Tag Archives: patience

Bench to Nowhere

Posted on by Standard 6
Greenway trail at Nathan Mott Park, Block Island: Photo by Noelle

Greenway trail at Nathan Mott Park, Block Island: Photo by Noelle

I was hiking a trail at the Nathan Mott Park while vacationing on Block Island; a small island off the coast of Rhode Island. The trail was well maintained, but heavily wooded. No clear cutting or control burns have ever happened there. Thus, the bramble was thick and dense. Suddenly, I stumbled upon a bench, sitting in the middle of the trail, about half way in. It faced the bramble, with no apparent other view.

I stopped and looked around. It seemed an odd place to have a seat. I thought to continue my journey, but something about how the sun rested upon the seat called to me. I sat down. I was correct there was no other view, but the dense thicket. I decided to give it some time.

Wildlife knows when hikers have hit a trail. Alert calls go out to any who can hear to beware, a human is afoot. If you are lacking a quiet presence when you step into nature, you aren’t likely to have many unusual encounters with wildlife. Sit for a time though, and wood life begins to forget you are there and marches onward.

Deer flies lost interest and continued down the path. Bees returned to the wild rose and thistle. The alarming squawking that had followed me from crow to jay, had subsided and now the wood was filled with bird’s singing their daily stories of berries and dragonflies. Rather than the stir of my own progress I now heard the steady movement of the wind through the trees. The sun came and went as it winked between the branches above. The moment was peaceful without the least bit of silence.

When I was younger I did not understand the power of stillness or the value of doing nothing or going nowhere. That stillness is full and rich, rather than dull and silent, as my youthful mind considered. I don’t know who thought to put the bench in the middle of the trail, but I suspect they were someone like me. Someone who had come to appreciate that sitting in the middle of nowhere, looking at nothing in particular, is likely the best seat there is.

Leg of Balance

Posted on by Standard 6
Free Bing Photos

Free Bing Photos

I injured my leg while on vacation last week, although it might be more accurate to say I saw the end of a slow motion injury last week. The set up for the injury began long ago with repetitive activity that set the tendons up. I was already out of balance and the wrong landing on a run just sealed the deal. So, I sit here thinking. I’m one of those folks who always sees patterns, habits and a story in the events of life. I don’t believe in random, at least not how most people see it. We are in an endless feedback loop between ourselves and the Universe; and everything begins with a thought. I think my life into existence. Thus, I sit here looking at my leg and thinking. The imbalance of my body, at the moment, speaks to me of an imbalance in my thinking.

I run the stairs at work, which is really good for you. However, I’ve gotten so addicted to it that I haven’t been doing other things I used to love, too. Especially as running the stairs caused me to lose a lot of weight. The downside, of course, is it over-developed my outer quads, leaving the inner leg weaker and more strain on the tendons. Also, worth noting is it doesn’t develop your upper body strength, thus, these crutches are hard on my arms.

I tighten the brace on my leg and consider the lack of balance in my body. It really is a reflection of a lack of balance in my thinking. The first indication of that is of a low grade, but steady anxiety about putting on weight because I can’t run the stairs. The second indication is the desire to push my healing. Find a magic trick to heal up faster. These are systemic thoughts from a deeper belief system about well-being. To truly heal the leg, I’ve got to heal the way I perceive time and well-being.

I have to slow down and fall in love where I am in this moment.

I’m a firecracker loaded with gasoline. In person, I’m a pretty mello person to be around, but inside I’m always on the go. Driving to work has been my spiritual gauntlet, as I have to harness my energy not to speed every second I’m in the car. There’s a curious pressure in my mind to get projects done, as if there were a clock somewhere ticking incessantly. I have ideas, brilliant ones by the way, that I fear won’t see the light of day if I’m not on the move. I recently started a life coaching business, as I know a great deal about how to bring change and ideas to life, but I’m sitting here looking at my leg realizing I also need to understand ideas like slow, inactivity, and quiet to coach, too. I need to know how to have balance in my thoughts, to have balance in my body and life. This equates to working hard and hardly working. Yoga and running. Playing foolishly and getting the job done. Outright, unapologetic laziness and periods of industriousness. Dancing disco and sitting quietly to meditate. Balance. This is what my leg has given me. A lesson on the importance of a slow, quiet, occasionally frenetic, balanced life.

