The Clearing…
By Martha Postlethwaite
Do not try to save the whole world
or do anything grandiose.
Instead, create
a clearing
in the dense forest
of your life
and wait there
patiently,
until the song
that is your life
falls into your own cupped hands
and you recognize and greet it.
Only then will you know
how to give yourself
to this world
so worthy of rescue.
I stumbled upon this poem recently and it resonated deeply. We’re at a time here in New Zealand where we are forced to slow down, potentially to reassess. Being at home with fewer distractions, the monotony of staying in one place can affect all of us in different ways. In fact, it’s completely futile to compare.
One thing is for sure though; things are uncertain. There seems to be not too much in terms of stable ground to stand upon and the consumption of information, news, and opinion just further exacerbates the inner tension that many feel at the moment.
So, it’s my hope that anyone reading this might take some time to clear some space -mentally, emotionally, physically. This takes a simplification of many aspects of our lives and we can do this in the following ways:
- Taking time each morning to sit in undistracted silence and process emotions by feeling them
- Consuming less media and news, and if we do use screens, choosing to be mindful with what we are on
- Clearing our cupboards, closets, drawers of stuff we no longer need and disposing of it in a responsible way
When we clear our lives this way, we create space that we don’t need to fill with more, but in fact can leave open and fresh.
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Claire Robbie is the Founder of The School of Modern Meditation - an online meditation school that offers over 20 classes a week for only $20.