"Realize deeply that the present moment is all you have. Make the NOW the primary focus of your life."
― Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment
My 10-year-old daughter told me that her "lifelong dream" was to go zip lining. So when we found ourselves in Big Sky Montana last week, with time to kill while her brother was golfing, we felt it was time to realize that dream.
I would not have gone ziplining last week of my own volition. I would have been happy to ride the chair lift to the top of the mountain and go for a hike, followed by reading my book by the pool. But, instead, I found myself learning how to wear a zip harness and adjusting a helmet before hiking up a mountain to attach myself to a small line to jump off ledges and run off cliffs.
My daughter is petite, but don't mistake her small stature for a small personality. She is bold, fearless, and enthusiastic. All of this became clear as we stood at the different platforms; while adults swallowed and dug deep to overcome fear, this tiny human stepped up and off with boldness and fearlessness that put grown men to shame. (She had surgery a few years ago, and the anesthesiologist marveled at her, he was having trouble finding a vein, she didn't look away once and even pointed out to him the vein he should try. He said to me later, I've had grown men pass out at less.)
The experience of zip lining was an experience of what Ekhart Tolle calls now. I wasn't thinking about what was for dinner, the politics of golf, or the next book I was going to read when I stood at the edge of a platform about to jump off with just a rope attached to a line holding me. It was smaller and deeper lived out. Smaller because there was only one thing-jumping off the platform, surrendering to the moment and the process. Deeper because I trusted all the seen and unseen hands that I believed had done their part to keep my daughter and me safe.
On the last line, the guide told Delana how to hang upside down, just pull down on the rope, lean back and hook your toes around the string and let go! (It's that easy!) Before she jumped, the guide said, "Are you going to do it?" She was noncomital when she jumped but, midway through a 20-second zip, there was my 10-year-old daughter hanging upside down, feet wrapped arms dangling.
When I made my way to the platform, the guide said, "Your daughter did it; you can't let her be the only one, Mom." Turns out I can't turn down a challenge either. I, too, found myself hanging upside down, hurling through the timbers at the base of a 10,000-foot mountain.
I love to see a young girl go out and grab the world by the lapels… You've got to go out and kick ass."
― Maya Angelou
I want my daughter to know that she can do hard things. That she has what it takes to face challenges. That fear doesn't get the last word.
I also want her to live her life, have real experiences, not just watch zip lining on YouTube, but to really ride on a zip line. I want her to feel the feels of being attached to a small line and running off a cliff, and feeling her body swept off the ground and propelled forward.
It's powerful to reflect on the lessons learned. Writing smaller and deeper is my weekly invitation to cull through the highs and lows, exciting and mundane moments of my week looking for where the treasure was. What was small but also deep? What was simple and yet just under the surface profound?
Always say "yes" to the present moment. What could be more futile, more insane, than to create inner resistance to what already is? What could be more insane than to oppose life itself, which is now and always now? Surrender to what is. Say "yes" to life — and see how life suddenly starts working for you rather than against you."
― Eckhart Tolle
I played several games of solitaire with real cards this week. My son was working on a summer school assignment, and I picked up a deck of cards. It hit me as I shuffled and flipped cards that I couldn't remember when I used REAL cards to play solitaire. Usually, I just open an AP on my phone. REAL cards were actually way more fun. I didn't have to wait out any advertisements or tolerate silly graphics. Just like REAL zip lining was way more exhilarating than YouTube videos. Maybe do something REAL this week. Play solitaire with real cards, find something that you do or watch on the interwebs, and experience the REAL experience rather than being a consumer to be sold to.
“It's powerful to reflect on the lessons learned. Writing smaller and deeper is my weekly invitation to cull through the highs and lows, exciting and mundane moments of my week looking for where the treasure was. What was small but also deep? What was simple and yet just under the surface profound”
It’s also YOUR invitation to reflect on your life. Where can you spot smaller & deeper in your week?
Thank you for all the messages about books! I left out my reading updates last week, and I heard from several people about book recommendations and how much this section is helpful!
