I am an open landscape on which you paint your experience.
I mirror back to you just what you put out there.
If you aren’t sure of what you are painting,
pause,
step back,
clear your mind,
open your heart.
Come sit a spell in my grand, vast emptiness before you start to fill the canvas with elements that may not produce the landscape best for the both of us.
Tread gently on the rolling hills,
pause and watch the rising and setting sun,
see ocean…
flowers…
wild flowing grasses…
Deep wooded forests.
The landscape is yours in which to play.
Just remember that whatever you add to this landscape – the meeting of your choice of media, colors and textures – is yours to assimilate and accommodate, not mine.
How often I have longed for the confidence of another, the apparent success of others, and what seems the ease with which they live.
Then I remember I have my own gifts and talents.
These thriving others are likely not concerned with what I have or don’t have and rather are living within their own gifts and abilities.
It is in living within our gifts that brings ease to our existence, success in our challenges, and the knowing that each of us contributes a beautiful and very special piece to the tapestry of all.
Much like in painting, when the unique colors blend just at their edges they are often more vibrant than when they stand alone or try to take on characteristics of the others and simply become mud.
Today, I aspire to walk confidently and brightly in the shades and shadows of my own unique talents and abilities.
Imagine no more separateness. No more day. No more night. No more sleep. No more wake. Simply a space in which I rest when I am tired and I dance and play when I feel joyful.
Night and day converging, it is all just a dream. What takes place is all imagined – what power I have to control my story! I can awaken at any time to adjust the impression left by this moment.
I can dance in the moonlight, rest during the day, sun and moon in one sky. The yin and yang of life itself poised in equanimity, one space, one being.
When the sun and the moon brighten the sky together, that will be the moment in which I realize anything is possible, any story can be written or rewritten, and life is all unfolding under one timeless sky.
“Is he a snowflake?” she asked. And, in the silent pause beyond the question, I truly saw him…magnificent…sparkling…a treasure floating in the cool, gray sky. Born of lunar energy, peaceful, bending, flowing, he works so hard to fit in, to be hot and fiery, but that is not his nature.
I could fill myself with worry and doubt about how this world full of tapas – heat and fire – will surely melt him. But instead I must believe in the strength of his molecular bonds and the cool subtle wind currents to carry him.
There are countless others in the sky with him, racing to connect and build a world of peace and stillness.
It is in the cool, gray sky where they fit best. So, I will give it to them. I will be the moon and the clouds. I will be the cool, present, flowing, calm sky that allows them to sparkle and gather.
And while this sky may seem less desirable and the darkness that soothes them uncomfortable for many, it is their time to shine. It is time to let them feel their strength and fortitude, to be just the way they are.
In this cool, gray space of unconditional acceptance, they sparkle. In the serenity, they can leave behind their struggle to fit in, their fight to find others like them, and the worry and self-doubt that constantly tugs at them.
It is time for these beautiful snowflakes to know their magnificence and for our world to benefit from giving them a space to thrive.
Never stop believing in the goodness of others.
Monday Mindfulness 