A welcome and surprisingly quiet suburban Monday this campervan morning. A wispy, almost transparent mist glides around the trees, carried by the faintest of breezes. The distant view shrouded and obscured, sounds also perhaps somewhat dulled by its presence. Robins and distant gulls, magpies with infrequent chatter on the air. I am joined for the first time, I think since spring, by an inquisitive Robin, dancing around bush and grass on his morning forage. A braying donkey far far away, which once more I have not heard for an age. A chill and morning damp on the air, the cloud solid and white over head. A glorious sunset last night, sitting out into the wee hours, not a regular occurrence for a September evening. This morning the senses tested and honed as the morning unfolds, John O’Donohue, in my well thumbed copy of ‘Anam Cara ‘ writes :
“ Being in the soul, the body makes the senses thresholds of the soul “.
And that :
“ A complete transfiguration of your life, can come through attention to your senses. Your senses are the guides to take you deep into the inner world of your heart “.
I opened the book at a random page ( 85 Bantam Books, paperback edition, for those interested ), the purity of chance perhaps ? Or as Aristotle says :
“ Choice, not chance determines your destiny “
Or your pages and thus your thoughts this morning. Anyway these were the sentences that rung out to me as I sit under the oak. So thoughts about senses and thresholds. The routine of sitting with and exploring my senses every morning. All of them engaged in the process of sitting under the oak and absorbing all around. The use of them as JOD writes too :
“ Limber up the stiffened belief and gentle the hardened outlook… warm and heal the atrophied feelings which are the barriers that exile us from ourselves and separate us from each other “.
So time to bathe in senses a wee bit more. Lovely days people.
“ Lose your mind and come to your senses.” Fritz Perls.
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