MAYBE TIME STOOD STILL

 

(I found this at Barnes and Noble)

 Don't let yesterday take up too much of today.

After Bonfire day (Post: A Bonfire Day, 3/21/22) when I set my thoughts and prayers to flame to free the future from the past, I bought A Journal for Self-Discovery in Nature; a charming little book with sketches, prompts and space.  It is a most inviting place.  It begs for stories and goals, things imagined or true, the random or the persistent . . . .   A place to make so fine that it could slow your breath. 

Perhaps you have a special place to write too.  Here is what this workbook pulled from my heart this morning. 

• Keep love alive.  Offer it, accept it, take care of it as something fragile.  Friendship the same.  Good things are fragile; like plants they need water and a tender touch.  Love doesn't thrive if neglected. Or usurped.  It may change into habit or routine or even die. We know the phrase, "a wandering eye?"  Even companionship needs a watchful, not wandering, eye.  Think how your companionable dog attunes to every sign of what you want. 

• Accept the past, bad and good, what you would change and what you would never.  We can not win a fight with the past.    Acceptance is admitting the truth of whatever happened, whether by me, by someone else, or to me.  As simple as that.  The most unbelievable things happen; believe them.  There's no way out but there is something better:  a way forward. 

• When something wonderful happens savor it, prolong it, let it spread and give it a special place in your memories.  Today nestled in sleep I heard loving words and woke smiling.  Not words from a dream or a memory, but words being whispered.  Today I lived for the moment, the shining warm moment of requited love.  Today I let those words permeate me with no other thought intruding.  Today is never yesterday.  Today is always now.  

• Seek out the places where you find yourself.  Where is your place?  I go into the woods to find myself.  I go into the woods to find God.  I go into the woods to find peace.  To be delighted by soft green moss, spreading clover and variegated  pine cones.  What words fill-in-this-blank for you? By a lake?  On a hill top?  Under the open sky? On a walk?  Into a church?  There is no one who doesn't have a place.  

• Be vulnerable in love.  Say words that show trust.  Some words of love come trance-like from the soul.  "Love me," is a deep request, a beautiful admission.  The feeling is one of air--fresh, clear and warm.  Or like a circle of lamplight inside the night.  Words of trust make us feel clean as from a shower, soft from the soap, ready for bed.  Windows open, moths hitting the screen.  It could be years ago. Or maybe time stood still.