Mood:
lyricalTopic: Mindfulness
After I microwaved my Yves Veggie Bowl this afternoon, I discovered it had mold growing in it, even though the Sell By Date wasn't until the middle of next month. I pitched it and ate half of a very disappointing, watery purple plum (NOT a Dragon Plum, which I have recently discovered and never found lacking!) and a bunch of grapes, and tried to go back to work. I've been surprisingly focused the last three days, but I couldn't seem to settle back in.
I haven't seen my therapist in more than two months, but I remembered her mandate that I should be eating lunch mindfully and meditating or doing something relaxing during my lunch break. I don't regularly take a lunch break, but decided today to go outside and listen to the pond and the trees. It is a gorgeous! autumn day here. Not a cloud in the sky, temperature somewhere in the low 70's, and dry, clear air. It seemed like every time I looked down into the pond, I saw something I hadn't seen before. First, I saw a frog splayed out on the surface dead-man-float-style except that its face was out of the water. Then, a second, smaller frog crouching on a sunny rock with half its body submerged in the water. Next, I realized there was a carved wooden turtle sitting on top of one of the containing wall rocks that had weathered to the same shade of grey as the stone, and, oddly, I don't remember ever having noticed it before. (Of course, that doesn't mean I haven't noticed it before, only that I've slept since then, so I can't be sure.) Somehow, the first frog disappeared when I wasn't looking and didn't return.
In addition to watching the water, I also spent a substantial amount of time looking up into the trees. I even tried a few partial backbends to see the tops of trees behind me and get a better perspective on the canopy. While I was arched over backwards, a turkey vulture flew directly over me, front to back or east to west, but I don't remember my Homer well enough to know what kind of omen that was. (I'll assume it was good!) I also watched a male cardinal for a few minutes. There have been at least two playing in the garden behind the house for most of the morning. And then I realized it would be good to move rather than just stand, so I turned toward the only loblolly pine in the front of the house and tried to mirror the motion of its trunk with my body. There is a strong breeze today, causing the leaves to rustle and the deciduous trees with their multiply-branched branches to dance in large, billowy motions. The loblolly, though, has no branches at all on its bottom forty feet, and the the branches on the top forty feet didn't seem to respond greatly to the wind. The trunk, though, swayed and undulated, which was exactly the amount of effort I felt like expending. It was fun! Hypnotic, even. I could have spent the entire afternoon out there, but I somehow managed to drag myself back to the computer. (I opened the windows, though, so I can still hear the wind and the water!)
Happy, peaceful day, All!
