45. Slowing time

On an evening when I'm trying to clear a too long to-do list before a trip, though it seems counter-intuitive, I am grateful ... for everything that says, "Slow down."

For the body insisting, "You need to eat now."

For the Bach playing overhead at the place where I sat down to eat a sandwich at a real table. I don't remember its name, but I played it in high school, so listening tonight, I could enjoy the current note and also anticipate where it was going (but maybe not both at the same nanosecond).

For the calming rhythm of the evening insects at the community garden when I went to water, and their kin outside my open windows.

For the pause of a full tank of gas, a packed suitcase, and the acceptance of the running out of time before a trip commences, knowing whatever we carry (in our suitcases and in ourselves) will be enough, and we will be met where and as we are.

And for what I might learn about all this from Barbara Mahany's just-published book Slowing Time: Seeing the Sacred Outside Your Kitchen Door, which I have yet to touch, because I'm going to do the slow, old-fashioned thing and walk into a bookstore and find it on the shelves and take it to a counter and make eye contact and small talk with the person who will sell it to me.

I can see only the first few pages at the link above, but it's enough so I can anticipate that my eyes, mind, heart will accompany her words through a year, starting with this in the first chapter.

Deep in the truth of all of us lies the rough draft that demands edit after edit. 

And so we are blessed, those of us who keep time, who trace the day, the week, the year in spiral.  

It is, at heart, a geometry of promise, hope, and most of all, ascension. It offers us the chance, over and over, to come back to that sacred moment when we stand at the crest of the hill, cast arms wide, salute the heavens, shake off the dirt and dust, remap our route, and see if this time 'round we might inch higher toward the summit.

— Barbara Mahany

What was momentous for you today?

I couldn't find my current analog watch to take a photo,
so I found this 10-year-old sketch of a previous watch,
which depicts time doubly:
the time it keeps,
and the time it took to draw.