This summer has not only seemed to pass quickly, but the world seems more crowded than ever. Perhaps it's TIME that seems more crowded than ever, and perhaps that's because I turned 70 in June. I think of my Aunt Bride, nearly 90, who has
been saying to me for a few years "It's Monday and then suddenly it's Friday!" I feel a bit like that this summer!
So I examine my relationship with time, and it has led me to a deeper interior practice of taking myself into the present moment throughout
the day. It Is not easy. And yet, I am pulled and fascinated by the moments offered to me by this simple intentional shifting of attention, a dropping into, a kind of coming back to reality. Now.
And so when I came across this quote from Mary Oliver,
I felt and understood it immediately:
The Old Poets of China
Wherever I am the world comes after me.
It offers me busyness. It does not believe
that I do not want it. Now I understand
why the old poets of China went so far and high
into the mountains, then crept into the pale mist.
If I cannot be an old poet of China, I am indeed glad to resonate with Mary Oliver.