Relaxation

I love sunflowers. I mean, here is a flower that grows bigger than me. It is gigantic. And the seeds are so visible, so wildly bountiful, and so orderly arranged.

I see them growing in the community garden, and I admire their towering, poetic, lilting stance.

There are two local farms that plant thousands of sunflowers – acres and acres - and let you walk among them. It is breath-taking. So many circles of purple-black with a rim of yellow against a backdrop of greens and a light blue sky – like nature is looking with 10,000 eyes upon the world.

When my children were very young, we would play a game. They would smell spices, herbs, and other flavorings. The idea was not necessarily to know their names, but rather to become familiar with them directly, meeting them, letting them talk to the children.

Remarkably, many years later, I learned that this is how indigenous people would learn about healing plants – by meeting them and learning from them, rather than human experts.

The children really had definite opinions about each flavoring.

I love to hear the sound of trickling water.

I go to garden shops and stand in front of trickling fountains.

At the Beardsley Zoo, the greenhouse has Koi fish in a pond with trickling water.

We’d go to Saint Margaret’s Shrine. I was always drawn to the statues, and in particular to a large three tiered fountain with trickling water.

At our nearby park there is a small stream that cascades sparkling water over a small waterfall to a pond.

I am balanced.
I am balanced with heaven and earth.
I am centered.
This keeps my balance.

My breath can rebalance me.
I breathe in the outer world,
And I breathe out the inner world.

I purify my surroundings
Just by breathing,
Creating balance.

I am balanced.
I am calm.

My guides and angels are always with me.
Helpers and help are always here,
If I ask.

My inner world is peaceful.
I feel my energy clear and strong.
I know that everything is well,
Everything is working out.

I love to draw. And I love to paint even a little more.

There’s something so amazing about becoming immersed in an imaginary world – to create something inspired out of thin air.

Well, it’s really not something out of thin air in my experience, but rather playing with someone or something larger than me. You could call it higher self, God, or the Muse, but there is something there that I am working with -- no, playing with.

Someone once said that half of creating is just showing up. Every Sunday afternoon I either draw or paint. I show up.

I like the quiet times.

When there is a lull in the day.

And the hectic pace stops.

I like the clock that I can hear tick-tock. It beats at one herz – what an interesting number – one cycle per second, the rate of a heart beating.

I like to take a walk, with no thoughts, no agenda, nothing to solve.

I like to stare out into space and see what appears.

I am open and willing to receive.

I see the morning dew on the grass, sparkling and twinkling, and find it hard to look away.

I like the quiet time smelling hot apple pie baking.

I love to read Haiku. The idea is to capture the essence, actually the feeling, of something in just a few words.

Some of them are timeless, as is this one by the Japanese poet Gomei:

One chestnut, only one,
Is all his tiny hands can hold,
My little baby son. (Gomei)

I am calm.

My inner world is mine.
I choose peace there.
I sit quietly and feel the earth beneath me, supporting me. It’s always there.
I am calm.

Even being a little calm calls more, stronger calm.

I breathe in fresh air, a fresh viewpoint, fresh understanding.
Breathe in. Breathe out.
I place my attention on me alone. My thoughts drop away.
Guardian angel, strengthen me.
I am calm.

I am on the beach.

The sand feels warm and inviting on my feet.

I love the “swish, swish” of the waves.
The pebbles are tumbled, soft clear white.
The seashells call to me to look at them.

A child is making a sand castle, with a red, metal pale.
Another child is blowing bubbles.
A single bubble floats by me.

I am happy.
I see myself in the bubble, happy, along with this whole beach, sky, and ocean, in that little bubble.
It floats away to carry my happiness beyond me.

Have you ever needed to be still?
Not to be disturbed but be left all alone?
Some people are afraid to be alone.
They fear the quiet, that space.

Other’s revel in it.
In that quiet contemplative space much may occur.
Or nothing feels like it is happening.
It may be just dead silence.

What is good is to realize often when we would like to be still,
We just avoid it
Or when we are forced to be still, for example, like an illness,
We appreciate what we had.