I just got back from my morning run, where the medicine of this week for me was validated perfectly.
The medicine I’m talking about is slowness.
And after being nearly run over by parents rushing to get their kids to school, people late for work, people hauling ass for no other reason than their car can do it, I’m even more convinced that we’re facing a serious epidemic, and there’s only one antidote.
Slowness.
Slowing down allows for generosity in the same identical way that rushing produces stinginess.
Take the people rushing down these stunningly beautiful country roads this morning. They have positioned themselves in a time deficit, so they’re greedy for it, and “in the red”. They can’t afford slowing down to avoid hitting a pedestrian, they can’t afford to allow the people in front of them go the speed limit, they can’t generously wave anyone into in the traffic line in front of them, and they sure as shit can’t afford to notice the flock of turkeys roosting on the tops of century old grave stones shrouded in the silvery morning mist, or the eager fingers of sunlight reaching through the pines.
That’s in stark contrast to that one Christmas Eve when I was driving home past a farm, and two bulls were resting in snow, nuzzling each other. I paused, and 10 other cars paused to watch and let our hearts fully take this scene in as permanent nourishment. We all took the time, afforded it.
There’s this thing people say: “your bad timing is not my emergency”
We get misaligned with our birthright of noticing beauty, appreciating glory, extending generosity, and reveling in experience.
The reason I can speak to this misalignment with confidence is because I do it all the f’n time!
Of course I’ve been the jerk tailgating someone on the Blue Ridge Parkway on a beautiful day. I’ve absolutely been the person who swears under my breath at the bicycler that no one can pass on a curvy road. I’ve done every variation and nuance of impatience, poor timing, and rushing there is.
So that’s why I know that slowness isn’t just an option, it’s medicine.
On the second morning of the Awaken the Mystic retreat last weekend, I asked the group to share what stood out to them about our first day together.
So many of them shared that it was the pace, the rhythm that they fell into from being in circle all day. That when they left that first afternoon, they were struck by the contrast; how fast “the rest of the world” was going.
Well, keep up ya lazy so-and-so’s, you might be thinking.
But we can’t.
Those of us with strong intuition, mystical proclivities, and natural aptitudes for channeling can’t access these gifts if we’re speeding any more than a motorcycle can stay upright if it’s going too slow.
It’s imperative to this work to slow down.
So, what’s your work? Are you a motorcycle, needing speed to provide stability? Maybe so.
Or are you a mystic, an earthling, a sensitive being with a tenderness at your core that needs a spoonful of slowness, of gentleness, to be who you are?
love & slowness,
kv