Just Finished:
Underland: A Deep Time Journey by Robert Macfarlane
I'm really torn on this book. It was a discipline read for me. On the one hand, it was so, so interesting. It's about exploring the "Underland’s" of our world. The deep caves, hidden rivers, ancient burial tombs, sewers, and literal underworlds of cities, glaciers fissures, and potash mines under the ocean. I learned so much. I feel like I can hardly look at the ground, mountains, caves, springs in the same way.
BUT, it was at moments a plodding read. I read a lot, and it took me two weeks to read this book. It was one-fourth science, one-fourth travel, one-fourth philosophy, and one-fourth alarmist. I know people who would love it, and I know people who would hate it. I had to give myself permission to skim pages (and pages, and pages) because while I got bogged down (often), it was such interesting ideas that I didn't want to quit.
(I HIGHLY recommend the book The Lost Words by Robert McFarlane- It's a children's book that is magical. It's a "dictionary" of words (all nature-related words) that have been taken out of the Oxford Children's Dictionary and replaced with words like Blog, Bitcoin, and virtual meeting.)
If you aren’t sure you are up for the book, but you are curious. I heard this podcast before I read the book, its great and you’ll get a good idea about the author and the book.
We all carry trace fossils within us – the marks that the dead and the missed leave behind. Handwriting on an envelope; the wear on a wooden step left by footfall; the memory of a familiar gesture by someone gone, repeated so often it has worn its own groove in both air and mind: these are trace fossils too. Sometimes, in fact, all that is left behind by loss is trace – and sometimes empty volume can be easier to hold in the heart than presence itself."
- Robert Macfarlane, Underland: A Deep Time Journey
A book I can't stop thinking about:
The Art of Hearing Heartbeats by Jan-Philipp Sendker
I don't know how I discovered this book, but I LOVED it. It's set in Burma in the 1950s and present-day New York. A father and successful attorney disappears. His daughter Julia discovered an old love letter. She travels back to her father's homeland of Burma to try and understand the story. It was lovely, magical, and un-put-down-able for me. I LOVE books set in Asia. I spent a few hours in a border town of Myanmar (formally Burma) during (funnily enough) the SARS pandemic of 2002. So while I really have no knowledge of Burma, I had a little memory to draw from. This is the first of a three-part series. The third book was just released in the past month. I haven't read it yet, but I will because I loved the first two so much.
"Our sensory organs love to lead us astray, and eyes are the most deceptive of all. We rely too heavily upon them. We believe that we see the world around us, and yet it is only the surface that we perceive. We must learn to divine the true nature of things, their substance, and the eyes are rather a hindrance than a help in that regard. They distract us. We love to be dazzled. A person who relies too heavily on his eyes neglects his other senses—and I mean more than his hearing or sense of smell. I'm talking about the organ within us for which we have no name. Let us call it the compass of the heart."
― Jan-Philipp Sendker, The Art Of Hearing Heartbeats
(I try and pay attention to words or phrases that stand out to me in my reading and listening. There is a spiritual practice called Florliledgium that collects short, interesting pieces {words that “sparkle” up} and put them together. This is kind of like that. Watching for things that sparkle. Gathering them and seeing how they work together and what message, mantra, or new idea might arise.)
A Practice:
Read slowly.
Notice if a word or phrase stands out to you.
How do the words make you feel?
Is there an invitation?
(I’m sharing in italics the lines that stand out to me in these passages. Maybe it’s the same, or maybe it’s different, there is much food for thought in each of these passages)
"All negativity is caused by an accumulation of psychological time and denial of the present. Unease, anxiety, tension, stress, worry - all forms of fear - are caused by too much future, and not enough presence. Guilt, regret, resentment, grievances, sadness, bitterness, and all forms of non-forgiveness are caused by too much past, and not enough presence."
― Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment
"shelter what is precious, to yield what is valuable, and to dispose of what is harmful. Shelter (memories, precious matter, messages, fragile lives). Yield (information, wealth, metaphors, minerals, visions). Dispose (waste, trauma, poison, secrets). Into the Underland we have long placed that which we fear and wish to lose, and that which we love and wish to save. I Descending"
― Robert Macfarlane, Underland: A Deep Time Journey
The most significant gifts are the ones most easily overlooked. Small, everyday blessings: woods, health, music, laughter, memories, books, family, friends, second chances, warm fireplaces, and all the footprints scattered throughout our days."
-Sue Monk Kidd
