LINING UP
Somewhere around the third park of the day I began to settle into it: this is my life. Thought it would be one thing and it is quite another. Didn't imagine spending my days going from park to park to park with an almost fourteen-year-old, fighting down my ego that struggled to watch him awkwardly play with three and four-year-olds while discerning if we are actually getting funny looks, or if I was just imagining it.
When he wasn't on the play structures, we were looking for drinking fountains. Four parks, seventeen drinking fountains, each one sipped from once, twice, three times.
Miles we covered and my mind and soul fought with each other with every step: I should be folding the three loads of laundry that sits on my bed right now. I should be wrapping Mother's Day gifts. I should be vacuuming dog hair. Cleaning bathrooms, spending time with Woohoo, and STM, returning a call to a friend, writing a card to my friend about to have major surgery, returning e-mails, fixing dinner, reading the book for book club, grocery shopping, changing beds, should, should, should. My mind said I should be doing anything and everything but being right here in this moment. This perfect moment.
Eckhart Tolle (my hero, he and HH, the Dalai Lama, two enlightened living beings, I'm telling you), talks about the symbolism of the Christian cross. I think I've blogged about it before, but if I can't remember for sure, I'm hoping neither can you. He talks about how we, as humans, mind-centered, live in a horizontal line, always in the past and future, and very seldom living in the moment. Consciousness/our souls/higher selves live in a vertical line, connected to God/source/all that is holy/the light. When we are living in the present moment, the now, we are where those two lines intersect, the center of the cross, the place of the Divine.
Rojo is going to keep dragging me to parks until I stop fighting it and am one with it. That's his job, to make me conscious, to line me up, to bring me to the center, to connect me to the Divine.
* Photo from: http://vanessaleighsblog.files.wordpress.com/2009/04/the-power-of-the-cross.jpg
16 comments:
Oh, Carrie:
"this is my life. Thought it would be one thing and it is quite another. "
This is your life. You can fight it, you can struggle with it, you can go with it. It is, no matter what, your life.
Hugs and deep breaths.
Mmm. Good point. Here I thought we were supposed to be on the horizontal path...
"living in the moment" practicing this daily....in the moment. I need tons of practice xoxo
I haven't read his book but have been meaning too. It's true that many of us live in the past and future and not the present--something I needed to think about tonight. Having very similar thoughts tonight after a long afternoon.
So wise. And I agree, it is in the moment that we are most connected to everything that matters, to the divine and for me, to God. :)
Yes! I have often wondered that with Nigel, when he tells me something for the fifth time and still needs a response. Now I know why.
Yeah. Like that.
Carrie, I just love how you entwine your thinking with your doing. I admire it, aspire to it -- and hope that you'll keep doing it so that I can keep learning!
I like this. Katie does the same for me, forces me to remain in the moment. It's not easy.
Love.
What a beautiful, powerful, and poignant post. This picture of the cross is new to me and it makes so much sense. Love.
Gorgeous post...
As always.
Love you
Suzy
Ooooooooooh yes. I love that! Wow! I love it.
Keep doing what you are doing. You are getting it right.
love :)
not to compare,
but just as an observation,
my fifth very unplanned child did this to my perspective.
I love the cross analogy! Thanks for that.
And please don't beat yourself up for not being in the moment. You know that you had to go through all of that in your mind before you could recognize that next time you don't want to have to.
I love the mental image of Rojo playing with the younger children. His spirit just shines, doesn't it?
Beautiful...
Post a Comment