Sunday Love Note #12: Nurture Spaciousness
As I write this, I’m sitting at a little table in a northern California town tucked amidst rivers and forests.
A familiar sound of stillness is in the air, like the moment between the in and out breath.
A natural creek runs softly through a moss-laden rocky bank, the water glistens as it ripples over rocks even though the sky is overcast.
A slight breeze moves through the limbs of a set of young trees in the foreground, their movement appearing in sync – expanding and contracting, I am reminded to breathe.
There’s a quietude to my nervous system, noticeably so.
The noise of the city where I live has a constant soundtrack of contrast, so much aural and visual input all the time but here, the activity feels rhythmic.
These kind of moments are precious to me. A valuable respite especially now with all the discord, conflict and loss of life that is occurring in our world. It can feel hard to trust and to feel a quietude in the heart.
In these brief encounters I experience, Timeless Awareness.
It's where inside the linear nature and progression of time, there's the experience that “all of a sudden” there is plenty of time and supply in all ways.
Mystics say you touch the eternal.
Attention of mind and body is the key to its mystery.
The mind becomes clarified making it ready for insight, the body recalibrates allowing it to be a clearer channel and receptor for your hearts desires. Meanwhile the little creek simply ripples along…
Sounds idyllic right? It was AND within a few days I experienced a very different type of timeless awareness…
Just hours from boarding a flight for an extended trip away, I had to accept that I wasn't feeling well and I would need to postpone my departure.
I’d been planning this trip for months.
All of a sudden I found myself inside another in-between place. An unplanned place.
I had a packed bag and an empty fridge. An apartment ready to be left, yet I’m still inhabiting it - I felt suspended in time. This kind of timeless awareness was far from the peacefulness of the forest creek and its magic. I wanted to be on my trip.
It would be easy to label this an unfortunate experience, bad even. Except I also know that everything has a shadow, another view point.
In this timeless awareness, there is still the touch of the eternal – yet this time, it is through acceptance of what is (though admittedly a slow acceptance!), what I decided is best for myself and for others I would have interacted with.
My life has shown me numerous times that no experiences or good fortune that is for me, will be held from me no matter the day I arrive.
Its a reminder that sometimes my timing is not Life's timing - and I can fight against it or I can open to life's Grace, to risk trusting it to glisten and ripple along over the rocks in my life.
I choose to live in Grace.
As you can imagine, it was easy to experience spaciousness during a peaceful moment but I believe that the practice in those moments is for the times when it becomes difficult to do so.
This week I invite you to practice spaciousness. Whether its taking a walk in nature, meditating, enjoying a unrushed meal with friends, playing with your babies or lying in your lover's embrace – let your attention land on what is present, engage all your senses, and accept what is perfect about the moment just as it is.
All month I will continue to explore and write about what we experience during the “in-between” situations of our life.
You’re invited to come along and I hope you'll share what you notice.
As always…
Let love guide the way.
Love,
Angela