Right Here, Right Now

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I love the sweet smell of dawn -
our unique daily opportunity to smell time,
to smell opportunity -
each morning being, a new beginning.
~Emme Woodhull-Bäche

I’ve been waking up early, as soon as the sun turns my bedroom walls orange, and enjoying the peacefulness that only 6am can offer in this house. I start my tea on the stove and pop a load in the washer if needed. When my kettle whistles and my cup is ready, it’s outdoors with me.

I love to take advantage of the mild morning before the heat of the day sets in. Our highs are already reaching 90 degrees but our mornings are crisp and cool. I’ve been taking my mat with me and practicing my Expressive Yoga to the music the birds declare suitable, and which I must agree, always is. I set my intention and I breath it in: Slow Down. Bring it close, notice it, understand it, give yourself time to think about it before you react. How many doors could be opened, how many tensions avoided by just slowing down?

The garden spiders crawling across my mat put a damper on my meditation, so I instead took the time to sit, with my knees drawn up and my chin resting, and simply observe. To slow down.

Within moments a small red finch alighted on the tortoise’s tall dandelions within feet of me, crawled up the stem and began to nibble on the buds. I smelled the moist earth around me and the honeysuckle wafting through me and I felt an inter-connectedness that I can’t describe to the bird that eats what both I and the tortoise eats. I felt like a quiet conspirator to his breakfast, he not knowing it was I who planted those dandelions nor who sat quietly, motionless, nearly breathless while he flitted from one to the next. I suddenly couldn’t loathe the aphid or the caterpillar who have been chewing through my vegetables. Or the ants that carry away my seeds. Just like the bird, we’re all physically made of or require the same stuff for existence and our biology requires we satiate those physical needs.

But more than feeling as an equal to the bird or the bug, I feel like a guardian. Part of it all still, but a bigger part, with a bigger responsibility to endure the aphid for the sake of the ladybug; to endure the unwanted weeds for the sake of the bird; to work within the balance rather than control the outcome for my own benefit.

All these meandering thoughts and emotions just from sitting outside, slowing down and listening. Is this all we really need in this world? More quiet places to Be?

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