Under the Tree
Yesterday was up-and-down, and by noon I’d lost my capacity to have fun. I’ve been laser-focused on getting a healing business up and running (what in the world could THAT mean??? It confuses me, too), and the to-do lists were narrating my life. I wasn’t taking time to wonder how I felt about all this logistical energy, and I was even forgetting to care about why I was doing it. This was not feeling auspicious.
But then I did the wisest thing I’ve done all week. I grabbed a foldy-chair – the kind you take to soccer games with a cup holder built into the arm – and I headed into the shade of a glorious, impossibly tall red maple tree at the edge of my yard. The world shifted.
At first I thought I was sitting in silence, and that made it possible to hear that there was no silence happening at all. The house next door was getting painted, so the clank of the extension ladders and “Jeez, is that board rotten too?” became background music. They couldn’t see me through the thick hedge and they needed absolutely nothing from me, so I could let it wash over me – no interaction needed. The first gift.
Then something made me turn quickly toward the hedge. A gray fox slipped between the tangled cedar trees, weaving her way into the shadows where I couldn’t see her. I barely glimpsed a wisp of her body and that luxurious thick tail slipping between trunks for an instant, all direction and disappearance. Magic!
I felt like I wrecked that moment by turning, serving myself another helping of ennui. Fab. Since I hadn’t gotten the message yet, the Universe tried again. The tiniest bee I’ve ever noticed – a tenth of the size of my fingernail – landed on my shirt button, right in my line of sight. I froze, and was smart enough, finally, to be enchanted. She walked the edge of my button, then flew in spirals down to my bare foot, where I’d dug into a patch of clovery, weedy grass – pure heaven for my hot cranky toes. I watched her land on top of my foot, then fly off me to check out the clover I was occupying. Her tiny, tiny wings moved the blades of grass as she flew by. I could hear the softest buzz. Miraculous. Then she was back to my foot, where she settled in, feeling around and figuring out what this not-sweet-enough plant was doing in her space. When she started using her tail end to feel the surface of my foot, I held it together for a second or two, but then had to flinch. It looked too much like she was about to sting me, though I think that was my defensive human mind - I don’t think she felt threatened at all till I moved. The flinch made her fly back to the clover for a few seconds before she blasted off in a wickedly straight line. There were flowering mint plants across the yard that needed her. I felt my heart unfold into peace as she disappeared.
May we all take the hint, and faster than I did. The world’s lists and schedules are on us. We built them, and we live by them. I know they’re important. But so’s that sweet bee. And the gray fox, and the giant maple, and the hard-working guys trying to get my neighbor’s house painted. May we all take a breath and open the presents that are landing right at our feet.
