Stillness this campervan morning. Not a breath of wind. The downside of which is that sound carries, so the waking world fills the air with cars and planes. It’s a Monday, so there is a sense of determination about the morning commute unveiling around me. Piercing through that, a crow cries, house sparrows and a couple of robins own the air, plus a couple I would love to identify. I am a little late so missed the opportunity to catch the sound of an owl. The light not yet full, but already reveals a heavy cloud driven sky. The usual remnants of autumnal rain surround me with the threat of more to come. It’s quite temperate, neither warm nor cold this morning as I sit below the oak. I love these moments of attention and intention that set up my day. Attention to what’s going on around me, my environment, which is never the same, my senses, my feelings and my reflections and the opportunity to set my intention for the day. An early opportunity to detach from life and its usual timescales of urgency. Often not my own, but somebody else’s drama or crisis. Stephen Rechtchaffen in his book ‘Time Shifting ‘ talks of a modern rhythm that ;
“ Unconsciously, like a poison ingested by our bodies… we have entrained with a faster rhythm. It controls the way we walk, the way we speak, the way we respond to intimates and strangers, the way we don’t relax “.
He hails it as unnatural and continues to write that ;
“ We must entrain with rhythms other than society’s”.
Our perhaps lost connection with the inner rhythms of ourselves and others around us, the lost connection to the rhythms of nature. Somewhat apt as we come close to the close of the Celtic wheel and Samhain, the end of the year cycle of growth and harvest, the turn of winter and an opportunity to also honour our ancestors. So this morning attention on the detail of nature, an intention to set my own rhythm, entrain with the more natural rhythms that surround me and less so at society’s will and needs, more of my own. Lovely days people.
“ Now this is very profound, what rhythm is, and goes far deeper than words. A sight, an emotion, creates this wave in the mind, long before it makes words to fit it ...” Virginia Woolf.
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