Always in the quiet and cool stillness of the wee morning hours do I find myself the happiest. The peace seems palpable, like you could hold it in the palms of your hands. I treasure such moments as I do many others. When the world gets chaotic, emotional and seemingly out of control, I learned a little trick while walking along my up and down path in life. It’s simple gratitude and appreciation. For example, earlier in the week I was feeling a bit chaotic juggling all of the seemingly important things in my world when all at once I was struck by the depth of a cerulean blue sky. Not to stop there, as it seemed my perception was rapidly expanding,in the span of seconds I lost all concept of time. My consciousness expanded and my senses came alive. It was so warm out and the grass had just been cut.
That smell of fresh cut grass on a warm day always reminds me of the summer time of my childhood...days spent in a little suburban neighborhood in Bellflower, California. I was always up so early just waiting for the sun, choking down breakfast quickly so I could go outside and play. I stopped in the moment in my present reality and all of those memories and scenes played in my mind's eye and I was filled with the joy and laughter of childhood memories of play and friends. But the moment was still expanding and I caught sight of the flowers in a bed near our building. The colors of the flowers seemed electric and alive...the brightest alive orange I’ve ever seen, the deepest soft pink in contrast with the green along with bright and vibrant yellow. I stood transfixed for what seemed like an hour. But the moment wasn’t yet done. My sight was pulled upward to a hawk hovering above the trees hunting for something small and delicious to eat. She looked magical floating on a warm up-draft of gentle wind current. She circled effortlessly and I just watched in awe.
But the moment still was not yet complete. Suddenly my consciousness was pulled to the people walking around the campus. I saw them moving so quickly and noticed they hadn’t noticed their surroundings at all, too caught up in drudgery as well as the superficiality of work-a-day existence. I could feel their thoughts and the cacophony seemed deafening. I observed only pulling back from my own thoughts and just watching a feeling what was happening around me. A cool breeze kicked up out of no where and blew my hair into my face. I looked at my black berry and realized all of this awareness and sensation occurred in a span of 3 minutes as I stood in the shade of a very large tree by my car in the parking lot. I smiled with an ear to ear grin. It’s like life is a simple joke sometimes. The things we think are so serious mean nothing and the things we miss, the things we don’t see mean everything. You might think it’s a cruel joke but to feel it you clearly know it’s not. A simple shift in your observation can bring joy and love spilling into your inner sight, your heart and your mind and the trivial things shift out of focus for as long as you remain open and refrain from control. It’s an amazing space to exist in if even only for 3 minutes.
I find I slip into such much moments more frequently. Perhaps I’ve been through so much raw emotion these past couple of years that I’ve really lost my mind and those moments I am transfixed in observation may just be moments in which my sanity is lost or maybe it’s that I’m insane all the other times but those short 3 minute escapes. I’m really not sure and I’ll probably question that forever. The one thing I do know is the effects are like being intoxicated in a good way, high on life…sort of like John Denver’s Rocky Mountain High…or something. Such moments remind me that there is so much more to life than we allow ourselves to see, hear and experience. You have to shift your focus a bit or become acutely aware when the shift occurs on its own. Remember what that feels like so you can go back to that space any time you want to.
Remember the peace today. Find something beautiful today. Appreciate something meaningful and deep today and realize you don’t have to go too far to find it. Be peaceful and filled with joy this day and all of your days.
No comments:
Post a Comment