A new year, a new dawning, as these days once again grow longer. A time for moving inward, for pausing, for sending our roots ever deeper. The animals know this instinctively. They catch more snooze time and add a little more grit to their girth. As humans, it is too easy to ignore those instincts, to be caught up in our to-do list and feel too harried to take a moment to pause, to listen.
How lucky we are to have our four-legged friends to remind us!
What I am hearing more and more from these beautiful beings is, “Stop with the busy-ness, already!”
There seems to be an urgency in their directive. They inspire me to make time to sit in prayer or meditation, to be quiet in a spiritual way. This inward time is important for humans as individuals, for our relationships with other creatures, for the earth and for our collective consciousness.
There is so much we can learn from our animal friends about sitting quietly, being in the moment, focusing our attention. Imagine your feline friend staring silently out the window. For a cat, meditation comes naturally. Sometimes our dogs and cats seem to offer their reluctant caregivers a challenge: to sit and be with yourself, to feel your own emotions and the mood of the world around you, even for just a few minutes a day.
The two-week challenge: In service to your four-legged lovers (and your own well-being), I challenge you to spend ten minutes a day in meditation or silent prayer for two weeks. At the end of the two weeks, take a breath and assess how you feel. Do you feel more connected to yourself, your life, the movements of the world around you?
For some pointers on how to focus during meditation, here is a user-friendly web page.
For the upcoming year, I feel we are being asked to dig deeper, to ground, and to stand centered in what we know is important. Bring on those winds of change: we are ready!
