Down, I am Slowing

We met in the hallway with the typical “Long time no see… how’s life… good… busy.” Turning to continue on our separate ways. But then I looked back and said, “How is life for you, really?”

This opened a different door in our conversation, one about kids growing up so fast and life moving so quickly. I mentioned how the idea of slowing down had come up for me a few times in the past couple of weeks and I was exploring how to create spaces where I can slow down and holding that groundedness within me amongst life’s busyness. “Does that make sense?” I asked, wondering how off-my-rocker I just sounded in the hallway of our very corporate company. “Totally.” She replied. “What you said just gave me goosebumps.”

Where had these slowing-down-nudges appeared for me? First from Ria Baeck who commented on my reflections on my 2011 progress: What about going with the intention and the rhythm of life, and let them blend together more and more?

Then this from Tenneson Woolf in an Art of Hosting conversation: … my experience has been to recommend more circle practice. I feel that if people can get that, the stillness, the deliberateness, the conditions for life to flow through — then it is easier to take other practices to a deeper level.

And this from Mary-Alice Arthur, also from an Art of Hosting conversation: For me one of the biggest planetary epidemics that is consistently coming out of the US is the brainwashing that faster is better.  You can’t get a deep, trusting relationship faster.  You can’t birth a child faster.  And death takes the time it takes.  At least these things still currently remind us of the pace, unfolding and cyclical aspect of nature.

Thinking of this jogs a memory of sitting in a conference closing that was a percussion session. We’d all made drums out of coffee tins during the meeting, and we were being directed by some professional to put it all together. The only thing was, most of the people there were from the States and none of them could keep time or sink into rhythm with each other, they kept going faster and faster. The harmony, the group song was lost. What a difference to those of us who group up with the harmony of the group in our places in South America, or Africa, or other places where we listen deeply to find out what we are called to contribute to the whole.

Let’s slow down.

Message From: Amanda

To: The Universe

Confirming receipt of the message to slow down.

What will the universe see in me now? Me letting go of my numerous personal action items and tasks and simply be guided by my three guiding phrases (the irony doesn’t escape me!). Me participating in the PeerSpirit Circle Practicum this August. Me cultivating a slow-down practice that grows the still part inside me, one I can easily access in moments of life’s hectic pace. Me looking for moments where I can invite others to slow down.

Where is the universe inviting you to slow down? How can you answer that call?