here and now

The Tree that Reminded Me to Appreciate What Is

Posted by Barbara Techel

This is the view outside my kitchen window. Beyond the tree is an athletic field and a walking path that winds around it. To the north of the field is a small woods where I love to walk. Though with the snow we’ve had it’s made it hard to get to the woods and so I’ve not been there in some time.

Working from home and as much as I love my writing cottage and hibernating in the winter, this time of year as we edge toward spring I can begin to feel a bit antsy. I’m ready for more color and warmer temperatures.

But there was something about this view out the window that called out to me after I came home from a walk several times around the walking path. I was feeling a bit down with the weather of cold and no sun and realized this view was reminding me to appreciate what is right now. It was as if the tree was reminding me to appreciate this time of quiet and stillness that winter brings with it.

Soon enough kids will be riding their bikes down the path laughing and yelling out to each other, I’ll hear neighbor dogs barking again, church bells ringing, and lawnmowers humming. And I will welcome this.

But I was also thinking about how when I walked round and round the path how I relished the quiet. The only thing I heard was a lone crow call out and the wind rustling through the pine trees. Just being out in nature was so uplifting. 

It was a great reminder to enjoy the here and now…and just like the end of summer when my ears will be wishing for quiet, I’ll remind myself then too to enjoy what is right now because soon enough the stillness will come once again.

And I don’t know about you, but the older I get, the faster the seasons seem to come and go. So it seems to me practicing this being in the present is really the best gift we can give ourselves every day.

xo,

Barbara

The Tug and Pull – An Opportunity to Be in the Here and Now.

Posted by Barbara Techel

This morning during my meditation it started out with me sinking into the corner of the sofa and feeling quite calm. Then I noticed within a few moments that my mind began to wander and off into worryland it went.

I tried to just watch my mind as an observer —trying to stay detached to it — and trying not to get caught up in the drama it was creating. After all, I reminded myself, these were just thoughts I was having. Nothing was actually happening at that moment as all alone was I, sitting on the sofa in my quiet and safe home. 

My thoughts first drifted back to the past – thinking about something I’ve learned and how I wanted to identify with that teaching as a ‘mistake’ or wishing I had done better. I found myself in the spiral of self-judgment. Then I felt it physically in my body as my stomach began to feel like it had a knot in it.

Then my mind drifted to the future as I thought about the release of my next memoir in early 2020. What will become of it, I wondered? I then noted this tug and pull going on in my stomach. As if the right side was pulling the left side and vice Versa and back and forth it went. Soon enough I realized my shoulders were just about up under my ears! Very uncomfortable!

I dropped my shoulders, but still felt the tug and pull in my stomach. A moment later the last oracle card I pulled as I did a fall equinox reading for myself last night flashed into my mind. 

The card I pulled was, “Here and Now,” and the question I asked was from an oracle spread created by intuitive Jessica Paschke. It was basically asking what I’d bring with me from the past of what I learned into the next season of winter. 

The minute I conjured up the image of that card in my mind and saw the words again of here and now, I observed that the tug and pull in my stomach stopped. I was having those feelings again of wanting to control an outcome, be guaranteed security, and know all will be well — a pattern that I know many of us have – and one I realized once again that I can change at any time I choose.

After I was done meditating I pulled the card back out again from the deck to look at it and re-read my journal entry. The line I wrote that jumped out to me is: “In the present moment is where my power is!”

It’s so easy to give our power away, but then when we do we suffer. When I looked at the image again the past and future signposts jumped out at me. I was reminded to take with me what I’ve learned from the past – and that living in the past (my old story) does not serve my well-being. What I can take from it is the new awareness I have of what I’ve learned in order to create a better future – even though I don’t always know precisely what the future holds.

My eye then traveled to the sweet being sitting on the egg. The egg is symbolic of new life and hope. I appreciated also the open window on the egg — as if a window to my inner world and how if I stay open to receiving and in touch with how the universe is always supporting me, I will be just fine.

XO,

Barbara

Card from Wisdom of the Oracle deck my Colette Baron-Reid.