To invite wonder: a practice

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To invite wonder: a practice
Ten times a day something happens to me like this - some strengthening throb of amazement - some good sweet empathic ping and swell. This is the first, the wildest and the wisest thing I know: that the soul exists and is built entirely out of attentiveness. — Mary Oliver

Learning to pay attention to the world around me saved my spirit from withering and dying.

A few years ago while I was still in Thailand, I discovered a mindful writing practice called 'Small Stones'—a short piece of writing that precisely captures a fully engaged moment. It's about keeping your eyes open for beauty, simple or extraordinary, then observing it and writing it exactly as you saw it and by doing so developing a deeper engagement with the world around you.

It was this practice that helped me to transition back to city, corporate life amidst the glass and concrete without suffocating after living my carefree gypsy scuba-diving lifestyle in a tropical paradise. It was this practice that helped me to discover the beauty in everyday suburban and city life. It was this practice that connected me to the world around me in a very simple yet deep and magical way.

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Another standstill

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Another standstill

There are only 9 weeks left until I take my first steps from Rome to Jerusalem and again I have been brought to a standstill.

I have been pushing myself hard over the last few weeks since the ligaments I tore in my ankle at the end of March healed enough that I could start hiking. I have effectively been working the equivalent of 4 days in 3 as my contract's project moved into a critical phase, plus walking 3 days per week up to 20 kilometres per session, plus finishing the edits on my book so I could try and publish it before I leave, and not to mention trying to finalise plans to walk and pack up my life for 6 months or more.

Then 1 week ago, after back-to-back days walking 16 and 20 kilometres in the Dandenong Ranges and beside the Yarra River wearing the Princess boots, the Morton’s neuroma in my left foot returned. The nerve between my third and fourth metatarsals is compressed and fibrous tissue has formed around it causing constant pain and discomfort.

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The power of silence

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The power of silence
"Silence is a source of great strength." — Lao Tzu

Silence is a continuing theme in my life right now and Lao Tzu’s quote has inspired me again.

Dictionary.com defines silence as the absence of sound; stillness.

I define silence as the great undercurrent that holds everything together.

When sound is absent, there is still something there. If you pay attention and try to hear silence, you can feel it. It is an energy that has a deep and eternal source. It holds us as if in cupped hands even when we’re busy noisemakers, even when we forget that it is there.

It is the silence that carries me when I walk and helps me to keep going when the going gets tough.

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Ending this fall of silence

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Ending this fall of silence
"Silence is a source of great strength." — Lao Tzu

As we transition seasons from Autumn to Winter here in Melbourne, the remainder of the deciduous trees are in the final stages of surrendering their autumn dresses of lemon and lime, and tangerine, wine red and paper-bag brown. And I feel ready to surrender the silence that unexpectedly enveloped me after I fell.

I spent 1.5 weeks on crutches and 3 weeks applying ice for two hours every night to reduce the enormous swelling. An x-ray confirmed it wasn’t broken. However, I tore the anterior talofibular ligament in my ankle almost entirely apart. As you can imagine, this isn’t ideal for someone planning on walking thousands of kilometres. The healing has been steady but slow. And the fall triggered realisations that caused me to surrender plans made:

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The roots of deep delight: a practice

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The roots of deep delight: a practice

“You can become blind by seeing each day as a similar one. Each day is a different one, each day brings a miracle of its own. It's just a matter of paying attention to this miracle.” — Paulo Coelho

 

Every night as the sun sinks below the horizon out of sight, the cicadas praise in chorus, whilst on the periphery life rumbles past in all its rushing normality.

In this moment, that I stop and pay attention to the seeming end of yet another day, I create a sacred space in time, filled with wonder, filled with the essence of holy.

This is my practice — everyday.

I stop and sink deeply into the now with my eyes and heart open. I allow its beauty, its realness, its lights, its newness to infiltrate my bones and root me in the present moment.

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A story about falling and its lessons

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A story about falling and its lessons
"What you can plan is too small for you to live." — David Whyte

For the last six weeks I have danced with an illness that has required me to pull back from boxing, social activities and even walking. I have walked only 10 to 12 kilometres once each when I planned to be walking significantly more by now. Sometimes even this was too far and I had to pull back into rest and stillness. It felt like one step forward, one step back.

Then on Sunday, in one single moment, every thing changed. Unexpectedly, I took a giant step back into a stepless place.

I just finished writing my newsletter, put my computer aside then stood to walk upstairs to fetch my sheets to launder when disaster stuck. The toes of my sleepy left foot curled under and the full weight of my body came down hard on the top of my foot that was touching the ground where the sole should have been. Pain roared instantly and I knew that my foot was badly injured — that it could even be broken.

Standing on my right leg only, I pulled off my ugg boot, looked at my left foot and gasped in horror. On top of my foot was a huge, dark lump, the size of a small chicken egg getting larger by the second. I needed to ice it and elevate it immediately.

I managed to hop to the freezer to grab an ice pack, hop to the bench to grab the phone then hop over to the couch and raise my foot up above my heart. Then the shock kicked in. I phoned friends for help, sobbing that I’d done something really bad to my foot, rang the after hours medical clinic for an appointment so I could avoid spending hours waiting in emergency at a hospital, then lay on the couch shivering from the shock as I waited for my friend Tracy to arrive.

As I waited, I wondered how this would impact my pilgrimage: would it be better if it were broken or just soft tissue damage i.e. which would heal more quickly? Will it heal in time to walk in September? What if it doesn’t heal in time? How would I feel if I had to postpone the pilgrimage?

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The Call of the Wild

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The Call of the Wild
"Your body is made out of clay, so your body is actually a miniature landscape that has got up from under the earth and is now walking on the normal landscape. If you go out for several hours into a place that is wild, your mind begins to slow down, down, down. What is happening is that the clay of your body is retrieving its own sense of sisterhood with the great clay of the landscape." — John O'Donohue  "Walking on the Pastures of Wonder"

“Come to me,” the wild ocean called.

“You’re too far away,” I replied.

“Come to me,” the wild ocean called once again.

“Maybe next weekend,” I bargained.

“Come to me,” the wild ocean insisted.

“Maybe on Sunday. I might be able to get up early to make the long drive worthwhile.”

On Sunday morning, I woke up and again heard the call.

“Come to me.”

“You’re too far away,” I groaned.

“Come to me,” she insisted.

“Maybe in an hour.”

An hour passed and I still thought it was too far to travel for just an hour or so on the ocean's shore.

“Are you coming?” she asked.

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