It was 75 degrees today, and the wind blew 75 miles an hour. It was a bit like being in a Dyson vacuum. You don’t feel the heat when the wind is a cyclone and I did not realize I was getting sunburned as I dug in the red dirt. I finally had to abandon my work as I had a hard time remaining upright in the wind. However, the last chore I decided to do was to line the outside of the house and garage with Cayenne Pepper to keep out the mice and other beasties. As I was walking back towards the front door I thought to myself, “hmmm… I have sand in my eyes…” Ha! IT WASN’T SAND…And it was just getting started. It was CAYENNE PEPPER! I stood very still, blinded by the Cayenne, wondering what to do. The wind was blowing so loud that I didn’t think Sky would hear me if I called, but I started hollering for her and feeling my way closer to the door. She finally flung the door open and said “What have you done now, Mother!”…She escorted me to the bath room where I ran my face and eyes clear with cold water. Sheesh! You’d think it was my first time on the planet!
As the wind died down, Sky and I took Jack and Buster for a walk. Yoda of course rode in her sling across my chest. Sky and I walk with faces down scanning the ground for rocks… Yesterday we walked a dried river bed and found so many rocks that we left them to pick up on our return. After we carried them as far as we could I left Sky and hiked back up to the house to get the truck. Love that four wheel drive!
Today we determined to only collect small rocks. Sky has gone quite “ROCK MAD” I am afraid…I don’t know where she gets it. OK, OK! …I do know where she gets it but is has taken me 50 years to collect thousands of rocks. She is trying to catch up in a few short weeks. I keep telling her we can’t bring in the entire mountain, desert, State of New Mexico…As we were walking today she scooped up a large clear rock and asked “Mom, what’s this?” I cocked my head and gazed at her for a long moment. I did not want to make her feel stupid by telling her it was a rock…Sheesh! What did she think we had been collecting all these days? Filling our pockets, tying bundles in our coats, stashing in Yoda’s sling… jelly beans? Anyway, I finally said “Sky… that’s a rock”. I won’t repeat the caustic rejoinder she flung back at me…
I do love rocks and I have collected since I was 4 years old. My dad used to take us agate hunting when we were young and I have stones and mineral specimens from all over the world. At first I just loved them for how they looked and felt. But several years ago they started whispering their names in my head; that is how I began to learn their metaphysical qualities along with their chemical makeup. It could be because I became still enough to hear them. I used to not be able to be still. Actually, when I was very young, four, five, six, I knew how to be perfectly silent, perfectly still. I believed I could make myself invisible.
As I grew I became a bit like a whirling dervish; in constant movement, filling up all my spaces with motion, sound, and doing! Every moment became my only moment. And so I never rested, never took a vacation or a day off; barely slept. I was driven to do, learn, accomplish. I was a candle wick that was lighted from both ends. I think maybe I did this, always busy, in action, creating a clammering inside my head, so there wasn’t enough room or space for me to listen to God, the Devine, Source, Mother/Father, First Light/Vibration; whatever you name that which is always with us when we are still enough to acknowledge, to know, to be one with. And so I had to find a new discipline and I had to re-learn how to not do; just be. This is what I am learning now…perhaps I will embody peace that is at the center of a hurricane…
Here is the balancing act… Being still on the inside does not necessarily mean being still on the outside. Sometimes to be still on the inside we must release all the pent up energy/stress that our bodies are experiencing so our minds can open to the void and get rid of all the chatter.
It has taken years. I am not there yet, but I am no longer an embryo. My heart has formed and it beats steady and strong. I hope I get this being organic thing down before I move back to spirit…