time is short

yesterday i was home and slothful much of the morning. instead of sinking into total apathy, i laced up my shoes, strapped on my ipod and headed out the door for my walk. while listening to john whelan's energizing two-button accordion and irish pipe music, it occurred to me that a lot of the clutter i've allowed to camp out in my head is unbecoming of a crone. i thought about the book crones don't whine, written by jean shinoda bolen, a psychiatrist, feminist and former board member of the ms. foundation for women. i think of it as my guidebook to living into this phase of my life. in it she writes, "to aspire to be a crone is to want the psychological and spiritual growth that she symbolizes. the crone is an archetype, an inner potential that we grow into becoming." i want to stand in that line.

taking a tip from organization gurus, i made two virtual piles of the clutter: issues deserving of more consideration and issues needing to be pitched once and for all. if living into psychological and spiritual growth and attaining the inner potential of crone is the goal, then i'd have to do the work.

one absolute truth is that crones don't hold grudges. someone once said that resentment is like taking poison and hoping the other person will die. holding a grudge, or holding on to a negative experience, replaying it over and over in your mind, has the same effect. most of the time my thoughts swerve from how to take the high road (crone behavior) to how to hurt those who have hurt me (revenge, which requires emotional detachment, something i've never been accused of having.) taking the road less traveled is hard, though ultimately it does make all the difference. 

time is short, and getting shorter. why sully it with thoughts about something i can't control or change? my walk clarified things. my energy and outlook improved with the beat of the music, the temperature and feel of the autumn wind whipping the brightly-hued leaves around my feet and the musky, earthy smells of this, my favorite time of year. i was revitalized mentally and physically away from the noise of civilization, surrounded by the natural world. why waste precious energy on the petty behaviors of people who haven't been in my life for over two years? to what purpose wasting time on how things were done and how they might have been handled? why expend precious moments worrying about how those people are living their lives? realizing i had no desire to hold them in my energy field any longer, i relegated them all to the trash pile. much better. 

and so the day ended with my spirit calmer and stronger than when it began. in repose mentally and physically, i thought briefly of the buckets of agitation and clutter that still need attention, but decided that banishing them would have to wait for another day. the present moment, i told myself, is for rest.