Speeding in Outer Space, Trees, & the Little Voice
Was that you I saw speeding today?
You may have thought you were obeying the law on your morning commute, but actually none of us were. Even if your commute was just from your kitchen coffee machine to your laptop, you were still hoofing it!
For a start the earth rotates at 1650kph! It’s surprising that if we jump up in the air we don’t land somewhere in Australia or the Indian Ocean!
If that’s not impressive enough, the earth circles the sun at 108,000kph.
But hold that speeding bus! The Milky Way galaxy is spinning even faster at an eye-watering 756,000kph. And the universe is expanding; galaxies are spreading at about 263,000 kph.
That is all amazing!
If you think you didn’t do so many steps on your Fitbit during the walk from the coffee to the Zoom meeting - in reality you went sooo much further. Mega steps!
No matter where you think you are right now, you will never, can never, possibly ever, be there again. The earth, solar system and the whole galaxy have moved on irrevocably. The only place that you can count on being is here, now, in this moment.
To paraphrase Michael A Singer: We are perched on a relatively small rock, spinning round in outer space, basically in the middle of absolutely nowhere. It’s both incredible, and utterly ridiculous.
So don’t take life too seriously. None of us is here for very long. Life in this body is very brief – a micro-blink of the universal eye.
But at this moment, we are right here. Take a look around, isn’t it amazing? Initially everything may appear the same, but in reality it’s all changing by the moment. The light alters, a branch grows, the leaves change colour, the clouds shift, the shadows shorten or lengthen as our planet rotates by the sun.
Tree(s)
Tomorrow that tree over there will be fractionally taller than it was today, its leaves may have grown or fallen off. Nothing will ever be exactly the way they are in this moment, ever again. Which makes life in this moment sooo absorbing!
Ronald Reagan was running for the Governor of California’s office in 1966 and was not particularly sensitive to environmental issues. In reference to a native Redwood forest he was quoted as saying: “…you know, a tree is a tree, how many more do you need to look at?” This was later popularly misquoted by his opposition as him saying, “You’ve seen one Redwood, you’ve seen them all.”
Unfortunately, a lot of people don’t see the trees for the forest, or the forest for the trees. Or even just one tree as a unique tree, like Reagan. It’s often just one of the hundred things in their field of vision that they habitually ignore.
The other day I was at a park during a lunch break. The Maple trees were putting on a golden show for the ‘Fall’. The wind was blowing causing the leaves to fall faster. As they fell at an angle in the wind and tumbled, they caught the sunlight, putting on a glittering golden show. Each leaf fell slightly differently, in each moment, each was unique in it’s colour-shade, shape, angle, distance, and time in the air. And there were hundreds of leaves coming down out of the trees. Some were falling on me where I sat, subtly insisting that I pay attention to them! When they hit the ground they joined all the others being swept and tumbled across the lawn, like a golden wave on the ocean, making the special sound that only thousands of tumbling leaves can make.
While I was there some children came and picked up an arm full of leaves each and threw them up in the air, totally enthralled. When and why do we lose our innocence and our wonder as we age?
The ‘little voice’
Many people I meet appreciate the value of present moment awareness, but often struggle with the application, because their thinking mind keeps trying to analyse situations. Maybe they wonder if they should be using this spare five minutes to do something else useful? Or is there something in the future I should be looking at, instead of what’s here now? Or failing that, maybe there’s something I need to check on my phone? Or I really need to worry about my family, that’s my responsibility! It’s a restless habit that most of us suffer from to some extent. The author Michael Singer calls this annoying accomplice the little voice….
I was not thinking at all while watching those leaves. The trick is learning, from repeated practice, to have confidence that actually: NO! there is nothing more important than what is right in front of me now. There was so much entertainment dancing before my eyes in that leaf fall. Simple, yet spectacular when you really watch. I sat there for an hour; it was entirely absorbing.
“The world is full of magic things patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper.” WB Yeats
When I went to work after that lunch in the park, I was completely relaxed, yet energised. I felt focused, grounded and really alive.
And THAT is the whole point of all this present moment awareness stuff that I keep on about.
I realised that people often see me to help them feel the same way.
Not Just Trees
Similar results are waiting right outside our door, in nature, if we just take a look, in this moment. Start with anything - plants, an animal, the wind blowing, clouds, sun, sea waves, smell of fresh air, sounds of birds, the feel of the ground beneath your feet - start with 5 minutes, then work up. Really be with it, without naming or thinking, just enjoy being here.
Despite the fact that everything is moving and changing, we don’t need to fight it. That would be an exercise in futility. Rather, get comfortable with change. Change makes life eternally interesting.
Sydney Poitier once said after he retired, that his curiosity about what was going to happen next was what got him out of bed each morning.
We don’t need to think about it – thinking (the annoying little voice) just gets in the way of the show. Surrender to change. Get out of your head and just Be.
If you’d like a couple of great book recommendations this month, then Michael A Singer has written a practical guide to living mindfully – ‘The Untethered Soul’ (2007) (or How to make the little voice shut up).
And he followed that up with ‘The Surrender Experiment’ (2015) which is basically his autobiography, which I read last week. It shows what happened when he stopped listening to the little voice and just let life make the calls for him. You won’t believe how that turned out for him. From being a simple, poor hippie meditating in the woods, to the owner of a massive company. I loved this book! Highly recommended.
If you would like to discuss these concepts, and maybe would like to learn how to make the ‘little voice’ shut up, then please book a session with me.