Crows everywhere this campervan morning. Several in the ash and the oak and a few out of sight calling to each other in the morning dark and cold. Heavy cloud overhead, though still too dark to tell what it is. A stillness in the air, with just the slightest of winds, makes the chill feel a wee bit more harsher on the face and fingers. Apparently it’s minus one, though it appears and feels a wee bit warmer than yesterday and the frost not as heavy. The oak resolutely hangs onto its remaining leaves, nothing to encourage there departure so far this morning. Coffee steam and breath spirals into the air once more. The weather promises to warm up so maybe a false start to the winter season or a phoney winter, well this far south anyway. Though curtain drawn, warm fires and long nights have settled in. A blackbird bobs around the oak as the light improves. The frost becomes clearer to the eye, the cloud whiter and heavier than first thought hangs overhead. It keeps the sound of far off traffic at bay. A few snow flurries yesterday increased the excitement. The annual sojourn into my book of redemption ‘A Christmas Carol’ started yesterday. I am if nothing else, with many things, a creature of habit, this being one of them. Also beginning to reflect on the year past and the challenges and successes that marked its progression. Robins start to appear as the light improves and illuminates the start of the day. The coffee now finished means the fingers are becoming very cold with the absence of the temporary thaw that it provided. Wee scars of frost appear on the ground and on rooftops as the light visits. A busy Saturday ahead with much drumming and prep, so a day of creativity, music, connection and community, my favourite past times. Therefore enjoying these early moments of nature and a pause before it all kicks off. The power of the pause. In his fabulous book ‘The Courage to Create ‘ Rollo May writes ;
“ Human freedom involves our capacity to pause between the stimulus and response and, in that pause, to choose the one response toward which we wish to throw our weight. The capacity to create ourselves, based upon this freedom, is inseparable from consciousness or self-awareness. “
As he says,
“ To choose the one response toward which to throw our weight”.
A few challenges of late have meant too much reflex and not enough pausing, despite the time spent sitting absorbing these mornings. So dipping into Rollo May searching for some assistance and assurance has been a useful and much needed exercise. To look for the pause and make a choice rather than the standard reflex of late. Lovely days people.
“ Life is not what we’re chasing. Life is what we’re leaving behind in the chasing.” Craig D. Lounsbrough
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