The uncharacteristically spring-like weather has worked wonders at soothing my soul recently. I find myself outside soaking it in every spare moment I can. Despite the cloudiness, today’s 80 degrees and gentle wind were beautiful in their own right. I sashayed around organizing things and putting away laundry, windows open with the intoxicating breeze drifting alongside through the house, filling me with a happiness and calm I have been missing lately. Once satisfied with the amount of mundane house-chores I’d accomplished for this lazy Sunday, I couldn’t wait to grab my latest read and take up residence at the old wooden picnic table underneath the still-barren trees behind my house. It was far too pretty to be inside!
Despite my eagerness to dive into my reading, nature’s din made it virtually impossible to focus my attention on the pages. Not in a distracted, I-have-approximately-one-hundred-other-things-I-need-to-be-doing way, nor were there any other particular noises to displace my attention. No, my only ailment was how truly beautiful it was. Birds chirping, their calls floating across the breeze that lightly kissed my skin and face, refreshingly cool but by no means chilly. The gentle lapping as the water hit the bank of the stock pond a few yards away, and the freshly-green pastureland stretching towards the east as far as I can see. Periodically, the sound of a new calf rang out, answered by the patient lowing of a heifer just getting a proper grip on motherhood. All these things deceptively simple yet perfect; the sounds of home.
I’m not sure exactly how many minutes passed with me sitting that way, my gaze lazily drifting back and forth, taking it all in. Somewhere along the way a thought occurred to me pertaining to my affinity for the natural world.
I love the physical act of being surrounded by nature, soaking it all in, because of how profoundly it inspires me to do just that: to simply just be. The elements make it impossible to think of anything else, I no longer feel the inner clamor of all the things I need to be doing, there’s nowhere I need to be, there are no thoughts of yesterday or tomorrow, and that damn to-do list can wait.
Just be. Breathe deeply, let the fresh air fill me with calmness and take in all the beauty around me that I’ve been gifted with. There are no concerns, just the energy reverberating from all the elements being unapologetically themselves. Embrace the present. In this moment, everything else can wait. Simply, allow yourself to just be.
As this unexpected meditative period flowed away, as gently as it had occurred, I finally found myself able to turn my attention back to Present Over Perfect. Despite enjoying the book and its message, I often find it hard to immerse myself into the contents but today appeared to be an exception. Just as I had spent countless of the previous moments enveloped in my physical surroundings, today I found myself completely absorbed in the words of Shauna Niequist. However, it wasn’t long before I was stopped dead in my tracks at one of the passages.
“Start with being. Start with silence.” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “Be not afraid, my dear one. He says, ‘Be still and know that I am God.’ Be still and know. Be still. Be. It starts with ‘be.’ Just be, dear one.”
Talk about those moments that the universe and all its contents conspire to make sure you receive their message wholeheartedly. Immediately upon reading that paragraph, I dropped my hands and the book to my lap and snapped my head up to the heavens. Loud and clear. I hear you loud and clear.
It’s no secret I’ve been feeling lost and somewhat despondent recently, concerned whether I’m on the right path and questioning all the answers like I so often do. I don’t think I could ever properly explain the exact feeling that washed over me then, but for the first time in a while that inner tempest subsided. The tranquility and complete immersion in the present I had experienced earlier gained spiritual validation when I read those words at that particular moment. I felt so overcome that tears slid silently down my face and it was all I could do to simply breathe normally. Message received.
Just be. Those two little words are the answer to a whole slew of questions I’ve been breaking my head trying to answer. I find that is customary with life though, we dig so deep and sully our hands in all the wrong places, complicating things unnecessarily when the answers we seek are often staring at us from right there on the surface. I know I’m not the only one that does this, searches for a greater meaning to life and what I should be doing with my time on Earth…
It starts with just ‘be.’
Comments