Confessions of a Slow Poke

Tortoises and snails have no qualms about taking their time. Their plodding and inching takes on a certain dignity. Carrying their beautiful shells on their backs they move through space almost outside of time or in a way that redefines it. As I age, they are my heroes and role models.

Insisting on moving at a pace more appropriate to a former self may work for a while but eventually only finds me up against a stand off between me as I am and a previous incarnation, that is… my younger self and that which I am in the process of becoming. Recently, I heard someone say that strength comes in many guises. This was a helpful cue to my “younger self”/body that she might safely step back from the front lines of flexing her muscles and resisting the passage of time.

Summer arrived just in time, her billowing and languorous spell a testament to the full grace of seasonal change. Though I saw her coming, I wasn’t prepared for the power of her presence. My earthling body was WAY out of practice for this more expansive sensibility. After all, it had been twelve months since this invitation had been made, the invitation to bask in the light and give hospitality to the deeper recesses of myself.

Seasonal transitions bring with them a shift in tempo. To ignore this fact is to suffer a rhythmic disconnect. To pause on the threshold of the change may not deflect a full catastrophe but can soften the blow. The sheer indulgence of noticing the change brings an almost imperceptible gasp of every cell.

And, now, having paused so long, Summer will soon cede to Autumn. The shadows are deepening, the light has taken on an amber glow and mornings and evenings are foggy and cool. The spiders are busily spinning their webs which glimmer everywhere the architect sometimes resting quietly in the center sometimes dangling on a distant thread.

I too feel suspended, hold my breath before the F

A

L

L.

Holding still just long enough one might feel and hear the groaning turn of the earth as she catches the light on her belly. How S-L-O-W can you go?