As Clouds Sail By

About a week ago I was sitting at my desk by the window early one morning looking out at the sky. What I was supposed to be doing was sitting with my eyes closed listening to the guided meditation I had pulled up on my laptop. However, the sun was pouring through the window after days and days of grey skies and rain, and I could not make myself keep my eyes closed because I was so starved for sunlight. I remembered what I head heard Ram Dass, the great spiritual teacher, say about meditation, that it wasn't only sitting with your eyes closed repeating a mantra, but that it could be almost anything that you can put your full attention on: going for a walk, washing dishes, staring at a candle flame. So I decided to make my meditation that morning about the sky and I was so glad that I did because I would have missed one amazing show if I had kept my eyes closed.

The sky had turned a pearly blue and cotton ball clouds of all sizes and densities were sailing across the sky. I use the term sailing because the new weather front was being blown in by a healthy northwest wind. The clouds reminded me of when sailboats go flying across the waves. The whole thing was remarkable and for a while I just sat there watching the race and wishing with all of my heart that I was soaring up there with them. It did not matter what I should have been doing or could have been doing. There was no where I needed to be or nothing I needed to do more than sit there and soar with those clouds. No guided meditation or mantra could have given me what I got that morning from just taking the time to sit and go with the flow: the chance for my spirit to fly.

As I've gotten older I've learned that there is a divine order to life and that if we just stop and breathe once in a while, and listen to our intuition, it will all unfold as it is meant to be. It's like planting a seed and wondering why we don't get the entire flower all at once. First come the shoots, then the stem, then the leaves, and, finally, the flower. We miss so much in life by trying to force things to be the way we think they should be. There is a natural process to life and, just like the flower, it will grow with the right amount of nurturing and love.

So the next time you find yourself going over your to-do list, make sure you let the No. 1 item be the time to sit and take a few minutes to watch life unfold one cloud, one bird, one breath at a time. I'll bet the view gets a lot better after that.

And so it is.