Bad habits ...

I really came here to finish a post I've been starting to write weeks ago. After writing a couple of sentences though, I heard there was a new text message on my cellphone and went to fetch it. Rising from my chair I suddenly felt all giddy, like my head was spinning. It took a while until everything turned back from black to normal and I sat there wondering what had caused this qualm when I realized I had not eaten anything but a few crackers for almost 48 hours. Can you believe it, I had simply forgotten to eat – again! I remember having thought about preparing some kind of lunch for myself yesterday but being all absorbed in what I was doing, I didn't want to stop and postponed the idea. Later the hunger must have ceased for I really do not remember having wasted another thought on eating ever since. When I got up this morning my mind was already so filled with ideas and plans for the day, I never thought of breakfast. There might have been the slightest notion that something was missing, I admit, but I didn't feel hungry at all and so I postponed eating, once more.
This tends to happen a lot to me lately and I'm sure it's a really bad habit, especially as I'm already a very poor 'drinker'. I never feel thirsty and as a result I forget to drink. Often I'll realize at night that I haven't nearly drunk the liter of water or tea that I intended to (I know it's still too little but all I manage most of the time). This goes so far that several people send me text messages, reminding me to drink. Like the one I had just stood up for. It was my mother asking whether I'm drinking sufficiently. What am I to tell her? "Well thanks, mom! Yes, I have tea here, alright. But please remind me of eating, will you ...?". She'll think I have gone nuts.

I guess I'll put up notes "Intake Of Food!" for myself at significant places. The computer screen might be a good idea. Or the mirror. And maybe I should put post-its on all the books I'm reading. If I get any thinner, I'll fit into kid's apparel, which is not really my intention. This has to stop. Anybody out there with a good idea how to remind oneself of eating? Isn't the body meant to perform this by suggesting a feeling of hunger? What's wrong with me? I have once read that this happened to Albert Einstein a lot – forgetting to eat or drink, that is. Just – I'm afraid the ideas that preoccupy myself aren't half as profound ...

Okay, I'll get myself something to eat. Though the hunger is already gone again, writing. Yeah, still – I'll eat. Promise.

The Wonder of It All

Do you ever wonder
at the wonder of it all?

Do you ever stand in awe
of the tiniest things
and how perfectly they work together?

Do you ever stop to think
about all the possibilities
and how even though they have no limit
they grow in number with every minute?

Do you ever wonder
when the leaves flutter down in autumn
at the incomprehensible power of life
that brings them back in spring?

Do you watch the waves roll in
and then look out far beyond them
where the water seems to touch the sky
and realize
that the vast expanse before your eyes
is only a small little corner
of all there really is?

And do you comprehend that all there really is,
as unimaginably grand as it may seem,
is only a smaller corner still
of all that there can be?

Do you ever wonder
how love can stay alive
past every pleasure and every pain
and even when there can be no hope
there is more than ever?

Do you ever struggle to lift a heavy rock and wonder
how a massive mountain can rise
thousands of feet above the plain
without even trying?

Do you ever realize that
no matter how much you may know,
no matter how many wonders you may have experienced,
there will always, always be more?

Do you ever wonder
why it is you wonder
and why you know what beauty is
even though you can't define it?

Do you ever wonder
who is doing the wondering,
who is looking out through your eyes
and feeling completely at home
with the wonder of it all?

Whatever you believe,
whatever you profess,
whatever you doubt or fear or hope for,
there are some things
your heart cannot deny
when you let go
and let yourself know
the wonder of it all.

Copyright © 2003 Ralph S. Marston

Healing

Yes, I'm back and very much alive again. Like an injured animal I secluded myself, withdrawing into the wilderness, licking my wounds ...

Last month, when it was coming close on Christmas, I felt I just couldn't cope anymore. I abandoned work, family and friends, Christmas and New Year's Eve and escaped into the mountains, seeking quietness, seeking salvation, seeking clarity.

And I found it there – in the snow, in the silent depth of the forests, in the damp pillowy moss, lying like green carpets in the sun wherever the snow didn't reach. I found it in the beauty of the countless icicles and in the soft sound of the frozen mountain brooks, flowing on and on underneath their bizarre icy covers.
It was a different world from the summer mountains altogether, quiet and almost motionless. The snow deadened every noise with the exception of the gnashing sound of my steps and my breath. Being outside all day and in all weather, experiencing nature and realizing how everything is coherent and interdependent made me understand how this is also true for my own life. I found myself looking at all that snow and ice and water, understanding how they are all connected, how they are all one despite being different from one another, each with it's own beauty and own purpose and yet none better than or superior to each other, and I found myself looking at the bare trees, thinking of how they will start to bud again soon, nurtured by soil that was once leaves ... reflecting on nature's diversity and constant change I became aware of how this is true for everything in this world, how I am also part of this nature, subject to change, bound to it's laws and the universal principle of life: everything is subject to impermanence. And that's that. The universe won't make an exception just because it's me out there.

Trying to internalize this simple truth, raising a deeper and deeper awareness, I suddenly found I felt all peaceful and blithe. At first I didn't dare trust this new found peace of mind but the fears and worries did not return. Instead I felt so energetic again, so soulful, grateful and brimful of life.

I needed to move, I felt like dancing up the mountains but the amount of snow stopped me and finally I went ... snowshoeing! What a revelation! You get everywhere, places you wouldn't reach in the deep snow, not on foot and certainly not on ski. I managed to reach summits I had been to last summer ... and what a different sight now in the snow. I was warned beforehand not to leave certain areas to avoid disturbing the animals in their dormant, but still – everything in front of me seemed like a vast whiteness, completely quiet and devoid of human life. All I found were animal tracks and odd marks left by tiny blobs of snow, skidding down the slopes. The single snow crystals were the biggest I had ever seen, some almost the size of a fingernail, and they twinkled and sparkled like huge diamonds in the sun. Everything was so breathtakingly beautiful and I found myself filled with wonder again and again.

What can I say. I came home full of tranquility and contentment. Confidently looking forward to everything this new year will bring, all the change to the better or the worse ... I'll try to carry it with more wisdom than I managed in the past ... finally living up to my old motto:

"I would love to live like a river flows, carried by the surprise of it's own unfolding." (John O'Donohue)