Come this time every year I welcome the change. I've planted more seeds than I tend in my little raised beds now a tangle of tomatoes and I've unplanted seeds still in my possession. I get so focused tending the outer, I gradually neglect the inner.
When I'm watering, weeding and fertilizing which slacks with summer's passing, I think of farmers long ago who tended the outer for survival. Sundays were set aside for the tending of the inner, yet for many Sunday was about looking toward the future, the sweet by and by rather than being in the here and now. Their here and now held diseases we've conquered and drought without grocery stores.
Today Sundays are set aside for the NFL, NBA and PGA and many live on warp speed in the here and now The now must be new and and the here is always there.
How is it we as a culture have become so focused on the outer and so obsessed with fast? At times I feel my head spin. Is our always 'on,' fast forward culture a response partially to the harsh, hard times of our ancestors? What is risked when the Inner's neglected and the here and now always somewhere else?
I don't know about you but I risk loosing the capacity for soulful appreciation and thoughtfulness, for listening, really listening to depth, relationship and relatedness. I risk loosing me.
Signs of Summer's shift, cool air and cricket sound return me to Now, remind me of who I am. In this now I realize I too tend the outer to survive, survive on a soul level.
Where does Summer's Shift find you?
-Dawn, The Good News Muse 30 August 2012
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