Sunday, August 1, 2010

Savor Everyday Moments




O then each breath tasted sweeter, and all that day my food nourish'd me more, and the beautiful day pass'd well
-Walt Whitman

Savoring Everyday Moments has become a sort of Zen practice for me. A way of checking in with my surroundings, of feeling the connection of my feet to the earth and the greater networks that span through and around me securing me to these thin threads that hold everything together.

I don't think I ever knew how to slow my mind down, how to adopt patience and peace, until recently. Because my days now have a flow and rhythm that sits well with me, I find myself so much more at ease. My fists have unfurled, my smiles come easier, and a lot of this has to do with perspective.

Finding the balance between keeping oneself focused on the present moment and maintaining a sense of healthy perspective is a practice that required diligence and positivity. Food, nature, companionship, art, and beauty are all things that root me to the present moment. Patience, hope, and grace give me greater perspective when it comes to things like troublesome world issues, momentary crises, or all of the little and great things that make life difficult. Just as you know a moment of beauty will pass, so too can you accept that a moment of hardship will fade just as easily.

I've been documenting things that make me happy, things that let me savor the present. Moments of my day that root me in the here and now. A lot of it, I've noticed, has to do with food. This is ok. I love food.

To get us started on this week of savoring the present:

1 comment:

Michaeil said...

If [and when] ye feel like being a tic unsettled, ye might want to reach for Lewis Hyde's great little book: "Trickster Makes this Word: Mischief, Myth and Art".....