Relaxing Into Being

I am having a hard time feeling inspired about what to write this week. My mind is a blank. Nothing is coming into my heart and brain, in spite of spending more time than usual in meditation and quiet contemplation.

I decided to sit out on my back porch for awhile and see if anything would come to me. Today’s sky is a brilliant blue, dotted with fluffy white clouds. The grass and trees are deep green, unusual for this time of year in Texas. The temperature is pleasant, not stifling, as it usually is in July. It is the kind of afternoon that brings back submerged childhood memories.  

I imagine myself as a child of between eight and ten years old. I was almost painfully shy, but I loved to read and would immerse myself in the fabulous world of the written word. At that time, we lived on the campus of an orphanage, where my parents were employed. We lived in a big two-story house on the edge of the campus. A stacked stone wall marked the boundary of the backyard. Behind that wall was an open field, and at the back of the field, there was a deep (deep to me) depression in the ground. To my ten-year-old mind, a meteor had carved out that space, and it was my secret spot. There were bushes surrounding the hole that not only shaded me, but also hid me from any prying eyes. I would bring my book and settle down into that secluded space to read or watch the clouds go by for hours at a time. It was my safe spot, and it fueled my child’s imagination. Even in the heat of the Texas summers, that space was a sanctuary and an incubator for all my childhood hopes and dreams. When I return to it in my imagination, sixty years later, I find that it still carries deep contentment and is a balm to my soul.

I realize that over the years I seem to have forgotten how to sit in nature and watch the clouds – to find the shapes in the sky and to make up a story about those shapes. I have lost the ability to sit for an afternoon and read a book or to while away a day in the company of my daydreams. When I engage in these things, I feel guilty for not doing anything constructive. I feel guilty for wasting time.  

Our culture has taught me that I must be constantly doing – doing work, doing good, doing something. I have lost the ability to sit quietly and listen to the sounds of the birds or the wind in the trees, to be awake to the rhythms of the earth. Even in meditation, my mind keeps circling back to thoughts of what I need to be doing. It is hard to quiet that inner critic and to allow myself to relax and to just be.

So today, I choose to sit – to really hear the birds, the chattering of squirrels, and the sound of the wind. I choose to really feel the breeze as it wafts over the chair where I sit. I choose to watch the clouds as they form and reform into delightful shapes – first an elephant, then a dog, now a monkey. I choose to give myself the gift of time, time to delight in the joy of just being. I choose to allow myself to feel the juiciness of life and the deep connection with our Mother Earth. It is in this Being state, if I allow it, that I can find true joy, the joy that I experienced as a child under the Texas sky. Today, I hope that you will also allow yourself to choose to BE.

Barbara Garland
July 22, 2021also