Thoughts on slowing down. Part 4.

My mind has been running. It’s tired. And I feel it everywhere inside of everyone. We’re all a little (to a lot) tired. This morning, I found myself observing dust devils of thought in my most local ether - my headspace. Though I didn’t feel anxious or overwhelmed, I saw a lot of things I don’t need in there right now - or ever. I thought, I’d like to move those out. I’d like to clear some space, and then leave it that way. 

Sweep the mind’s worn floorboards. Open the windows and let the breeze blow loose papers around. Maybe one will land on my cheek and stay there. Space is required within my ether, if I’m to smell when the universe is ripe for rain.

Over the last few weeks, I’ve been stretching my meditations to thirty minutes instead of twenty, and fitting in extra sessions here and there when I can. My practice isn’t always like this. Sometimes I’m just showing up, feeling nothing (or feeling frustrated). But other times - like right now - I’m thirsty for the stillness. Meditation is my go-to for making and feeling space within. But this morning it was thirty minutes of observing dust devils - ones made of extraneous, useless bits of information. 

Third-rate bits and bobs taking up space, threatening to whip my insides up to a gale.

Today my mind, yearning for stillness, needs to be reminded of how to settle. There are many ways, infinite probably. Here are some that have come to mind for me on this day...

Go on a spider web scavenger hunt. Spider webs are achingly beautiful and intricate, and we’re always just walking right past them. The information we can find within a spider web is vital, not extra.

Observe the surface of a body or pool or water. Gaze at where the water meets the air. Where does the water end and the air begin? A hippie-dippy therapist I had - who ghosted me during COVID - suggested this one. Being ghosted by a therapist is wildly humbling, but he still left me with some valuable gifts, and this is one of my favorites. (Another one of those gifts is a pine needle from a Sacred Tree that he thought long and hard about giving to me before he finally handed it over, to aid in the blessing of some fraught energy in my then-new home. I admittedly still have the pine needle. It sits in a ceramic dish on the mantle and probably always will.)

Watch the way the light comes in through the windows at different times of day. Photograph it.

Wipe the dust from the leaves of your houseplants with a damp cloth. Talk and sing to them as you do this.

Read poetry. My current favorites are Rilke, Hicok (Bob), and Oliver. Poetry helps to bring you out of your frontal lobe, and we could all use some distance from that very excitable friend.

Make a fire and watch it burn. Burn some stuff, too, if you want. But do it mindfully - please don’t release nasty fumes into the atmosphere or start a wildfire. That’s not helpful.

Take the day off from social media. There is A LOT of info that no one needs jammed into two minutes of scrolling and following links. I took a few years off from social media, thinking that I’d never go back. I did go back recently, though. I co-own and run a boutique publishing house and we made an Instagram for it. My partner and I thought it would be good to have a presence in that realm. 

It’s fine, there are things on the feed that make me laugh and cry (namely, animals), and I’m provided with the opportunity to support people I love in a media-specific way. But I liked it better when I wasn’t participating. It’s a wholly unnecessary scroll of extraneous information. You won’t miss anything if you check out for a few hours or days or indefinitely. If there’s some information that needs to get to you, it will find its way through another path of communication.

Buy or pick some flowers and arrange them until they look content.

These are some real tip-of-the-iceberg suggestions, but I hope I’ve jogged your mind to some of the information that is useful and nurturing. Because that’s in there, too. It’s just hard to find when there are piles of dirty distractions everywhere. They don’t even want to be there either. Set it all free and go gaze into the geometric mystery of a spider web. You’re thirstier for it than you know.

Photo by Nastia Petruk on Unsplash