Learning to Sit

In the "balance" of life, which is more of an ideal than a reality, I find myself on the go most of the time. Even when my job requires that I sit at the computer for hours, my mind is often going a mile a minute. The fullness of life has caused Fawn and I to do a lot of her home study work in the evenings... so the idea of down time has been a little elusive. 

However, in the intense beauty of early autumn, I am learning something new. Sitting doesn't need to wait for the right moment. I don't need to get all of my work finished first; being done is only an imaginary concept anyway. The epiphany here is that in the middle of it all, I can take ten or even twenty minutes to sit down with both my body and my mind, and just be. And you know what? It doesn't mess my day up at all. It makes everything that much better.

With this spot waiting for me, how can I not sit? Yet the days slip quickly by, and I may not make it into this chair for a week or more. The Zen idea, "Devote time to sitting," is making more and more sense.

Yes, there is canning and dehydrating to do. But this is also the time to soak it all up and appreciate the gifts of the garden.  I would never have guessed that we'd have a huge ripe beefsteak tomato in our garden. (We grow lots of green tomatoes, but not necessarily red ones.) Better to sit and marvel for a moment instead of hastily chopping it up for the dehydrator...

...because as it turns out, an important part of being ready for winter is having enjoyed summer and fall.

This was tonight's sunset as seen from above the asparagus garden, reminding me that the natural world provides every reason to learn to sit.