Time

For most of us life gets incredibly busy. I know that my days tend to revolve around work and meetings and fitting everything in around school hours and then school homework, just to make time more crammed and stressed along with a multitude of other boxes that need to be ticked. Rushing from one thing to another, losing sight, making time pressured.

Sometimes we have to make ourselves stop and take time out and remind ourselves of the things that really matter. Slow down time.
Taking time off from work and being at home sounds great, but then it’s difficult not to be distracted by jobs that have been left undone and another different level of work starts to happen, cleaning, tidying, decorating, gardening and on and on it goes.

Today, hot sun, blue skies (again!) Me and daughter pack two towels, food and drink and walk through fields of cut hay, lying drying in the sun, waiting to be made into bales. Always an indicator as to how long the dry weather will last is how quickly the local farmers process the cut grass. Our farmers appear to be in no rush to create bales. Turning the grass reguarly to make sure the moisture is being driven out.

Onwards we walk to the river, just four fields from my house, to meet two villagers for a picnic and a swim. Food is shared and enjoyed, stories are told. The sun is hot and the river inviting. The coolness of water as we swim is refreshing and the setting is stunning. Laughter fills the air as we slip on wet rocks as we make our way downstream, swimming and paddling as we make our way to surprise a neighbour by emerging from the river and into their garden that sits quietly by the river. Greeted by the neighbour as if people emerging from the river into their secluded garden happens on a daily basis.

We eventually swim our way back to our abandoned picnic.Reflecting on how lucky we are to be surrounded by such views, hidden swimming pools and good neighbours. Reflecting on how easy it is to stop noticing what we have around us and to become bogged down in the daily grind and forget to stop…slow time down and look around.

The day has been long and we say our good byes and plan other adventures for days to come.
Walking back over just four fields towards home, with a happy heart, my childs hand in mine, feeling incredibly lucky.

Ulpha

This rugged landscape

Rests gently upon my eye,

Dry stone walls

Bisecting bracken green

or bracken brown

Seasons.

Coolness of slate grey and

rich warmness of iron ore

Cutting through where man hued

and toiled.

Fells rising either side

Herdwicks silhouetted on mountain tops

Rowans standing rock-fast

Defiant to the shaping blast of

Wind changing name changing

Mountain Ash.

just thinking and cycling…

…cycling towards the lake today, still negotiating branches strewn on roads, hearing the buzz of chainsaws in the wood, dealing with the storm damage…thinking that we often have 70mph winds rage down through the valley, with no resulting damage. Got me thinking to how in Taiji we often use tree analagies…be rooted, yield, be like bamboo…thinking about these trees that were twisted, lifted and then thrown into fields on Friday/Saturday…thinking that these trees had been growing and yielding to winds usually from a south-westerly direction and then were caught out by a wind from a different direction; thinking about the amount of rain last year that would’ve undermined the trees roots and weakened their structure…thinking about trees in woods, that have other trees surrounding them, competing for space, other trees pressing in around them….thinking this is very like the human condition…that outwardly we may appear strong but if something has been slowly undermining our roots, stopping us from being grounded then our structure (mentally/physically) will eventually topple…thinking that if we have too many demands put on us; by others around us, family, work, society, (the wood), emotional stresses leaning upon us then it only takes an undexpected stress to topple an already weakened person…just thinking and cycling…thinking maybe those old Taoists’ knew a thing or two…