Tag Archives: Awareness

There’s never a moment that’s just a moment.

Posted on
7

2:25pm on a Monday

It’s raining right now. The kind of hard rain that splatters all over the leaves and branches in our back “forest” and splashes a hazy gray fog over everything as it falls. I can hear it running in a steady pour off our back roof. And I can hear it pinging and pinging and pinging the metal that covers our fireplace.

And this moment is just magical. And as soon as I picked up my eyes from my computer screen I realized just how much magic was happening outside. And I inhaled it.

And, no sooner than realizing the moment, I had this instinct to grab my iPhone and check the weather radar to see how much orange and red remained over our area before the red would pass and the digital weather-radar “sky” would be clear again, revealing roads and neighborhood once covered by red red rain.

But, no. I didn’t grab my phone. I sat here.

Still sitting here. Still letting my senses soak up this moment as the earth soaks up this much needed rain. Letting it fall over me and let myself capture it in these words on this digital page, fingers spilling and splashing over keys. Rain spilling and splashing all around me.

Funny how laptop keys sound a bit like the drops upon drops upon drops. Pinging and pinging and pinging.

Funny how the foggy misty splashing rain is still graying over our back yard. And I can’t see through to the neighbor’s roof.

Funny how this moment is becoming more and more of an unending moment as I observe and listen and record. And I don’t anticipate the end. In fact, I resist the end by allowing my senses slow my own pace and my attention slow time itself, until the thunder is long and the rain is steady. Awareness. Awareness is our only weapon against the insignificant and unnoticed passing of time.

Awareness.

This is a moment. I’m in it. But oh the effort to remain here.

It takes such deliberate action to slow our consciences to the point of this awareness. Even when something fantastic happens around us, we want to know what’s next, when it will end, where we’re going, what’s going to happen. We have more questions than the moment has answers. And if we’d just stop asking, and let the moment tell us what it came to say, we might have less questions.

And we might have more moments.

How to find yourself in 30 seconds or less.

Posted on
16

The crickets are still chirping outside, even though dawn moved in about an hour ago. They are stubborn. They are probably begging for the cool of night to stay. I wish my brain had held on to night a bit longer. Morning came too soon, and it brought a headache. A weird headache.

My fingers click the keys with each word, but I don’t often notice. Tap tap tap on “jkl;” as I listen to my own head put words to the sounds my ears are taking in.

The refrigerator. It keeps whirring. Like a fan. Constant. Is it always this loud? I wish it would cool down so I can take in the crickets before the sun warms them into silence. But that whirr…

There’s a thud in my brain that sounds a lot like “I drank too much wine last night.” Only I didn’t. At all. Why this throbbing? Stress? What am I stressed about right now? Ah yes. There are tiny reasons. And there’s a lack of exercise.

And that whirring is getting louder. And it’s starting to ruin my cricket peace. Throb.

With all this awareness, I resolve to exercise today. And take measures that ensure I get more sleep tonight. And head for the Advil. Get out of my way.

Practice the art of listening, moving from outward to inward.

When we really listen with attention and scope, we take in the world with fresh senses. Our awareness is magnified exponentially. We notice signs of life that have always been there, and also notice experiences that come and go at different points in life.  By staring so intently at the world, we begin to see ourselves as well. We realize who we are as we interact with our native world. Our self-awareness peaks.

If you have lost your words, if you are unsure of what to write or express or create, stop and listen. And I don’t mean listen to the refrigerator and crickets. But listen to your own thoughts. Move from outward listening to inward listening. Check your mood, body, anxiety, questions, inner whirring… There’s a lot going on in side of you that you may not be aware of unless you quiet all the other noises and just listen to yourself.

Today’s challenge: take 30 seconds right now. Listen to yourself. What’s going on inside you? What do you hear?