The Song of the Morning

The sun is only just creeping up to the horizon and a strong breeze blows outside my window.  To hear the wind rustling the leaves in the giant Sycamore tree outside my window with a warm cup of coffee in hand is just one of those moments I am truly grateful for.  To have a moment of stillness in the cool and dark, wind chimes making beautiful music, it seems as if I’ve left all of the cares of my world behind. 

The days are so warm still and yet the nights begin to cool a bit.  I love the changing time – those moments when Summer begins to move gently into Autumn.  All the remnants of those childhood memories and feelings of excitement for the new school year, Fall activities, Halloween, Thanksgiving – I can feel them just around the corner and it makes me smile.  I’m more than grown up now but I still hold within me that child-like wonder for all those moments I’ve lived up until now during this beautiful time of year.

In meditation this morning I felt a great peace unlike anything I’ve felt in months.  It feels almost as if I’ve been running and running some made race to get to some unknown place and only now have reached the top of the latest hill climbed.  I’ve slowed my pace now in this moment and am really just very much enjoying the view – this moment – this now.  Another strong gust of sea air blows in through the open window and I feel so calm and peaceful still.  This song of the morning has been so beautiful and so very sweet.  It is a calm reverence that washes over me as I sit here in silence embracing the fullness of a collection of very simple moments spent ever so present.

These moments are rare in a very busy life but something within me wishes to slow down now in every respect and appreciate all of the moments with a deeper reverence and even more gratitude.  What ever this is – a call from my soul maybe – I’m stopping and I’m listening.  I do not wish to spend the rest of my days in a blur of activity without tasting each precious moment of life.  It is so fragile, so fleeting and I do no longer wish to take even one second for granted.  I don’t know what that means for my every day-work-a-day life.  Maybe it is that I just allow this gentle shift within to take over – to take hold and breathe more.  Maybe i learn better what it means to openly take what comes just as it is with ever deepening gratitude just for the gift of presence.

The light comes now and with it gentle gray skies.  Wind rustles the leaves a bit more loudly now  and I can see the bright pink blooms of the Crape Myrtle tree that also thankfully lives right outside my window.  Such contrast exists in the vibrant pink blooms against the newly lit gray sky.  It is really beautiful.  I’m going to savor this day, every moment of it.  I think I may go to the park this morning for a nice walk in the coolness before the sun chases away the more temperate air.  I don’t want to miss another moment of this life and wish instead to gain greater appreciation every day for everything for the rest of my life.  It is a fine goal - this...appreciation and gratitude.  These things deepen the calm and peace within the soul.  That is what I need most just now.  I treasure this moment as I do all others and I hope to carry the undertones of this as the symphony of life plays on.  I wish you all a steady stream of beautiful moments - the kind that lets you know gratitude always.

© 2016 Jaie Hart (photo/words)

Moments Strung Together

The last couple days have been so incredibly busy that I've hardly had time to think, let alone be inspired to write.  Two days in a row, I drove home late into the setting sun.  There are interesting moments at those times when the sky takes on that silvery pale orange color and even the streets seem to glitter with the color of the sun's fading rays.  I notice the people rushing around always focused on a destination rarely ever giving much thought to the journey.  Our time here is so limited and so to me, to waste any moment not focused on the present is a loss.  There are all those moments in between, all of those spaces in between we think are filled with nothing and then one day you may realize all of those spaces in between starting a journey and arriving at your intended destination held by far more than you realized.  Well, and hopefully you do realize those precious moments before the end of your days come and you think about how many moments you've squandered focused on getting somewhere.  What if there is no "there" to get to?  What if the journey is all that there is and the destination remains illusive?  What then would you do?  Would scream and throw a temper tantrum at the universe or those who must have hidden it from you or would you relax, take a deep breath and realize all moments come together for a reason?

Sometimes I feel like I've squandered precious moments I can never get back but then I realize there was nothing to save those moments up for.  I don't mean for that to sound negative because that isn't my intent, nor is it what I'm feeling.  I think I've finally come to realize the precious sense of everything in everything.  All of my moments strung together lead me to now in this warm comfort within my own skin.  It's early evening after a long seeming day that seemed to follow a week that took an eternity.  Time has momentarily slowed and I find that interesting because the moments since 1/1/11 have spun by me so quickly I don't really even recall all that much time to catch my breath.  I exaggerate, certainly, but you get the feeling maybe.  I wonder about all of those things I held as important on that very day.  Such wonder had I concerning infinite possibilities and so many unknowns.  I held different plans and dreams than I hold today.  I've destroyed them, set fire to them, ignored them, hid them, walked away from them only to start over again and again and again like some strange sort of ground-hog day.  The monotony of routine seems to set my being on edge sometimes but at the same time, I could not be more grateful for dull, boring and unexciting, non-adrenaline producing existence.  I'm actually quite amazed at the abundance of adrenaline I have produced in my life time.  I think I have finally effectively kicked that habit among many others that no longer suit and support me.  Do I have more to go?  Oh, sure I do and I look forward to thinking and feeling my way through each one in order to let go of all that troubles me and embrace more completely what it is I have come to know really matters.

We're not alone here, not even in our own minds it sometimes seems.  We're surrounded always physically as well as ethereally.  A single thought from miles away can come crashing through an ordinary moment and leave you with a feeling you didn't have only moments before.  We think our paths are set in stone but that's only because we can see only just to the point of our horizon.  After that, we can't yet see but we can feel when we want to.  I like to sit back, relax and see what comes next.  Oh, I wonder about it often just like everyone else does but I don't tend to put too much energy into fruitless endeavors these days.  I need my senses, my energy and my being in full capacity of all of my faculties.  I don't know why just yet but imagine this feeling will bear out in some new interesting journey of love, lessons and greater understanding of this life and my place in it.  It's Friday night and I'm sitting in my living room, with the fan on to cool off this sweltering heat and I'm watching the sun set in a summer sky.  A glass of red in hand, music in the background and words in front of me.  Hmmm, never thought this would be the highlight of my week...but it is and I'm so grateful, you have no idea how grateful.  So, well, enough rambling then and I shall be off to finding some sustenance.  This morning's oatmeal lost its ability to sustain me hours ago and I think the stress of the day has finally settled enough to allow me to eat with peace in my being (so much more important than you may realize).  Simple pleasures are often the most amazing sometimes.  Especially, if you take a moment fully present and thoroughly enjoy every precious second.  ~Blessings of peace, love and light dear souls.

(c) Jaie Hart (words/photo)