The First Snow

The First Snow of the Season

The New Year has started with an urgency to put some sense on what lies ahead for us in 2015. Resolutions, prayers, hopes and wish lists are made. Decisions are finalised. We're determined and confident, yet mildly unsure and perhaps overambitious.

Mondays are often like that. We get an overview of what our demands are for the full week ahead, and often catch ourselves trying to get it all done by Monday evening. By Tuesday, we have made steady progress. On Wednesdays, we find time for a cuppa, and to reach out to a friend. On Thursdays, we wonder what all the fuss was about on Monday, as we find the demands diminishing, our perspective shifting, and we sail easily through lists and emails and housework and activities. By Friday, we are enjoying the bigger picture. The weekend gets busy with non-routine, with family time, with walks, with some sacred time, and we seek out time, places and people to balance and inspire us. Inevitably we find ourselves slowly gathering momentum, and by Sunday evening we're getting organised wondering how we will manage it all again next week! 

I sense the Tuesday energy kicks in around mid-February. Wednesdays are probably around Easter. Thursdays are May. Fridays are early August. Saturdays are late September/early October, and Sundays are November and December. Then there's the opposite rhythm of the Southern Hemisphere (It's probably a Thursday or Friday there now), and the rhythm of the Earth as a whole, and on and on to infinity.

There's nothing like Nature's Rhythm to interrupt the cycle of our routine. The first snow came into our lives this week with much childish fun and excitement. There were moments of Glee! We also had delays and cancellations and had to re-think our plans. Icy roads, car trouble, frozen water pipes, heating problems (or cooling problems if you're like my friends in Australia) all cause havoc. Cancellations in transport, work, school or even an appointment to the doctor can frustrate and delay our tightly planned schedules.

I've started to not worry about delays and cancellations. I've seen many last-minute re-directions come into my life, swerving me from going off on unnecessary tangents, or perhaps saving me from untold anguish. They are Blessings in disguise. Life is interrupting us to bring us home. It's not vital to finish what you are doing this very moment. It really isn't. It will get done. Change your energy. Get out and move, or get home and rest.

An Irish cup of tea is one of my most valuable companions. I've endured and celebrated many of my deepest trials over copious cups of tea! Even when I became too upset to eat, I could always handle a cup of tea! The tea makes me sit down and look out the window, across the fields to the horizon. It makes me stand at the doorway and listen to the birds outside. It makes me take a deeper breath. It makes me sigh. It makes me take a moment. It makes me share a moment with family or friends. It soothes the effort and the trying inside. It moves me into a place of trust and surrender. There's always water in the kettle!

Look across the fields to the horizon

Sometimes, beauty is so beautiful, we have to pause, whether it's Monday, Tuesday, April, May or November. The first snow - it is a new beginning, when the purity of the landscape and lives around us shine white and bright. It is a welcome interruption.

Beauty and simplicity preserve the spirit from distraction and lead it to God. Beauty leads to Contemplation and is a sort of sacrament of the eternal beauty of God.

André Louf

Find the rhythm of the day. Instead of time and task management, intuition can find the natural pulse and rhythm moving around and through us. An enormous sense of natural effort and progress merge in this rhythm. Tasks get done, but with a greater sense of well-being and inner quiet. Loosen the schedules and pause. A deep breath and a long look to the horizon can refresh and reconnect our attention inwards to re-align with that natural rhythm. Be Yourself. Be present to the Presence.

Contemplation tells us to allow the interruptions. Allow the setbacks. Allow the frustrations. Allow them all. Then, wait for the pulse, and begin again. Nature's Rhythm is eternal.

Nature's Rhythm

It's a New Year. May goodness, blessings and good fortune surround you this year.