The cottage door opened at 5:15 this morning. Toots padded down the steps with us. Sis is training Toots to heel. Sis is showing me the way, modeling for me (a novice dog person) ...Toots gets practice from an expert now. Our exercise program has expanded... as does any reality co-created.
Each dark morning thus far, we stand momentarily at our sidewalk's edge. Stillness. We seem to try it on. This allows us to gather the deeper, fuller sense of our inner workings. Rhythm. We dip into this vast inner sea now in conjunction with very early morning. Luminous moonshine.
Tapping into this nexus, noticing their mix ... a momentum naturally follows. We respond to the flow, go with the draw. We head in the direction of the village and the water's edge. "No stars this morning," I think inwardly.
"Rather, very few stars and a planet too," my inner critic corrects the internal monologue. "Accurately speaking, stars don't go in or out. We personify the stars when we speak that way. We might also be reflecting an unrevised childlike concept, retained even now despite what we've learned in our science classes." I think more deeply, more deliberately, consciously: On a certain level, we entertain illusion when we say, "No stars out this morning." Stars haven't gone anywhere. Stars go neither in, nor out.
When we slow down the speed of thought, we allow ourselves to experience what David Whyte calls spaciousness. We grant unadulterated relationship with silence, timelessness, authentic and original conversation. We experience space and time to 'connect the dots,' update, revise, de-program. Without spaciousness in our work, in our relationships, in our solitude it is, "As if a symphony, with all its rests, attenuated beats, and rhythms, suddenly had all silence between the notes removed, leaving the notes undifferentiated,crushed and bruised, each sound pressed into the next....a mechanical hum, like an old refrigerator, the white background noise corroding our attempts at real conversation and only noticed in the reverberating kitchen, when it final brings itself to a stop." (Crossing the unknown sea ...Work as a pilgrimage of identity, p.174)
More accurately then, the 'full moon' (so to speak) reflects more than its usual share of light. This level of light challenges our visual capacity to detect all the stars above. The stars are constantly present in our galaxy, even during our sunlit days, even when we do not look up, even when we fall asleep.
If how we speak reflects our thinking, it makes sense to pay closer attention to what we absorb and stir around in our sensitive minds. Slowing our speed of thought allows space and time for reflection, to reach for accuracy. More readily, we may choose wiser words, respond rather than react. Silence may be the wisest choice of all options available. If we said everything that came to mind in a day, we would discover how many of our thoughts and concepts directly conflict, even cancel each other out. Many are outdated, inhospitably programmed, hollow, even ridiculous. Most of the thoughts sailing through a given mind on a given day result from cultural, filial, political, and commercial programming. Perhaps lines from the six o'clock news have poached our neural territory? Have emotional lyrics nested in idle brainspace? Do verbal sticks and stones, stockpiled from bullying long gone, beg bulldozing?
Our thoughts shed light on how we currently conceptualize ourselves, our colleagues, the work and the partner we engage. They reveal what we seem to believe. Our words serve as the currency of exchange in navigating relationship with self, others, life. Our developed capacity for assessing and selecting deserves to be nurtured. Our word choice, tone, and timber can generate peace (or productivity, or willingness, or kindness). Changing word choice, tone, and timber can contrarily generate alienation, discouragement, violence.
This week's invitation is to increase our accuracy in thinking and communicating through the practice of creating spaciousness. Let us make room for deliberate reflection and conscious articulation. As the moon reflects the sun's light, our words reflect the mind's light. A simple song of thanksgiving about the moon might serve as an anchor to remember this practice. A practice that slows the speed of thought can increase the probability we will more consistently generate GOOD in our world: "I see the moon and the moon sees me. God bless the moon and God bless me. There's grace in the cabinets, grace in the hall, and the grace of God is over us all." (Appalachian Dulcimer Singer and Songwriter: Jean Ritchie)
"Thank you," I intimate to the full moon in Orient, on Long Island, in New York, on the East Coast, in North America, on Planet Earth. "Hello, is anyone out there?" And more accurately, I wonder like Julie in Julia/Julie, "Is anyone really reading this?" Spaciousness. "I am." So here's to the moon ... or "bamoon"as grandbaby Atticus calls our great white waning, waxing, and now wistfully full model of reflection overhead!
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