Ladders.

I have a stress fracture in my foot.  That sucks.

Moving on...

I'm happy to report that the changes that gripped me in my last post are still holding on tightly, sinking their claws into my chest a little further each day.  That makes it sound like an unwelcome change, but it's not.  It's just that it's just so dang hard to keep my focus on the things that matter, because the things that don't matter are so much prettier.  They flutter around, catching my glance, dropping sparkles in my eyes that instantly fill me with a feeling of more, while the things that matter sit solidly still, reflecting not a sparkle, but a heaviness and a sureness, one that's dull but prominent, filling me, not instantly, but gradually with a feeling of enough.  Enough stills me, leaves me in a silence that makes it possible to see clearly.  More drives me mad, rippling the water so all I can see are millions of reflections everywhere instead of the stillness that sits just beneath. 

I feel like the culture that we are immersed in is constantly driving us up a ladder, up the rungs to the Next Best Thing.  Keep moving forward.  Get the latest model.  Try the latest technique.  To stop and be content with where you are at is to be outdated, sedentary, unmotivated.  Lazy.  And while there is a certain stillness that can be classified as laziness, not all stillness is the kind that gathers dust. 

I am very susceptible to advertising.  I am consumer.  I have been known to purchase a book based solely on its cover.  I love everything Apple.  I see commercials for a restaurant and put it on my list of things to do.  (That little trait is greatly magnified while I am pregnant.)  I am ok with my weight, but my ears still perk and my eyebrows still raise when I hear about the latest method to shaving off those last few pounds.  There are just so many things to get.  So many things to do.  It's impossible to keep up.

And yet we continue to try so hard.

Being in the States for the last few weeks has been more eye-opening than I was anticipating it being.  Especially with my eating habits.  I eat like I have a tendency to do my shopping.  I need to eat the Next Best Thing, and I need to finish it because otherwise I am wasteful.  I need to eat these fries even though I've eaten fries at every other meal in the day because these are different.  They are new and shiny and what if they are the best fries ever? And I just let them sit!  What a waste!  And I will eat this ice cream NOW even though I could wait but what fun is waiting when I can have it NOW? 

So I am working on being still when I eat.  Being still when I shop.  Letting the ripples wear themselves out so I can see clearly.  Letting my will and mind exercise the power that they do indeed have over the stuff that surrounds me every day.  I hope that it will only take a few times of overcoming the voice that is roaring more more more now now now to help me see that it can be done.  I imagine that voice as a roaring lion, yelling at the top of his lungs.  It's scary at first, startling, making you want to jump into action.  But my will and my strength are the lioness that is hiding in the brush, silently watching, not wasting her energy on yelling and making a show.  I find her to be more powerful, because she sits and waits.  You aren't surprised when the roaring lion attacks, but when the lioness strikes, it's one of power and strength that you didn't see coming. 

So be still.  Wait.  Let the noise subside, and see what is left.  Listen to the subtleness.  Listen to the calm.  I believe that when we learn to do that, it will be so much more gratifying than seeing the useless rungs of the ladder pile beneath us.