I’m looking for the moments…I’m seeking the space within the
space – the space where change happens. I’m searching out the minutiae,
examining it and deciding whether to keep it, or remodel it or throw it away
entirely.
An example:
Tonight as I washed my face clean of the day, I began to feel anxious and wasteful at
letting the water run whilst I waited for it to warm up. My inner voices chided
me for the power consumption from running the pump, and the precious water just
running down the drain. I considered putting a plug in for the washing up, but
reasoned that I didn’t want to wash up in my dirty face water.
In that small moment of angst I glimpsed an option. I glimpsed an opportunity to enjoy abundance.
It has rained for about 10 out of the
last 14 days. Additionally, the rain came each day in the late afternoon, after
the spring sunshine had juiced up the batteries and we had an excess of power. So,
as so rarely happens, I had plenty of power, plenty of water and plenty of gas
(as I had just gotten a full tank).
What better time than now to enjoy abundance?
So I gave myself over to the waste.
I was wanton in that water. I allowed it to sluice
deliciously over my hand on its journey to warmth, and run on down that drain
taking the crumbs from the sink with it.
As I splashed my face in the hot water, feeling its warmth on my hands
and face, I was so grateful.
Later on, I wanted to go outside for a cigarette. I listened
for a moment to the chorus of voices in my head demanding to know whether this
action would serve my greater good before conceding that no, it would not serve
me. Rather than go anyway, conscious of
the fact that I was actively doing myself a disservice, listening to those
voices and feeling crap about myself, I figured that maybe, whilst doing so, it
was also possible to do something which would serve my greater good.
I walked out into the night, felt the chill of a clear night
on my bare skin. I listened for a while to the frogs calling to each other. I began
to discern the different frogs, their voices coming from different locations. I
started to differentiate the different calls, their frequency and the answering
calls from across the creek.
Looking into the sky I noticed the beautiful balance of a
clear and high sky studded with stars, and the wisps of cloud streaking across
it. the silhouette of trees and mountain
against an inky sky, the first blushes of moonlight in the sky above Blue Knob,
and the frogs calling through the crisp and bracing air – what a wonderful
antidote to the soul destroying habit of inhaling tobacco…..
Musing, listening, smoking, I watch as the first
brushstrokes of the rising moon are painted above the mountain. The light of
the still hidden moon is reflected back from the bottom of the clouds sitting
in the sky above it, painting them golden, reflective. As I watch it seems the mountains and trees
below get darker in comparison to the lightness which is seeping into the sky,
from a focal point somewhere behind the mountain which sits front and centre
from my vantage point on my verandah.
It feels as though I am pulling the moon, cajoling it,
willing it to rise. I can’t help the
smile playing about my lips as I feel her coming. She’s cheeky when she does
arrive, showing herself first as a torchlight or a flare, suddenly illuminating
the space between 2 trees at the very top of the ridge. This could just be a
house light, or oncoming beams of headlights, but that there is no house, no
road up there.
Before my eyes the moon ascends the far side of the mountain
and drags herself into the waiting sky before announcing herself – luminescent,
glowing, so smugly self assured and so damned perfect.
I smile, and I feel the night smiling back at me.
