Life of Life

In all of the exhaustion of soul-searching and questioning and reevaluating the past few weeks, I find that my mind has been so caught up in looking ahead that I have gotten a little lost in the here-and-now.

I’ve been trying really hard to stay focused, but I keep finding myself getting anxious and distracted as I try to figure it all out.

I find myself hitting two places in particular for help.  My knees and my mat.  Then my knees again.  Usually in that order.

Yesterday, I was there again, and we have my six year old to thank for documenting it.  She has discovered the camera and thinks yoga is so fun to photograph.  :)

When I saw this picture later, I laughed at how fitting it was…there I was, seeking serenity in the midst of my chaotic family room, toys everywhere.  Just like my mind.  Seeking presence, clarity, and focus, in the midst of all the debris I was hurling at myself.

I read a friend’s blog the other day, along with my sister’s.  Amazingly, they both spoke of contentment in the present, and on not missing out on what we are living right in this moment.  I found myself thinking about it again last night.

I am really busy.  While I try all day long to educate my children, be a good mother, take care of our home, not to mention trying to coordinate small businesses and many other things that I am involved in, I’ve been trying to educate myself, as well, on how to “change the world,” for lack of a better phrase.  And in all that educating, I’m trying to plan and figure out a future that I have no idea how to make work.

With all of that mental debris, I can’t focus on any one thing well enough to make a difference.  Including my children.

It couldn’t continue any more, but I felt at a loss.

I still didn’t have all the answers.  So I hit my knees again, and finally, the answer came.

I have to focus my efforts on the highest priorities, my children, and have faith that the answers and the guidance to the rest will come as I do my best.

Today’s been clearer.  So much better.  I still don’t have all the answers.  But I do have more peace that they will come.

It’s amazing…in all of the running and stress, I can’t make the answers come myself.

Today I just took pictures of them, just as they are.  My little women.  The reason I am fighting so hard.  How I love them. :)

Look to this day

for it is life

the very life of life.

In its brief course lie all

the realities and truths of existence

the joy of growth

the splendor of action

the glory of power.

For yesterday is but a memory

And tomorrow is only a vision.

But today well lived
makes every yesterday a memory of happiness
and every tomorrow a vision of hope.

Look well, therefore, to this day.

– Ancient Sanskrit poem

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