I started off my morning after breakfast by sitting in silence for about twenty minutes. I never do anything but breathe and watch my thoughts arise and pass away. Since thoughts are not things, they offer no resistance to their impermanence.
The silence is the underpinning of the Soul and no one can be anything but that. And that is enough and plenty.
Now that I am a witness to my thoughts, the silence encourages me to keep letting go until I reach the bedrock of acceptance.
I got dressed and went outside to take a brief walk. I got sidelined when I decided to stop and pull a few weeds between my yard and my neighbors. I pulled up pine seedlings, poplar seedlings and weeds that were easily pulled. Soon I had an armload and walked back to my garage to dispose of them in the garbage can. Then I went back and pulled some more.
I came back in the house and took off my tennis shoes and sat down to rest. Pulling mental weeds is a lot harder than actual weeds you can see. And maybe they have deeper and more persistent roots.
My weedy little self is lazy, self-important and insecure at the same time. Her only goal is firmly out of reach and she is too dumb to discover this.
The game of weed vs. weed is played out in the world everyday. It’s a funny scenario that the human race has going.
At some point political weeds will be pulled up, but more will be planted. The roses and the lilies of the field are not toiling at all. They are not even interested in the battle of the weeds, for it is all they can do to bestow their beauty on a sleeping world.
Vicki Woodyard
This beautiful writing was exquisite — even while describing the pulling of physical and mental weeds. If we can become awake enough, we would do ourselves a world of good by stopping to see and smell
Thank you, Ruth. No matter how hard we try, we cannot save ourselves. A part of us knows this, but another part keeps doggedly trying. We all know how torn we feel.