Saturday, June 4, 2011

My Last Day at the Green Hideaway

You are exactly where you're supposed to be.
-- Dove promises

The sun's gone, and it's starting to get dark. I sat out on the tiny porch with my mug of hot Chai, and the only noises I hear are that of two bullfrogs trying to outdo each other's croaks, and a peacock cawing louder than the bullfrogs. After the tea, I popped a Dove chocolate in my mouth and opened the wrapper to see that line above. When I was frantically looking for a hermitage who could take me in, all the responses were that they were not available. And then I found this little cottage online but it didn't have much in the way of pictures or descriptions for me to see what it was like. I was a bit nervous, hoping that everything turns out ok. Now that I'm here, I couldn't be more pleased. And to show that the universe has had her guiding hand in this too, here comes her sweet message, wrapped up around a piece of chocolate, that I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be. Perfect.

And then I went to bed and picked up a book to read - Deepak Chopra's "Peace is the Way". The title had sounded promising when I picked it up in the library but as it turns out, it's all about war in the world and how to win it with peace. It seemed like a good book but not for me right now, so I just leafed through it quickly before I put it away, and one sentence came at me seemingly out of nowhere -
"Spiritual life is all about finding a center and holding on to it"
The sentence is not highlighted, nor is it something I expected to see in this book, but it fairly leapt out at me. Not only is it absolutely relevant to why I'm here (to find my center), but it tells me to go a step further - to hold on to that center.

As I've been finding these past few months, the center I had found a few years ago doesn't necessarily stay strong and stable. As I let myself go into the world, my center has been slowly uncoiling, unwinding, getting looser and looser until there is no center at all. But now that I've set my intention to re-find my center, I also need to add an intention to hold on to it. This is the piece that I need to be able to take back with me and remember it each day.

My time here is almost over. Tomorrow I have to head back home. It's funny how quickly I can get used to nice things, settle into a comfortable routine, at a setting like this - waking up to rooster calls rather than alarm clocks, looking out at views of ponds and flowers than stores and cars, walking along green trails rather than driving through red lights and traffic jams, cooking for one, talking to none, picking flowers, listening to birds, watching chipmunks and bunny rabbits, reading books; no worries about work calls, conferences or meetings; sleeping when I'm sleepy, not because it's time; to the sounds of bullfrogs and peacocks, better than ambulance sirens anyday. I loved it all.

The spring weather couldn't be more perfect.  All those showers in April brought out flowers in May, and the smell of warm sunshine, the greenness of growing grass, the buzzing of bees. All too glorious. Almost like paradise. When I go back home, will I remember it all? Will I remember the magic, the enchantment, the dreams, the hopes? Will I have the will to recreate it someday?

This is the picture of a butterfly that hovered around my car for a long long time the next morning before I came away -
Good Bye Blue Butterfly!
Will you come by some time and say Hi?
When I forget my self again,
Remind me to free myself and fly high!

Readers, If you have hermitages to recommend, where you were able to get away from it all, please share! Thank you for reading.

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