Still Trying to Learn; Scenes from the Journey, vol. 10, no. 11

Still Trying to Learn

 

I used to think that it was really affected, the way the self-help books tell us not to "try" but to do. I've been saying "I'll try" all my life, but where did all that trying get me? (Well, I must point out that it got me this far.)

 

I see the wisdom, though, of eliminating "try" from my list of goals. Just as I recognize the benefits of having banished "should", I know how much more I accomplish when I stop "trying" and just do it.

 

There are a couple of fallacies in that last sentence, the first of which is "accomplished," which represents the old desire to present myself as a human doing rather than a human being. The bumper sticker that says, "She who dies with the most fabric wins" is as wrong-headed as the equally prevalent idea that it's all about production and accomplishment.

 

It isn't a race, folks. Try (!) ambling through this journey.

 

 

Copyright 2013 Ann Tudor

www.anntudor.ca
http://www.scenesfromthejourney.blogspot.com

A Turtle's Pace

I feel didactic today, so I will give a lesson. "Slowing down" is the topic. Oh, you've already heard that lecture? And it doesn't apply to you? You are the exception, are you? The one person in North America who doesn't need to slow down? Or is it that you can't afford to stop spinning because you might fall over. Whatever it is, just listen.

 

I myself have listened for years to wiser people telling me to slow down. Either directly (as in "Slow, down, fer pete's sake; I can't walk that fast") or indirectly (as in, "When I walked in the park the other day I saw three new trees I hadn't noticed before, and glimpsed two foxes and one coyote, and I heard the migrating song sparrows. What did YOU see in the park?") I ignored both approaches, the direct and the indirect, until the day came when everything changed. And on that day I began to drop extraneous activities and to relish doing less.

 

But I still took off like a bat out of hell when my feet hit the pavement. I walk fast. I've always walked fast. So last week, as I hastened toward the Village for shopping, I caught myself walking fast; I thought "Wow! I'm really pushing. I wonder what it would feel like to slow down." And so I did. I consciously reduced my speed. (Of course, I moved off to the slow-lane edge of the sidewalk so as not to impede all those speed demons in the impromptu marathon I'd been part of.)

 

I slowed down and I actually felt my whole body, my whole self—go "ka-chunk." It felt as if I had come together for the first time, as if I had finally found myself after steaming along ahead of myself for all those years. It was beautiful, feeling at one with myself.

 

Now, I know how busy you are. I look at the lives of my children and my neighbours, and I can sense the urgency, the "I'm-running-out-of-time" feeling that you project. So I won't suggest that you stop racing. But I do offer you a suggestion. The next time you find yourself walking as if the devil himself were nipping at your heels, take a moment and consciously slow down. From one step to the next, change speed. And notice what happens to your body. Can you feel the difference? Make note of it.

 

And then, because I know you are busybusybusy, you can resume your usual speed, if you have to, in order to get the shopping done, the walk over with, whatever it is that pushes you at that moment. Go ahead. Revert to your "normal" setting. But carry in your body the feeling you had when you consciously slowed down. Remember how it felt to approach life at a moderate, natural pace—i.e., one that is in step with Nature. And know that you can return to that feeling any time you want, and you can grow it in gradually so that one day a measured pace will be your default setting, and you will use the racing demon speed only in exceptional circumstances.

 

If you already know all this, then please just turn the page.

 

 

Copyright 2013 Ann Tudor

www.anntudor.ca
http://www.scenesfromthejourney.blogspot.com

Angels

A picture of a little sandal-footed angel reminded me of gate-keepers everywhere, protecting our backs (and fronts too, for that matter) from the rigors and threats and temptations of our day. An angel looks like—well, we don't know, do we? We like to imagine them as majestic and powerful, ungendered, beautiful—just the way the Renaissance painters presented them to us.

 

Or little baby angels, putti, smiling enigmatically, cheek resting on hand, blond curls topping sweet faces.

 

What an angel looks like is totally beside the point. They may not even have an "appearance," a physical manifestation. Perhaps they are no more—and no less—than a felt sense in our bodies, our awareness that we are supported and surrounded by universal love.

 

But that doesn't prevent us from doing what we humans like to do: imagining the look of something, and drawing that image. So in the picture I saw the angel wore a shapeless long red gown. Its feet were in clunky sandals, its wings were feathered, and it had a dear little happy face drawn with an impossibly fine pen. Topping it all was the halo, the artistic convention representing the aura, the energy field of the body. Because enlightened/holy people (though angels aren't "people") supposedly have richer, more visible auras, they are often depicted with haloes. It might be helpful to remember that a halo is within the grasp of each of us.

 

 

Copyright 2013 Ann Tudor

www.anntudor.ca
http://www.scenesfromthejourney.blogspot.com