Dear Friend,
I’ve misplaced my glasses, it may continue like this for days, and then they’ll make a grand entrance boasting of how they were hiding in plain sight all along, and they’ve tricked me again. What they don’t know is that their time is almost up. The lenses have a pitted quality to them as one of the expensive coatings for which I paid extra, is giving up the ghost.
I never really got on with the blue coating that is meant to protect against the glare of computer screens. I’d prefer a rose tint. Something to warm up the view on a damp winter day.
At any rate it’s approaching, rumours of a change carried on the breeze. No rush. You have to live with your choices so best to make decisions when you know what you want.
The heat continues. Zara took me for an early morning walk. There’s building works going on that have blocked the main ground level access to the marshes. The works are scheduled to continue for the next four months. No stair free access whatsoever. That means a lot of people can’t get over the road and rail lines, so it’s quieter on the marshes at the moment. The only way to cross is to walk a long way round past the tube station or cross an old metal footbridge that doubles as an outdoor toilet and fly tippers paradise.
It’s beautiful though once you get to the river. There are kingfishers and herons and moorhens, ducks, swans and gulls. You can rest in the sunshine and watch the river grass dancing in the current. Zara fell into some muddy underwater hole and went bezerk running around barking as if she’d been ambushed.
You can miss it all by being caught up in mental activity. Placing one foot at a time, feeling the sensations in the body. Mind directed to the inflow and outflow of the breath. Listening to the sounds of bird song and traffic. The heat of the sun on skin. Electro chemical signals running through flesh. Coming home to the body, the mind centring in the present moment, you can step out of the flow of thoughts and time and be here now.
A deliberate practice.
Modern life requires it, because we’re set up for endless distraction and worry. We’re so used to living in our minds that we fear something bad will happen if we let go of the reigns and look see how the universe is unfolding, rather than being in control of it.
Watching the passing clouds reflected in the rivers mirrored surface. Feeling the tickle of the breeze on your skin. What we’re looking for is right here in the moment.
It’s in the raw and insistent admonitions coming from a neighbour’s kitchen, the suck of the wind as the guys on electric cycles whoosh past you. The tooting of impatient drivers.
Everything is alive.
Everything impermanent.
Trying to work it out in our heads won’t do it.
The simplest practice is to take one conscious breath. Then another.
Refuse to judge. Insist on it. As if your peace of mind depends on it.
The mind will rush back in and then you realise and you take another conscious breath.
Wishing to get to the future is a kind of purgatory, because we can’t get to the future. We can shape it in our minds, as mental images and those mental images do manifest, but we need to be in the present moment to enjoy the fruits of our mental planting.
It’s just good to be aware of when we are in our heads and when we are present.
The phone will keep pinging and the world will continue to provide endless opportunities and challenges. Difficult things come our way and we’re going to react to them and ride the roller coaster, but we can’t ride it twenty four seven and expect not to get sick.
Quiet, reflective time, appreciating the good that is here now need only be a few minutes. Fifteen seconds would be the minimum.
How many breaths is that for you?
It takes fifteen seconds for our minds to absorb the positive energy of a positive thought. That’s a rule of thumb to help with scale.
You don’t plant thistle seeds and expect cherry tomatoes.
Sowing seeds of appreciation, such will be the harvest when the season comes.
Forgive others their mistakes. Forgive yourself for finding this world a confusing and tumultuous place. Be as kind as you can whoever crosses your path today. Inside them is the same spiritual energy that’s in the river and inside you.
The false self isn’t going to stop asserting its claims.
We have to choose.
Planting seeds of compassion.
Suddenly one day we encounter the beauty of the wild rose. Its perfume transports us then fades out of memory only to bloom again in another form.
All of this coming and going.
At the centre is the awareness that is ever and always present. Identify with the awareness and watch the things that come and go.
Cling to principles you find to be true, rather than things.
Simple practices. Demanding for us in our times. It’s our place to choose what harvest we would reap. Standing at the edge of time, co-creating with the energy that creates worlds.
We are more powerful than we can recognise usually.
Best to focus on being in the here and now.
As often as you can.
Till tomorrow
Love
Mikey