I’m tying a string around my finger now for sure.
I have long enjoyed Rob Brezsny’s astrology newsletter. He’s got a quirky style that pleases me, and he sometimes reminds me to pay attention to something that I’ve neglected.
His current newsletter tells me to be in love with everyone and everything, and to conjure up almost superhuman levels of generosity.
Love and generosity are practices that I have been happily engaging in for several years, although I admit I’ve been somewhat casual about it. Now here’s the suggestion that I take my practice more seriously, take it up a notch. Just how will I do that? Maybe I should go live in a monastery, where the day is built around meditation, and distractions are kept to a minimum. Well, that’s not likely — so then what?
Awareness is what. Being present and aware in my daily life. Aware of what? Aware of love and aware of generosity (which added together equal joy) in all of my actions and interactions in my day. Take my awareness up a notch, and I can take my practice of love and generosity up a notch.
Hmm, just as I finished typing that last sentence, I looked out my window and saw the poplar and cottonwood trees shimmering and glittering in the breeze. And I am filled with delight and gratitude. I close my eyes, take a breath, and smile. Then I look again, and the shimmering looks rather like applause, and I imagine the trees, who I greet with gratitude every day, approve of my desire to “take it up a notch.”
Are the trees really communicating with me? Could be. Who knows? Which reminds me of a song from West Side Story — Something’s Coming, which is one of my theme songs. That, and Almost Like Being In Love, from Brigadoon. (Song) Okay, now I’m rambling.
And now I’m tying a string around my finger, to remind me to TAKE IT UP A NOTCH!