Algae

Posted on by Standard 14

Algae at Marston Lake: Photo by Noelle

It seeps and bubbles with oxygen and fermenting life from last season and rot… oh there is definitely rot. Dead leaves, sticks, bugs, old fish. It is a soup of color and life that smells earthy and pungent. I watch a water bug crawl across its surface. I cannot tell if it searches for food or is its food. Mosquitos swarm above me, but I tell them I’m busy. They’ll have to dine elsewhere. Most listen, anyway. I love ponds, streams and strange pools of water that life springs out of; moist, hot and teaming with all manner of crawling and swimming things. Sometimes they’re creepy and beautiful, other times decayed and rich.

I grew up on a lake in a neighborhood of mostly boys. I had five brothers. I caught toads and snatched up frogs with a stealth a stork would envy. Salamanders and crawfish were my favorite, but they’re tricky. Not easy to find in fresh water streams and under rocks. I never killed anything. I just liked to catch them and look at their beauty. Flying crickets, Daddy Long Legs, praying mantises, rolly pollies and aphids. Furry night moths, lightning bugs, and long earth worms. Tadpoles, sunnies and catfish. Pike, sometimes, snappers often and boxed turtles on occasion. Once a copperhead snake swam alongside me on the lake and scared me half to death. Their bite is most unpleasant. Smores by the campfire invited a troupe of ants to visit my sleeping bag one night. I have never screamed so loud in all my life.

I spent a lot of time alone as a child. I was often lonely, but never bored. My capacity for make-believe had me in trouble for daydreaming, over the course of my school years, more often than I can count. I enticed a chipmunk into my lap with nothing but my hands, once, and then spun a story of a monk village guarded by dragon and damselflies. I regaled my furry friend with my story, but it only slept. Little heartbeat beating like wild horses in its breast. I couldn’t understand why I never quite fit in anywhere and in my early years thought of my younger self always the odd man out. Or, in this case, odd girl out.

I stare into the percolating algae that festers with life and imagine the gnats and mosquitos are angels that follow me everywhere I go. I am the princess of a swamp and they are my guardians. What is there to do? Bugs and birds may swarm, but never princesses. They always seem to travel alone.

Coming of Night

Posted on by Standard 13
Coming of night over Johnston Lake: Photo by Noelle

Coming of night over Johnston Lake: Photo by Noelle

In the coming of night I feel the day slip away. In the last rays that crest the hill, I forget what disturbed my midday and nagged my afternoon. No monk am I, but there is a vesper in my heart at this hour. As if the monastery bell had rung and in the reeds of the lake I knelt. Swallows catch the last flies, before the chill descends with the night. I ache to follow the rays across the horizon, yet, there is peace in this twilight I fear to miss. The passing of my day, its light and its dark, not to be walked again.

Seed to Mulch

Posted on by Standard Reply
Dead Tree at Chatfield Reservoir: photo by Noelle

Dead Tree at Chatfield Reservoir: photo by Noelle

In grain an old storyteller’s life twists and turns. Withered like drift wood that never left home. Each adventure a ring and a knot. An audience of millipeds and the rolly polly beetle that roam the planks and hone the staff. Sun demands payment in chlorophyll and sap, while wind licks it’s length a child on a lollipop. There is no rest from seed to mulch, for even in death the performance plays on, a tale told in wood.

Cracks

Posted on by Standard 2
Old limb: Photo by Noelle

Old limb: Photo by Noelle

In the cracks I find my depths
Dark wounds empty
Glimpses tween
Death and an old life
Lies a field of
Possibility
Waiting for
A Spring
Rain

Negative

Posted on by Standard Reply
Sunset: Photo negative taken by Noelle

Sunset: Photo negative taken by Noelle

The Dalai Lama is quoted as saying, “Sometimes the best thing to ever happen to you is NOT getting what you thought you wanted.” Spiritual evolution comes when we begin to see that the negative events of our life are actually the good things. That these same things, places, events were providing us an opportunity to see the world and ourselves completely differently. That they are meant to strip away our illusions, mainly, about ourself. When you can see beauty and motion and grace in negatives….well…then you are really onto something.