Poetry helps. Especially poems like this one, “Lie Down” by Nancy Paddock.
She reminds us to stop, breathe, be. (I’m not wild about the ant part, but ok.)
Taking time out each day to just BE can be part of a Gratitude Practice that profoundly affects your health and wellbeing and helps remind you that you are CONNECTED to it all.
I would love to hear your thoughts on what you do to practice thankfulness.
Lie Down by Nancy Paddock
Lie down with your belly to the ground,
like an old dog in the sun. Smell
the greenness of the cloverleaf, feel the damp
earth through your clothes, let an ant
wander the uncharted territory
of your skin. Lie down
with your belly to the ground. Melt into
the earth’s contours like a harmless snake.
All else is mere bravado.
Let your mind resolve itself
in a tangle of grass.
Lie down with your belly
to the ground, flat out, on ground level.
Prostrate yourself before the soil
you will someday enter.
Stop doing.
Stop judging, fearing, trying.
This is not dying, but the way to live
in a world of change and gravity.
Let go. Let your burdens drop.
Let your grief-charge bleed off
into the ground.
Lie down with your belly to the ground
and then rise up
with the earth still in you.
“Lie Down” by Nancy Paddock, from Trust the Wild Heart. © Red Dragonfly Press, 2006. (and thank you to Phyllis Cole-Dai and her wonderful website A Year of Being Here: http://www.ayearofbeinghere.com/2014/04/nancy-paddock-lie-down.html
