TRAVELING AT THE SPEED OF BEING

Don’t rush! This is what I’ve been telling myself. Do things in their own time, not mine. For most of my life I’ve been an exemplary Type A personality. The fastest at everything I took on. Now I’m trying to take on less—just one or two things a day. And what I do take on, I let them happen. Try not to push them.

This being slow seems so good for the soul. Yesterday, while lying face down out on the lawn on a deck chair, I noticed some flower petals that had fallen off the rose bushes and landed on the lawn. I noticed how incredibly delicate and beautiful they were—not at all the kind of thing I would have noticed had I been in a hurry to accomplish something.

I admire yogis and monks for their balance. For their solitude and willing to Be rather than to Do. I’m not saying that I’m there yet, but travelling slowly in that direction feels right, feels good.

I’ve been working on a project with two pieces of redwood I found at a local logging conference. The project involves a lot of slow stuff, like sanding and varnishing and spending a lot of time just looking to see if I got it right.

Somehow doing these slow things, being slow, is okay. It’s just fine and allows me to see that I don’t need to be so caught up in the electronic speed of life. Life, in its essence has its own speed, which can be no speed at all. Slowness.

After all, what is the speed of Being?