Why I Love Walking (and What I Miss When I Don’t)
So many of us drive, even for short distances. Is it a way of avoiding the world? What are the gifts of walking? Here is my short reverie on a walk across town.
My chiropractor’s office is a very short drive from my home – about 3-5 minutes or so. Since I wouldn’t have time for my usual routine of weights and yoga (or a morning hike), I decide, what the heck – why don’t I walk there?
True Freedom is Beyond Our Projections
src=”https://dev4.arclightgraphics.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/movie-projection-awakeningself-spirituality-conniehabash-300×200.jpg” alt=”audience in theater looking at screen” width=”298″ height=”198″ />Life certainly has its ups and downs, as we all know. But those ups and downs are often not perceived accurately by us. We are like movie projectors, carrying around a screen that we place between us and our lives. If we can catch ourselves projecting and take the screen down, true intimacy, connection, and healing can occur. It is the key to our personal and spiritual awakening.
The Invisible Threads of Life
It’s my morning ritual to sit in the front yard and take in whatever nature has to offer me. I receive messages from Spirit in profound ways from simple things. Simple things like thin, invisible threads.
The other day, something in the air caught my eye. It hovered between the tall pine in the very front of the garden and my neighbor’s apple tree over the fence to the right. I walked over to take a look, and there in the air were a small handful of what looked like dead grass cuttings. Of course – they were caught in a spider’s web!
But how in the world did the spider do this? It stretched about 9 feet between the two trees. And still, those blades of grass were suspended by a few delicate strands. Invisible threads, yet so strong and supportive.
This spider’s web reminded me that we are all held and surrounded by invisible threads. There are three kinds of these imperceptible supports in our life.
The Ring of Faith
My family and I were determined to get outdoors to enjoy the lovely weather the last few days, and headed to Huddart Park for a hike on Sunday. We adore this nearby natural gem, filled with redwoods, bay laurels, and tan oaks, and a beautiful (and quite full after the rains!) creek running through it.
We marveled at the wildflowers already in bloom – some dainty, five-petaled white blossoms, and the sweet lavender flowers of redwood sorrel, which I had never seen in bloom before. They were profuse and a delight to the eyes.
Near the last half-mile of our modest adventure my daughter and I stopped at a stream, as we often do, to explore and to enjoy rock face painting. This is something she learned from Katie Hicks at our last retreat at Ananda Valley Farm. Taking a rock about the size of your palm in one hand, you select a colorful rock that can easily be held by the other, and rub it on the rock. After a minute or so, viola – paint is created! We enjoyed decorating each other’s faces in reddish-brown and greyish-yellow designs.
My husband decided to move along the trail ahead of us while we were immersed in our playfulness. He stepped off-trail at another familiar spot along the creek, headed a bit upstream, and sat down on a beautiful, warm, sunny spot on the slope about 10 feet above the creek. It was peaceful, meditative, and relaxing.
As my daughter and I finished up our faces, we headed up the trail to catch up with Michael. We looked upstream and didn’t see him, so we figured he must have headed back to the car. After 30 minutes of waiting for him in the parking lot, he arrived, looking a bit flustered. Upon descending the slope where he had sat in quiet reflection, he slipped and fell on his hip. His knee was scraped, and he was OK, but quite unhappy. Not because of his injuries, but because in the process his wedding band slipped off his finger, and it was nowhere in sight.
Speaking From the Heart
This summer, my daughter and I shared an extraordinary week-long camping experience. There’s not a lot of words yet for what I feel. I can only offer feelings from my heart. The heart speaks in non-verbal ways – how to communicate that in a blog?
Be Like A Bird
I love to sit in my backyard – just taking in whatever I see, hear, and feel. This practice is called the “sit-spot” – a technique used by naturalists to immerse themselves in the experience of a chosen location in nature, to get to know the flora and fauna in a much more intimate way.
My eyes captured a bird, hopping on the ground. It was clearly an insect eater – small, with a long, pointed beak. I wanted it to come closer, but it slipped through the lattice work of the fence to my neighbor’s yard. I decided that if I wanted to know this bird better, why not be like a bird?
