This morning, LM3 and I practiced our yoga in the living room. We don’t usually practice here, but Hubs had a call and needed a room with a door, so our yoga got moved. LM3 loves to use “Mommy’s yoga mat” and I use the spare. She tunes in to Cosmic Kids Yoga with Jamie, and I follow my own practice, listening to my body and moving through sun salutations at a pace that feels comfortable.
This morning, thanks to our change of locale, I noticed that my azalea bushes out front are beginning to bud. And I couldn’t help but meditate on the magic of gardens and plants, and what they teach me– which is something new every day.
Today I thought about the bushes and how the same growth process begins every single spring, around the same time. Like muscle memory, the plant knows how and when and what to do every year. How human it is, right? The plantie has a checklist and knows what needs to happen to open up and thrive.
Only, the plant does all this without thinking, while human beings sometimes have a harder time with just “being.” If you’re anything like me, you think through your processes. All of your processes. You think through your changes and your growth. Everything can come with a long, arduous, and quite cumbersome thought pattern.
Plants grow each year: annuals grow the same time of year, in the same place, but in some ways, nothing is the same. The soil has changed. The neighboring plants have grown or been moved. This year, we ripped the railing off the front porch, so this year the azaleas will have more space to grow. Everything is the same and everything is different, too.
How human.
How remarkable.
How peaceful.
Today, I meditated on the slow but steady growth of those plants while I moved through my sun salutations. I tried to let my body loosen and find peace in the connection we have to nature and to other living things. We are so much more similar than I thought. And maybe, just maybe, I am going to bloom this spring, too. And there is peace in that.
What brought you peace today? Share the peace!
4 the Love of Peace 