There is a way in which I get repetitive and rote in my approach to living. And then some place in me gets louder and louder with discontent. It feels tired and bored. This place feels dulled by the minutia. Resents doing over and over the little actions that make up life.
It wants rest from the dullness of repetition. It wants freshness and a sense of renewal.
I can think about it. I can think around it. I can strategize about what to do or what approach to take to solve it. Or I can say “Hello.” I can make space to be with what my body has to say around this topic. This is when paying attention to how the body relates to this issue starts a journey that follows my felt sense inward, revealing and enlivening with ever surprising insights.
A few days ago a friend offered me the experience of finding my balance on a slackline hanging between two trees on a sunny afternoon at Greenlake.
This was one of the items on my bucket list! I began observing the springy line as my friend hopped on with grace and I felt uncertain about my performance ahead. Wearing a coat, hat, scarf, gloves and feeling stiff at first I ended up bare footed and bare headed, clothes discarded on the grass. Hot and exhilarated – all my attention is captured by the experience.
I found it impossible to interact with the slack line without listening in to what my body had to say at the level of sensation. My body is no longer cut off in its cocoon of tedium, instead I became part of the slack line, part of the sky as it tilted and adjusted with my balance. I could feel my life force interacting with the moment, and I interacted with my life force. I was no longer relying on what I knew but what I felt. I am part of the world of play. And in this world, the world of children and lovers and Spring, I find a great intimacy that brings that sparks with exuberance and a sense of possibility, of renewal.
I went home and paid my bills with a sense of relief.
