Low key livin'...

I was waiting for workmen to arrive at some unknown hour yesterday, and found myself watching the birds feed...watching endlessly....mindlessly...

Black-capped Chickadee

I know enough to know that it's a wonderful thing to turn the brain and 'thinking' off...to do something as simple as focus on how you breathe...

White-breasted Nuthatch

And I found myself watching the birds for goodly amounts of time and having nothing more in my head than observing individual behaviors and coloration patterns. I didn't think about the lousy economy, the myriad social issues plaguing most locations, where my 'paycheck' will come from, why Blagojevich is an ego monster...no, I simply watched birds feed and felt 'one' with them.

Dark-eyed (Slate-colored) Junco

Afterwards, guilt crept in. Why? I guess my patterning (like most people's ingraining) directed me to feel like it was a 'waste' to watch the birds and NOT tend to things I needed to right in front of me. But I knew better. I KNEW it was okay to turn the brain off and just watch the birds as long as I wanted...

*sigh*

So our brains work thusly. Do yourself a favor...if you do nothing else today, please spend even if but a few minutes just watching nature and NOT letting the brain toss in thoughts about all the things you need to tend to per work and home. Focus on your breathing...how deeply or not you breathe....just 'be' with it, and 'be with' birds or whatever to still your Soul....it is in that stillness that the answers to just about anything you seek come from within.

How easily we get caught up in the dramas, traumas and trials of Life, which are only because we choose for them to appear so.
Learn to appreciate 'stillness' and 'nothingness' in what you do and reap the peaceful rewards.

Feed, birds, feed. I'm sure I'll get my butt in gear soon enough, and the timing will be perfect just as it needs to be...and if the truth be told I still feel a little guilty! Practicing what we preach does not always come easily!