Oh where does the time go? Really, I can't seem to find it anywhere. It seems to be dancing in breezes of storms twisting the night. It echoes in pages of homeschooling inspiration and gets stolen away in meetings with this group and that. I call for it across dreams of my edible garden, a clean yard, a clothesline planted firmly within arms length reach. Whispers of time wander in and out of my list of readings, of chores and projects and hopes for renewal. I catch glimpses in rest and moments too far reaching to be lost in the transparency of time. I find time in escape.
I must admit it is my favorite place to run to for the time being. Seeing that it is a few short hours drive away, it seems to be calling to me as well. Last week I escaped into the pines with a loved friend...to breathe, to feel weightless, to take pictures and soak in the sights, sounds, smells that we know and love.
Time to be. With Spirit. With home. With breath.
As I attempt to sketch myself into the reality of these plentiful responsibilities, I search for time and it is usually lost. But not within the circle of these small, savory moments. Time is all I have here.
I've started asking myself why that is...and observing the details of what makes my body tighten and my throat hurt and my nerves to shorten to minuscule proportion. Today, after meeting with a homeschooling group, I chanced by a library copy of a book by Julia Cameron called "The Sounds of Paper". Reading the back of the cover was all that I needed to know that this book has been waiting for me for eternity.
"In order to make art, we must first make an artful life, a life rich enough and diverse enough to give us fuel. We must strive to see the beauty where we are planted, even if we are planted somewhere that feels very foreign to our own nature. In New York, I must work to connect to the parts of the city that feed my imagination and bring me a sense of richness and diversity instead of mere overcrowding and sameness. In California, my friend must work to do the same. We must, as the elders advise us, bloom where we are planted. If we later decide that we must be transplanted, that our roots are not in soil rich enough for our spirits, t least we have tried. We have kept hold of the essential thread of our consciousness, the "I" that gives us the eye to behold".
~ Julia Cameron
A part of me sees this existence in my life...this constant aching for "somewhere else" because this place feels, in many ways, so foreign and unwell. I see how I can get lost in time and how the beauty of me reaching for something, an escape, can somehow bring me back into the magic. I know how much I am bread from my environment, from the energy, the idealism, the momentum and what is so lovely about this timing of finding this book is that I believe that I am sinking in and reaching around me. I am making connections I have known I need to make. I am living ideals I know I want to live. I am making decisions that aren't always easy, but that I sense must be made.
I am feeling good, in some ways, for the richness blooming up from these actions, from these thoughts, from this commitment.
It has so much do to with so much.
What I am reading. The evolution of my soul to reach points where things come together and make sense. Clarifying what efforts are going to be made within the NOW and realizing that the future...the future will work itself out, really.
Perhaps that last line is all there is to time.
for more visual blooming, come on over to my photog blog for a visit!
"Where Do the Children Play? grew out of Elizabeth Goodenough’s work on “secret spaces of childhood” at the University of Michigan. The film was written and directed by Christopher Cook and produced by Michigan Television.
“Children need free time every day to discover their own abilities, desires, and limitations,” says Goodenough, who also edited the film’s accompanying study guide. “Open-ended exploration and play in woods, fields, vacant lots, or other semi-wild spaces enhances curiosity and confidence throughout life.”
A marked decline in children’s spontaneous and creative play is a key factor in their increasing mental health problems, according to a recent statement from an international group of educators and children’s advocates. They called for “a wide-ranging and informed public dialogue about the intrinsic nature and value of play in children’s healthy development.”
Their letter echoed a recent warning from the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP): children have far too little time for unstructured play, which leads to increased stress in their lives. Causes of the demise of play cited by the group include parental fears of “stranger danger” and the explosion of electronic entertainment—to the point of addiction for some—in the lives of today’s children. These and other issues are explored in the film.
The lead author of the AAP report, Dr. Kenneth Ginsburg of the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, appears in the documentary, along with Richard Louv, author of Last Child in the Woods, British “playworker” Penny Wilson, and other experts in child development, psychology, and urban planning."
And I took the time to notice the cool air, the thundering skies, the smell of pine and the fact that directly below me was this other world. This silent, sacred place with open offering of quietude. 
