Boy in a bubble
// August 18th, 2008 // No Comments » // 52sunsets
A week has passed since my 34th birthday. A week of some pain. Physically pain in the form of my hand and back. Mental pain in the form of life questions and decisions. Probably more anguish than pain actually. It’s a year to go before reaching 35. That’s quite a number. Yes, I know the old cliche: ‘It’s only a number’, but as numbers go, it definitely up there. So I’ve finally decided on a ritual. Bruce always told me about his belief in rituals and how important they can be for you. Here’s mine.
Every Sunday I’ll take an hour or two around sunset at a place where I can see the sun setting and watch it happen. Alone. Probably take a pic or two of it for posterity’s sake. It doesn’t sound like much, but I started today and it helped me quiet myself immensely. It’s about forgetting your future, full of deadlines and stress, as well as your past with all its regrets and instead concentrating on the now. Focusing on what is happening at that moment. There is something magically ‘present’ about that moment when the sun is dipping below the horizon. There’s an immutable sense of finality – an almost audible solar exhalation as the day gives way to the night. Nothing else is important, except being aware – fully aware of your self.
It’ll be my way of encapsulating the week that’s past, processing it and then letting go of it. It’ll be my way of shedding the constricting emotional baggage I inevitably pick up along the way.
It’ll also be my ‘date’ with my self, as suggested in The Artist’s Way, something I’ve been struggling to keep to, but which always reinvigorates me when I do it.
My truth from today’s ritual, you ask?:
“Walking on water is possible. Just make sure you’re in a bubble.”
man(boy) in a bubble...
