Fully Present

When I get into my busy mode--which I'm in today--it's difficult for me to be fully present to my life. Frances is an awesome teacher for me. We both walked into the forest to collect more firewood this morning. While we walked I saw that Frances stopped, paused, looked around, and listened. Me? I was on task and focused solely on the job at hand. Who do you think was fully inhabiting her life?

Later, when I returned to the woods by myself after Frances left to complete other errands, I took more time to look and listen. It felt wonderful to engage myself with the trees surrounding me, to appreciate the beauty, and to soak in the quiet. Would I have done this if I hadn't followed Frances's role modeling from earlier in the day? Probably not.

This experience reminded of a Daily Good quote from last week:

Have the life you want by being fully present to the life you have.
          --Mark Nepo

I practiced T'ai Chi Chih mid-afternoon after I'd pulled in about six sledloads of firewood. My body felt tired and sore, but the T'ai Chi Chih practice (I performed some sitting down and some standing up) helped me to relax my muscles and let go of the residual load I still carried. Now I'm ready to move on to my next set of chores while I remind myself to be fully present to the life I have.