why sleep / when the day / has been brought out by the sun/ from the night / 'cause the light's /gonna shine on everyone / why sleep / when the sleep / only closes up our eyes? / why sleep / when we can watch the sun arise? / we were meant to see / the beginning of the day / i believe it was planned / to lift us this way / take you an apple and take you a song / and watch a baby day be born / "why sleep?" i heard / and i followed it today / to the top of a hill / where the wind songs play / and i sing it like i heard it / why i heard? who knows why / why sleep when you can watch the sun arise?//
i woke up this morning with this old Melanie song swirling around in my brain. a very catchy tune. Melanie, made famous in the 60's (?) for "Brand New Pair of Rollerskates." with all the incredible lyrics to songs she had written, Rollerskates is probably the one most people are familiar with. so much the shame. anyway, my usual M.O. on stay-at-home days, is to get up at dark o'clock. today, i slept in till 6, poured myself some coffee and went out back. i sat with my toes in the grass, still dew damp, and listened while the birds gathered their day around them...calling to one another, locating companions and warning of territorial issues. the air smelled of a baby just waking from a nap. just before the sun warms it fully. the yellow daylillies still closed tight against night's chill, drowsy heads bent against their sturdy green stalks. then, a flicker of brilliance blossomed into a full slant of sunlight, peeking through the trees momentarily, then hidden in branches full with greens and yellows and silver. the day was waking. again, a song trailed through my thoughts...Cat Stevens...Morning has broken / like the first morning / blackbird has spoken / like the first bird / praise for them singing...etc // . and i wondered why these references from the past? was there a message, or simply the quirky firings of menopausal synapses dislodging something to make room? or (gasp) cleaning the mindhouse like a demonic housekeeper in full-blown ADD attack removing the last shreds of memoryclutter. you can find a message in anything - people see saints in french toast, after all. and i think what i realized is that in my attempts to re-focus and re-find my path, it was not necessary to offload the past ....just make peace and move on. or take the lessons learned and stow them in your knapsack for fortitude at another crossroad. for the most part, i have made peace with the past. and by making the lessons a companion, does not necessarily make them luggage that weighs me down. a lesson, once incorporated, become part of the whole...not an extra item to be dragged up to the counter for inspection whenever we travel to a new place. in the past year, i've unpacked and repacked my knapsack to carry only the essentials. only those lessons that carry the wisdom learned, and not the pain of the learning. for the most part. today, as i made a breakfast of the morning, i remembered how this morning ritual fulfilled me - sitting quietly and taking a cue from nature. birds do not have watches. or calendars. their obligations are much more profound than ours - find food or die. feed nestlings, or they perish. and yet. it becomes so much more complicated, doesn't it, when you compare our daily lives to that of a crow. and we are all working toward the same basic goals. looking at it from a bird's eye view, it is literally all in the perspective. yes, take care of essentials - food, shelter, carpools. but somewhere in there, we were meant to be creative creatures. (why else would we have been given thumbs??) (now that hitchhiking is a scary endeavor). so yes, there is the mundane, the annoying, the gotta-do stuff that makes up Everyday. but i have a hard time believing that we were created to become vacuum-ers and laundry queens and 9-to-5-ers. we may have become that, but there must still be a spark of remembrance to the time when it was our Spirit's command that we watch a baby day be born. have a Red Delicious day! L.
i woke up this morning with this old Melanie song swirling around in my brain. a very catchy tune. Melanie, made famous in the 60's (?) for "Brand New Pair of Rollerskates." with all the incredible lyrics to songs she had written, Rollerskates is probably the one most people are familiar with. so much the shame. anyway, my usual M.O. on stay-at-home days, is to get up at dark o'clock. today, i slept in till 6, poured myself some coffee and went out back. i sat with my toes in the grass, still dew damp, and listened while the birds gathered their day around them...calling to one another, locating companions and warning of territorial issues. the air smelled of a baby just waking from a nap. just before the sun warms it fully. the yellow daylillies still closed tight against night's chill, drowsy heads bent against their sturdy green stalks. then, a flicker of brilliance blossomed into a full slant of sunlight, peeking through the trees momentarily, then hidden in branches full with greens and yellows and silver. the day was waking. again, a song trailed through my thoughts...Cat Stevens...Morning has broken / like the first morning / blackbird has spoken / like the first bird / praise for them singing...etc // . and i wondered why these references from the past? was there a message, or simply the quirky firings of menopausal synapses dislodging something to make room? or (gasp) cleaning the mindhouse like a demonic housekeeper in full-blown ADD attack removing the last shreds of memoryclutter. you can find a message in anything - people see saints in french toast, after all. and i think what i realized is that in my attempts to re-focus and re-find my path, it was not necessary to offload the past ....just make peace and move on. or take the lessons learned and stow them in your knapsack for fortitude at another crossroad. for the most part, i have made peace with the past. and by making the lessons a companion, does not necessarily make them luggage that weighs me down. a lesson, once incorporated, become part of the whole...not an extra item to be dragged up to the counter for inspection whenever we travel to a new place. in the past year, i've unpacked and repacked my knapsack to carry only the essentials. only those lessons that carry the wisdom learned, and not the pain of the learning. for the most part. today, as i made a breakfast of the morning, i remembered how this morning ritual fulfilled me - sitting quietly and taking a cue from nature. birds do not have watches. or calendars. their obligations are much more profound than ours - find food or die. feed nestlings, or they perish. and yet. it becomes so much more complicated, doesn't it, when you compare our daily lives to that of a crow. and we are all working toward the same basic goals. looking at it from a bird's eye view, it is literally all in the perspective. yes, take care of essentials - food, shelter, carpools. but somewhere in there, we were meant to be creative creatures. (why else would we have been given thumbs??) (now that hitchhiking is a scary endeavor). so yes, there is the mundane, the annoying, the gotta-do stuff that makes up Everyday. but i have a hard time believing that we were created to become vacuum-ers and laundry queens and 9-to-5-ers. we may have become that, but there must still be a spark of remembrance to the time when it was our Spirit's command that we watch a baby day be born. have a Red Delicious day! L.
1 comment:
Hi Linda!
What classes are you taking in NH?
It will be great to see you.
I am staying in Gilminton, about an hour away from Squam lake, with my husband's cousin & his wife.
I am taking the 3 day with Nina.
Elise
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