Needing to slow down

This morning i realized how my mind is spinning, non-stop, and how I feel like i'm on a treadmill trying desperately to keep up and feeling off balance. Yes, I have a million things going on right now. I must, however, never lose sight of the importance of pausing, slowing down and reflecting. I was at a workshop the other night, and the speaker shared a story of how his teacher instilled in him the importance of nurturing his roots. The more grounded we are, the deeper our roots - the more we are able to soar. Without strengthening our roots and returning to our core/our seed, we will not be able to reach outward and upwards. For the past week I have stopped watering my roots. I feel the drought in my spirit this morning. I acknowledge my need to water my roots, and only then will I be able to fly.

I find myself often dreaming of all that is possible, of imagining a world full of love, compassion, forgiveness -- a world where animals no longer suffer and where people find healing through the beauty of all living creatures. Then I find myself working myself into a tizzy as I worry about all that needs to be done.

I need to take time to pause. This morning as i noticed an unsettling feeling in my gut, i looked out my window, and i felt tears well up ... i realized i am running too fast and risk losing myself.


This morning, Mary Oliver's poem "Mindful" speaks to me:

Every day
I see or I hear
something
that more or less

kills me
with delight,
that leaves me
like a needle

in a haystack
of light.
It is what I was born for --
to look, to listen,

to lose myself
inside this soft world --
to instruct myself
over and over

in joy,
and acclamation.
Nor am I talking
about the exceptional,

the fearful, the dreadful,
the very extravagant --
but of the ordinary,
the common, the very drab,

the daily presentations.
Oh, good scholar,
I say to myself,
how can you help

but grow wise
with such teaching
as these --
the untrimmable light

of the world,
the ocean's shine,
the prayers that are made
out of grass?