Honoring The Grace Of Small Things

Honoring The Grace Of Small Things

by | Jun 21, 2021 | Conscious living, Environment, Gratitude, Mindfulness

Photo Credit: David Clode, Unsplash

Sometimes life calls us to slow down a bit and step aside, to quiet the endless chatter of our minds and the demands of our outer world, and to become still.

We are invited to notice the Divine nature of everything around us. In that stillness, we come to acknowledge the beauty of song and the vulnerability of our wounds, the magic of the seeming insignificant and the terror of the unknown.  We find grace to tend our needs and return to our center.

And once we have been renewed, we bring the message back to others who, in turn, can shake themselves awake and look at life in new ways – as if for the very first time.

It does not matter what brought you here, or which path stripped away your protective layers to leave you trembling before the awe of life. You are here now, and so I would like to share with you a vision of things that touch our hearts.

I want to gift you a glimpse of the intricate and miraculous web of life and watch the recognition light up your eyes. I want to share with you the grace of a few small things and stir the deep memory of endless opportunities to love despite the vastness of an incomprehensible universe.

Today, I awoke to the symphony of birds whose names I’ll never know and marveled at the incredible complexity of their harmonies as they exuberantly welcomed the arrival of a bright new day. It spoke to me of joy.

In the street, parents walked their children to the park, small hands swallowed up by theirs, smiling as they inclined their heads to hear stories bubbling from those rosy lips and downy cheeks, excited at the possibilities of a new day, and it spoke to me of hope.

I remembered the way the red hen hunched down and spread her wings so her baby chicks could find shelter from the rain as they huddled beneath her breast, and I felt love.

After the rain, the fern at the base of the stairs finally succeeded in breaking through the stony cracks to unfurl its tiny fronds to warm sunlight, and it reminds me of courage.

The way young people lean eagerly, expectantly into their future even when they don’t know what it holds, and it speaks of confidence.

And the way the old dog stretches out to let the morning sun warm its stiff joints, surrendering to each present moment.

And the way the car hesitates for a moment before the gear engages, reminding me of my own doubts.

And the way the grackles peck at the oranges in the trees, carefully grooming themselves with the oils and then announcing their gleaming handiwork with loud caws before flying off to what they do next. And I am reminded that self-nurture precedes all service.

And the way a sentence can leap right off the page to pierce your heart with its honesty and truth, so you need to stop for a minute to experience the awe and beauty of it.

And the way you sometimes glimpse someone in a vulnerable moment and see right inside them to the soul that’s there, and your heart wells with compassion and love for its innocence.

Yes, I know there is a lot of pain and suffering in our world. Good things end and bad things linger on, we fail and struggle and get hurt, hammered by loss and accident and tragedy until, someday, we are freed to slip away into the darkness beyond it all.

But I also know we carry awesome potential, and our experiences can make us kinder and more loving if we let them. I know we can choose how we respond to life: either dismissing dissonance as nonsense and huddling behind walls or embracing things that touch our hearts, even when we do not understand their full meaning.

Life speaks to us in a myriad of ways that cannot be measured or understood unless we listen carefully, and then are able to accept the messages of love, courage and hope. When we honor the grace of small things, life can be a beautiful dialogue with our souls.

About the Author

©Copyright Ada Porat. For more information, visit https://adaporat.com. This article may be freely distributed in whole or in part, provided there is no charge for it and this notice is attached.

Time Flies, Right! Letting Go Of The Struggle To Control Time

Time Flies, Right! Letting Go Of The Struggle To Control Time

by | Nov 14, 2016 | Change bad habits, Conscious living, Environment, Mindfulness, Peace

For eons, people have been struggling with the concept of time. It permeates our language and influences our outlook on life. After all, time is money, time is of the essence and time flies, right!

And so, we struggle for control over time: we measure time, stretch time, lose time, kill time, and still never have enough time! It’s not surprising we feel this way. The pace of life today is far more frenetic than it was even just a generation ago.

In the struggle to control time, we’ve grown so out of touch with the natural world that it doesn’t seem to matter whether it’s day or night, hot or cold, summer or winter. We control the climate at home, in the car and at the office. We create artificial environments to extend our days. We eat food with little regard for its season or source.

These artificial life choices further separate us from the rhythms and cycles of nature, desensitizing us to nature’s seasonal indicators of passing time. When we stare into the cold screens of our electronic gadgets, we disconnect from the natural world around us and forget our origins.

In the words of author Michael McCarthy, “We need constant reminding that we have only been operators of computers for a single generation… but we were farmers for 500 generations, and before that hunter-gatherers for perhaps 50,000 or more, living with the natural world as part of it as we evolved.”

If we want inner peace, we need to learn how to coexist peacefully with the inevitable march of time instead of trying to control it. We need to synchronize with time at all levels. The sixteenth-century Chinese poet Liu Wenmin put it this way:

“To be able to be unhurried when hurried;
To be able not to slack off when relaxed;
To be able not to be frightened
And at a loss for what to do,
When frightened and at a loss;
This is the learning that returns us
To our natural state and transforms our lives.”

Time moves on whether we are hurtling through life or savoring it. We can – indeed we must – learn to remain still and calm amid the torrent of commitments, not allowing our overscheduled lives to rob us of the time we need to recalibrate and connect to the natural world, ourselves, and each other.

The simple act of spending time in nature is one such solution that has many healing properties. In Japan, this healing process is known as “shinrin-yoku” or forest bathing. Scientific studies confirm that spending time in nature can lead to decreased stress hormone production, lower heart rate and blood pressure, elevate mood and strengthen the immune system.

If you’ve ever had the opportunity to return to the same place season after season, you’d recall the private pleasure of reconnecting to a special place each time you returned: becoming aware of the height of the tide, the direction of the wind, the time of sunrise and sunset, and the phase of the moon. Having a place in nature to return to allows us to reconnect where we’d left off, much like picking up an old friendship.

Sometimes we encounter the power and beauty of the natural world in one startling moment: observing the grandeur of a rainbow after a storm, or seeing the beauty of some tiny creature up close. These are magical moments when all sense of time stops and we’re caught up in the wonder of the present moment.

To connect to nature is to reconnect to our own origins. Stepping out of our man-made schedules and obligations – even if just for a few moments – to look at the clouds, smell the air, feel the breeze on our skin, helps us reconnect to the eternal nature of creation and find peace.

About the author

©Copyright Ada Porat. For more information, visit https://adaporat.com. This article may be freely distributed in whole or in part, provided there is no charge for it and this notice is attached.