Love deepens through awareness
Allow your mishaps to make other plans for you
Watch the way of rain when it falls slow and free
Love deepens through awareness
One thing that we learned in Venice was to be ready for anything as we walked around the canals. We had multiple people put up their umbrellas millimeters away from my nose, stop on a dime and turn around completely to go the other way around the canal, and even one sneeze I narrowly avoided. In a city that pretty much met my predictions I had in terms of its unique grandeur while being very touristy, I found that I was paying more attention to the ways in which people can be unpredictable. As my awareness of my expectation changed to not expect people to walk all the same at the same pace and make a turn signal noise when they were going to change directions, I was able to avoid getting my nose taken off by a fast opening umbrella, to avoid a complete chest bump with a stranger as they make a split-second decision to do a 180 degree turn, and avoid the much dreaded stranger sneeze in your face. It reminded me that love asks of us to increasingly deepen our awareness and expect the unexpected of the mystery of every moment – not just of myself, but of Kait, and of our surroundings. As awareness deepens it gives us clarity to love the bigger picture of reality and empowers us to change what we are now aware of or to change our relationship to that focus of awareness. As Darwin has Darwin’d, “Attention if sudden and close, graduates into surprise; and this into astonishment; and this into stupefied amazement.” All I know is that I am now attentive to how that quote uses a lot of punctuation and that love deepens through awareness.
Allow your mishaps to make other plans for you
So we tried to go to Murano, and we ended up at Lido. We had the idea to take one of the Venice ferries out to get some dinner and see the glass blowing we had heard about on the island of Murano. It all was going well until after many stops it looked like we had crossed from the main island out to the island we saw on the map. Without double checking, we got off the ferry and walked onto what we thought was Murano. Pretty quickly we realized we were on Lido. With a quick guffaw, we went to find some dinner. I loved how quickly both Kait and I were up for the adventure of exploring somewhere different than we had intended and embracing a mistake as an opportunity to explore somewhere we may not have gone to if we didn’t try not to go there. You know what I mean?! It seems like a good idea in travel to let go of the plans you had when your mishaps make other plans for you. It sure was fun when we embraced that 🙂
Watch the way of rain when it falls slow and free
It was raining the whole time we were in Venice. And at that point in our trip we had been as the kids say “doing too much.” The classic temptation of an American Euro trip is to try to pack in too much into a short trip because travel in Europe is so easy. So, the rain really slowed us down literally and we found ourselves haphazardly under the Rialto bridge sipping some drinks. We did not know it was the Rialto bridge at the time, it just started pouring rain and we needed a quick refuge, and it just so happened that there was a cave-like cafe nestled up to the edge of the bridge that looked cozy with a pristine view. After seeing so many other people stop and take a picture in front of the bridge we thought this must be something. The rain slowed us down and we watched the way of rain as it fell “slow and free.”
For One Who Is Exhausted, a Blessing
By: John O’Donohue
When the rhythm of the heart becomes hectic,
Time takes on the strain until it breaks;
Then all the unattended stress falls in
On the mind like an endless, increasing weight.
The light in the mind becomes dim.
Things you could take in your stride before
Now become laborsome events of will.
Weariness invades your spirit.
Gravity begins falling inside you,
Dragging down every bone.
The tide you never valued has gone out.
And you are marooned on unsure ground.
Something within you has closed down;
And you cannot push yourself back to life.
You have been forced to enter empty time.
The desire that drove you has relinquished.
There is nothing else to do now but rest
And patiently learn to receive the self
You have forsaken in the race of days.
At first your thinking will darken
And sadness take over like listless weather.
The flow of unwept tears will frighten you.
You have traveled too fast over false ground;
Now your soul has come to take you back.
Take refuge in your senses, open up
To all the small miracles you rushed through.
Become inclined to watch the way of rain
When it falls slow and free.
Imitate the habit of twilight,
Taking time to open the well of color
That fostered the brightness of day.
Draw alongside the silence of stone
Until its calmness can claim you.
Be excessively gentle with yourself.
Stay clear of those vexed in spirit.
Learn to linger around someone of ease
Who feels they have all the time in the world.
Gradually, you will return to yourself,
Having learned a new respect for your heart
And the joy that dwells far within slow time.
