flower.” – To be suspended in time like that is such an exquisite joy. For me, one of my favorites is guitar time, as five or six hours of clock time can go by – without eating or peeing – as I drift from song to song, chord change to chord change. Hey, maybe I DO have something to write about today!
December 12th, 2010 at 11:08 am
The last two lines are so very powerful and I adore the way you can evoke the most vivid of images with your writing. Amazing, again (as if I expected anything less.)
December 12th, 2010 at 1:25 pm
A perfect..and most beautiful response to the prompt. So spiritual..
December 12th, 2010 at 2:24 pm
Thanks for your description of what some call the state of flow: “The hours pass silently, the way they will when you are doing something you love.” Just beautiful writing throughout. Sensual and evocative.
December 12th, 2010 at 5:00 pm
“i’m glad i stole those hours”……i love that !!
and it’s a reminder to all of us that we have the ability to do that !!
December 12th, 2010 at 9:58 pm
The words flow from your fingertips like magic and encircle my head then fly . . .