Monday Morning Motivation

A few years ago I attended a silent meditation and yoga retreat. I was in the middle of a somewhat chaotic period of my life and felt like this could help. However, when the bell rang and our silence began, the noise in my head became deafening.No talking, no cell phones, nothing to distract. I spent hours journaling (something I detest) just as a way to empty all that rattling in my head.

The second day of the retreat we hiked up into the woods and the leader of the retreat briefly broke the silence to read the following poem by a local poet:

The Summer Day 

by Mary Oliver

Who made the world? Who made the swan, and the black bear? Who made the grasshopper? This grasshopper, I mean-- the one who has flung herself out of the grass, the one who is eating sugar out of my hand, who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down -- who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes. Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face. Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away. I don't know exactly what a prayer is. I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down into the grass, how to kneel in the grass, how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields which is what I have been doing all day. Tell me, what else should I have done? Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon? Tell me, what is it you plan to do With your one wild and precious life? Perhaps because I was forced to live with only my own inner voice for that period leading up to the poem, I was able to really feel the full impact of it instead of shrugging of those powerful words in the next moment for whatever came next. There was nothing else. I was out in the woods, unable to speak or listen. Just sitting there. Suddenly, the "noise" stopped. I looked around and noticed all the brilliant colors of the forest for the first time that day. I noticed the little line of ants marching around my foot...I stopped all the mental chaos for a brief moment and actually felt peace that can only come from being completely immersed in the present moment. I create goals, menus, make lists....and more lists, organize things, never let the laundry basket get full....and on it goes. But I often forget to step back and remember the magic that is in our very existence. I've come to realize that sometimes all that structure and planning can be the same kind of distraction as compulsive television watching, drinking, or binge eating, just in a seemingly more "productive" package...but it's all distraction. So, yes, let's consistently strive to be better, to live our best lives. But we should always ask ourselves if we are creating all these goals and lists from a place of self-love, opposed to self-deprecation. Let's strive to find that balance between "being" and "becoming" because that's where the most precious, amazing moments happen.

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