Breathing out and breathing in...............
There is a space between breathing out and breathing in,
when the breath and the life force is stilled, that an opportunity arises to
just be. The time in this space may
be only a few seconds long but if you take the opportunity to be in this space
for even a few seconds you are actually being
still. Applying this practice to other parts of our lives may at times feel
difficult, there is pressure put on ourselves and others to do, and not to be.
Sometimes though fate lends a hand.
About three weeks ago we had severe storms here in North
Wales, the Met office issued the area as being code ‘red’, while what we
experienced pales into insignificance compared to other countries, for us here
in North Wales it was pretty wild. The storm, although predicted, seemed to
blow up out of nowhere one Saturday afternoon. I tend to ‘feel’ the weather and immediately
it hit this storm felt ‘cruel’. The first bout didn’t last long, about an hour
of thunder, hail, stair rod rain, wild wind and lightening. The lightening hit
the hill I live on and as a result it blew my phone lines and with it my access
to the internet to pieces. It also blew up my TV and my amp. When all this
happened I was standing in front of my microwave and because the door was open
I heard then saw electricity arc across the microwave…..if my husband hadn’t
been standing next to me I know he would not have believed me. So with all my
media ‘blown’, my cottage on the hill was unusually quiet, no internet, no TV,
no radio, no music at all. The storm raged on and off for three weeks, the
fields surrounding my cottage were flooded, neighbouring houses were damaged,
trees were brought down, but because my cottage was quiet on the inside I
experienced it all in a different way.
I was essentially in a breathing out and breathing in space,
fate had intervened in the hurly burly of my life and I was now for the first
time since I returned from Africa, feeling the planet by ‘being still’.
My initial response was to fill up the space, read, do
chores, plan work schedules, faff about……but the quietness seeped into me and
after a while I would allow myself to sit and watch the weather through our
huge dining room window. I would stand in my garden and be hit by the wind,
pelted by the rain and hail, I would inhale the cold and think to myself that
this was wonderful. It was scary too, the storms were brutal but I was not
afraid. I felt more love for being alive than I have felt for some time and I
am truly grateful for being able to feel the storm yet remain unharmed.
For those of you who need to find that breathing out and
breathing in space don’t wait for the storm, have a look and listen to this then sit back and 'be' for a while.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8X0s_Hns-Q
No comments:
Post a Comment