Contemplative Rain
There's a fine line between feeling like a bump on a log and noticing that you're practicing good self care before a fledge that will most certainly be physically taxing.
The difference of course is attitude. My attitude sucked this morning.
As I have attempted to be quiet, I have felt the engine within telling me that I need to make progress on my to do list in order to feel worthy of even being called human. Negative self talk has been coursing through my brain today as i attempted to gently take on one task at a time. Knowing that I was being hard on myself, I went so far as to Google what it's like to heal from a serious infection. Turns out the CDC had a fact sheet on the topic. Ahhhhhh yes.... the message was simple.... go slow.... healing takes time.
So I opened the back sliding door on my mountainside home to let my dog out, took a deep breath of moist forest air, and then it began to RAIN. Sitting here, listening to the pounding RAIN running through the boughs of old growth cedars and down rivers of rockery, it became clear that time in the quiet is one of my spiritual practices... and I have gotten away from it recently. Yet meditation is a key component of my monastic life. I needed to see that I had reframed meditation into some kind of laziness. How unkind. What part of me is pushing so hard against the contemplative monastic life that I joyfully feel called to lead?
I need to paint the answer to that question. In the mean time, i shall be grateful for the insight today. Healing means listening to my body, avoiding judgment of where I am, and giving my body what she needs in the moment. Be still.