Sat this evening in the tree. Awareness and presence were a struggle for me today, as my mind clung to the knowledge of how much work I had to accomplish tonight in so little time. I found the evening to be rather disappointing, as there was little bird activity, and the mourning dove calling over and over above me actually irritated me, showing me exactly how caught in my mind I was.
I remembered Tom Brown's reminder that to be aware, one needs 1. Physical comfort, 2. Relaxation, 3. Passive thoughts (meaning not following the train of one thought or another but just letting them all come and go as they will), and 4. A point of focus (breath, sounds, etc).
So I made an effort to physically relax and let my thoughts become passive. After some minutes, I was rewarded with a momentary flash of how absolutely marvelous it was to simply sit in a tree in this world. What a gift to be able to see the variations in pine bark, much less get to hear a dove calling. My underlying tension returned, but only after the gratitude had helped shift my focus.
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