The Wisdom of Slow and Still

Today was the first day where I truly felt the fall's chill upon waking. In the spirit of many buffalonians, who wonder how long they can hold out before turning on the heat, I mused about ways to keep warm. A friend who I haven't seen in awhile came over for awhile this afternoon and we made two different soups and homemade pesto from veggies from the veggie share I am in. We sat together on floor cushions at my coffee table, eating soup number one, drinking a glass of wine and eating some of the pesto, with me happily listening to her stories of life abroad. We made a fire (the first one for me in this new home) and before long were onto soup two, the house toasty and full of love, laughter and Clifford Brown.

There were moments throughout the day where I caught myself, as been happening more and more lately, looking in on the experience at hand with curiosity and compassion. Inside is a mix of sadness and joy, sacred solitude and time with beloved friends, but mostly there is something new, or at least long absent: a feeling of slowness.

The desire to slow down, as everything in our lives continues to seemingly speed up has been palpable for me for some time now. I would even say years. But sometimes our intentions take that long, and it's good to be reminded to be patient, and tend the fragile soil of our soul without expectation of when the saplings will finally burst through the surface.

A series of professional and personal events in recent months has further motivated the slow down, and as I approach the five year mark of moving to Buffalo, I find myself in a new relationship to and renewed commitment to aspects of what led me here in the first place. Chief among those was a desire to be slow and still.

I moved to the city that most people globally equate primarily with snow, in mid december, and at the time was not excited about the prospect of dark winter in a rust belt city. As much as I love them, I have always struggled with the fall and winter seasons, and moving to a locale where these would be more intense then less, worried me. What I found however in the early days of the first winter here, are the very things I need more of in my life right now. I had hours of time where I read and wrote and mused. I wrote songs, and dreamt of an adaptation of a book for the stage. I went for quiet walks in both daytime and moonlit snowland. Quiet, creativity poetry of life in a new place.

And as wonderful fate would have it, I made beautiful friends, and many irons I cast in the fire took, and before long my life was very full. Something many of us struggle with, and a metaphor I shared with two goddess friends recently, is the need to constantly be jumping rope in the proverbial double dutch game of productivity. The other side of our full, busy, connected lives is ever so rich, and can reveal our next move, much more then the exhaustion of constant jumping.

So tonight and this fall I long to be with the fullness of sweet space, peace and quiet in the moments that it's available. To make good on the proverbial reset button I have hit, and let that space linger as is needed, and to go within and quiet myself once more to hear when and how to move in accordance with the wisdom of life and of the earth. And to learn the wisdom and beauty of just simply being slow and still.

Thank you to dear sisters Sarah and Laura for inspiring me to resume this blog. All love.