Weekend Words

Leisure is a rare commodity in this time, and we need it.

Nobody fritters away any time, and of course time is too valuable to fritter away. 

But the spirit needs renewing and what a renewal a little quiet time can be!  One needs to look at the sky, at the countryside.  Or in the city, one needs to sit on a park bench half an hour or an hour and just not be doing anything.  A good many problems solve themselves if one is quietly looking as the stars come out.  Fatigue blows away in the stir of evening air.  Even grief is lessened when one sits quietly in the dusk as the fire-flies light the meadow.

We busy ourselves too much.  Now and then the well of our spirit needs time to fill up so that we can draw from it again.  And when someone says to me that he or she cannot bear to be alone, I always feel sad for it means the level in the well is so low that no bucket can reach it.  Also the people who skim like water bugs over the surface of life are in a bad way when they need spiritual depth to sustain them.  But those who are able to have a quiet time for a small piece of day always find an amour against trouble.  

In June I find it easy to drop everything and sit in the garden and watch the butterflies and admire the opening roses.  Suddenly I feel the wideness of the universe and gain a new sense of well-being.  My thoughts are not profound.  I think about how much the lemon thyme has spread over the flagstones.  I think, without anxiety, that we ought to do something about the rose canes next fall.  I think the wasps should not gather right under the arm of my chair.  But chiefly I am absorbed in just being.

Then, restored, I am ready to shell peas again!

Stillmeadow Sampler - Gladys Taber (p98)