Given this day ... a lull

Today I am altogether without ambition. Where did I get such wisdom?

(Mary Oliver)

Today's morning sways along its nooning arc, yet the day so far feels like dusk -- spacious, hushed, and serene. The Equinox has just passed ... we are in a pause between definite seasons. Even songbirds are quiet, while one lone woodpecker has his say, nubbing at a tree.

This day is a sigh ... the sky is an open bowl of light ... my three cats snooze on their beds of sun. I feel suspended, yet stable; the world's cacophany spins beyond my little home and even -- by what tendering hand? -- beyond my mind. I have not willed this sense of peace and place. All of me is here right now; I've been given a gift.

Just remain in the center,

watching. And then forget

that you are there.

(Lao-Tsu)

Commitments -- lists to be checked, things to be done, supper to be made -- await me. For now, though, every passing moment lulls the mind to rest. I could be swaying in a hammock, over holy ground.

(Artist unknown)

...life is quite disarmed by the gift to live so entirely in the present, to treasure with such eager care every flower by the wayside and the light that plays on every passing moment.

(Hermann Hesse)