Inspiration

I have tried to write a post for several days... and just haven't felt like I knew what to say. I'm sick of talking about being tired, and I'm still deep in my healing 'apprenticeship', and my kids have been the focus of my days. I'm really not getting much done outside of being a mom these days... I had a list of seven things I wanted to accomplish today and I did two of them: showering and making dinner. I shit you not. Is it more pathetic that I only finished two things on my list, or that my list includes things like 'showering' and 'make dinner', which really are pretty much givens, right?

So I went in search of inspiration. It seems that several bloggers out there are doing a '30 posts of Truth' started by A Karma Project. This sounds interesting... and I'm enjoying reading what others wrote (see Mother Moon, Faerie Sage Kitchen, The Dream Life). Maybe that's just a bit too much for me right now... having to wade through my past... I'm already doing that in my dreams, it turns out, and I'm not sure I'm ready to share.

I headed on over to Pagan Blog Prompts and yesterday was, apparently, a day to blog about peace... what it means, what it is, how we go about finding it... hmmm... maybe I can do this.

Peace, huh? It sounds simple... something we all want, right? But now that I think about it peace is really an individual state of mind. You can actually cultivate peace while everything around you is chaotic... right? Isn't that what I'm supposed to be doing so that when my kids are fighting and yelling at each other and me, so I can keep my cool? Right. Yeah... that's not peace... that's some kind of crazy willpower that so often feels elusive... I think.

Really, I think peace means many things. In a social sense peace is full of respect, gratitude, community without divisiveness. Peace is working together because we're so much stronger when we do... instead of using power to try to force one's reality on everyone else. But I'm not sure that kind of thing is really attainable here... where we live in duality of right and wrong, good and bad, top and bottom. People have tried, and failed. So I spend more time focused on my inner peace, I suppose. And I let it flow from me as I can... to be a peaceful participant in my community and household, to the very best of my abilities.

Peace for me personally is often associated with quiet... there's just so much activity in my every day that I spend much time caught up in the flow of getting ready for school, meals, laundry, cleaning, running hither and yon... and I forget to be mindful. It's often when I stop that my mind finally begins to reflect, to be slow, to be present. I'm trying to spend more time in the peace of presence in the moment, but it's hard when I'm arguing with my 4-year-old about why she must sit in a carseat and that I need her to get buckled so that we can go pick up the other kids from school. But I digress... my 4-year-old may be my personal challenge to peace, but she's also one of my main motivations for working on it.

So, in short (ha ha) peace for me is often found in meditation, where I have some quiet, some real time to myself for reflection, focus, and the awareness of connection with the earth. The one activity I do that gets me there in an instant is gardening. As soon as my hands hit the soil my mind forgets all those 'things' that I waste so much energy turning over in my brain all day long. I am present in the moment, I am with the earth, I am of the Earth, and most of all I feel closest to my highest self. It's magical for me, and I wish I had more time for it.

What about you?