Its a beautiful warm summer afternoon. We’re in mid October now, so the sun isn’t too hot, but the sky is deep blue, with a few clouds drifting through on lite breezes. Since it is October and we’ve had our first snow already I’m finally up on the roof doing “winterizing” things: draining the swamp cooler, cleaning gutters, trimming low hanging branches, calking leaks.
Pacing myself, I’m enjoying being up in the trees and the sky on such a glorious Huckleberry Finn sort of day. Slowly anxiety and tension that built up earlier in the day fades.
When I’m done I lay in the roof, looking over trees tops to a view of the mountains and the flatirons. The warmth of the shingles soaks through my shirts and relaxes my back. I am drifting, in a timeless space, warm and relaxed. When I read this is “sunshine yellow”, a mellow, optimistic, energy of being. You may have heard me mention it.
Watching a white puffy cloud slowly swirling itself east, constantly forming, dissipating, and reforming, I close my eyes and drop into the feeling of this moment. Lazily I start to remember childhood summer days, with this feeling of being in the moment, no past, nothing far in the future, just being. Perhaps wondering what game comes next, or what might be for dinner.
I realize that as an adult I operate in a much broader sense of time. In the back of my head are “to do” lists, planning processes waiting to happen. I’m aware of next week, sometimes next month, or even next year. As a young child even in school, I’m perhaps concerned about assignments for tomorrow, or at the outside events that might be a few weeks ahead (a play, or vacation) .
I can feel the weight of this mental calendar in my head, this energetic matrix in which I exist. It extends backwards too, differently, but its there. All the events, emotions, memories that go into how I approach and experience the present. Many are unconscious, but they are there as well.
Lying on the roof, letting my mind drift like the cloud, the thought comes that perhaps this is why kids have so much more energy? they don’t have to maintain this weighty structure of time. They have all their energy in the present, while we are spread over decades. And I realize I can chose this for myself in present time. I can call all of me to be present in this warm moment of being.
So take a few minutes and find a place to relax, in the sun, or a bath, or inside. If you can create a space that evokes your “sunshine yellow” feelings from childhood. Let yourself drift back and remember what its like to release the mental calendar, to just be alive in the moment. Invite your inner child to show you how to do this, and feel yourself come more alive.
No reasoning necessary, just do it because you can, and as a soul you are meant to.
(© 10/2009)
