Gentle Rhythms
October 17, 2024
What I started out to write has gone the way of lots of good ideas at the wrong time. Instead, I feel a sense of urgency and the fiery energy of the Full Moon in Aries today, so I’m calling you, dear readers, to consider carefully your answer to this question? If time, money, location, or your condition/state of being were no object, what would you do and where would you like to do it?
I ask because it seems to me we live with the idea that the future is always out there, that time when we’ll do something that we’ve decided to put off or forego, once again. What I find myself thinking, more and more, is while time may seem to fly much of the time, and while we can fill up our days and our lives with busyness, some of us have put off changes that now are causing us more pain than we need or deserve.Â
I can’t speak for anyone but myself, but I sure hear so much about how so many are living in a perpetual state of exhaustion, fear, anger, or depression, doing things they hate or feeling trapped because of circumstances. Conditions, circumstances, outmoded beliefs, or long dead commitments or passions that have breathed their last breath. Without going into details, most of us have some area of our lives where we’re putting up with being or doing something we really wish we could leave behind. I’m not sure what it is for you, but for me it’s about letting go of whatever and whoever isn’t supporting who I am as a person. Anything or any relationship (job, person, role) that isn’t mutually satisfying, that is one-sided, or that is abusive, in any way, are areas of my life that I cannot justify remaining committed to anymore. Oh I’ve had my days of being over committed to another person or a role I’m no longer suited to or even in. I’ve stayed too long, and put up with too much in certain situations, and usually, I thought I was doing the right thing. How many of us walk around thinking we’re intending to make a mess of things? Not many, I can assure you.Â
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When, however, we have that moment when we wake up to some myth we’ve bought into, or some fantasy we’ve taken past the point of no return, then it is at that time we find ourselves capable of knowing, without a doubt, that the cord has broken, the bubble has burst, or the illusion we’ve been living under is just that; not based in the reality of life. This past month, because of the deaths of two good friends, I have come face to face with one such point in my life. These were not the first people who I’ve loved who have died, but these two were my ‘always and ever’ friends, who I just assumed would always be there. Yes, I took a walk around in the bubble of the eternal life we’ve all dreamed up for ourselves.Â
I’ve found that when I’ve reached a turning point, it helps to pull out my math skills and do a sound assessment of possibilities. The fact of the matter is, life is a finite number. If we’re lucky, those septuagenarians among us, we have 10-20 more years ahead of us. Some will make it to the century, and good luck to you who do. But say we live ten more years, that means we have 520 more weeks ahead; ten more Christmases, Passovers, Ramadans, or whatever annual holy day you observe. If we live 20 years, double that number, but make note. Between each of those holy days are a finite number of weeks. And if we’ve already slowed down some or struggled with health issues, it might mean we’re a bit more limited than we’ve been in the past.Â
Do I sound like doom and gloom? I hope not, for what this means to me is I’ve faced a hidden fear most of us have and that is the fear of remaining ignorant about the truth of things. Most of us have no idea when our physical lives will end, and I’m right there with you. But what I do know, right now, is I’m here, I’m alive. All my parts are working, and my mind is full of ideas, dreams, and I have passions and desires that I’m determined to allow myself to enjoy. When a good friend I’m used to having coffee with, is no longer around for that one last cuppa, I know without a doubt, no one will ever take her place. When the man I wanted to spend my life with changed his mind, I recognized, I had no reason to hang onto love that had nowhere to go. Better to put that love, affection, focus, and concern where it would be useful, creative, and affirmed in kind.Â
Frankly, we were raised with an idealized version of just about everything, one that has never in fact been a reality of our lives. We’ve all tried to fit into the ideal version of one role or a thousand others, at one time or another. Now though, staying in a job where you know if you left tomorrow, most people, including you, would get over it shortly. We all know now, that one of us is going to outlive the other, and I for one, do not want you to stop living and enjoying life because I’m not here to love it too. While I understand grief is real, and lasts longer than we’d hope, it is not a lifestyle. We need to mourn in motion, and keep moving, growing, creating, and finding joy in life. Now. Not later, now.
As a woman who has spent more of my adult life living independently than not, I’ve actually had friends come to visit me to see if they would be willing to live like I do if they got out of that marriage they were miserable in, or if they left a job that they’d outgrown, but felt they couldn’t leave, for one reason (usually financial) or another (usually fear or lack of vision). Both people who did this are now dead. Neither ever left the bad situations they felt trapped in. But I’ve often wondered, but never asked, did my minimal, artistic lifestyle scare them off of doing something they loved? I’ll never know.
I feel like I’m living at the precipice of a major chasm…one far or near, deep or shallow, but a gap in time and space when things will shift and what today is a choice, will be no more. It feels like I’m walking people to the edge of time, and waiting to see if they ever get their sea legs on this chaotic, ever-changing voyage through life. At the same time, others are walking along with me, waiting to see if I’m going to ever figure out what they see that I don’t. We’ve all come to this life on earth for a brief moment in time, and yet we focus on some of the silliest, most painful nonsense instead of discovering the joy of finding and creating beauty. Instead of being grateful for our riches and gifts. Instead of appreciating those we love, and affirming those who bring us such great joy in life. And those of us who live a solitary life, I wonder if you’re enjoying yours as much as I’m enjoying mine? Some are afraid of being alone; I’m afraid of not having enough time alone. Both of us need to shake things up a bit, and wander a little closer to the edge of our comfort zone. Take a leap of faith and a leap of joy. Find something to learn. Give someone something special. Take a risk or ten. Make a list of all you’ve accomplished instead of a to-do list. Take a day to call things off, and just do what you please. And enjoy what there is to enjoy. Relish the waters. Become awestruck at the colors of blue in the Autumn or Spring sky. At the end of the day, count your blessings.Â
Literally, make a list. And take a deep breath, and then when you’ve done that, answer me the question I asked you in the first place. I love you and want you to appreciate this one beautiful life you have, as Mary Oliver so simply put it. Do enjoy yourself today. Do give yourself a break. Do take a risk. And do find something to stir you deep into your soul. Do it for yourself, and for the overall improvement of all humankind. That’s what it takes. Each one of us is acting from our best intentions to love and share life with one another. Acting together and in unison, to live life out of joy and in search of harmony.Â
My final thoughts today are about our religious and spiritual beliefs, practices, and thinking. Nothing is more unhelpful in a time of sorrow than being reminded that the next world or beyond this life is better or a more peaceful place. If it makes you feel better about what’s to be after death, good. However, regardless of what the afterlife is or isn’t, we’re here now, and we’re meant to celebrate the precious life we’ve been allotted. Nothing sounds worse to me than being at the weighing station where our goods and bads are measured, and to be found without any goods that I could have easily found, had I just tried or had I just looked and been open to God’s grace and goodness. No one can tell me God, however you conceive that to be, wants us to use our time, gifts, and energy being miserable and unhappy. Gerald May talked about finding the gifts in the garbage as he wrote about how we humans are afraid to take the risk to enjoy life and to dare to dream. In dreaming and trying we may fall a few times, but those of us who make a habit out of risk taking will tell you, it’s really worth it. It really is. Joy to the world. It’s time.Â
Poem 133 Â A Summer Day
By Mary Oliver
Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean—
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down—
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?
—Mary Oliver