Perfectly human imperfections

Early morning. My favourite time of the day. Alone. The house quiet around me. Coffee in hand. Classical music quietly playing in the background. I find myself at my core and settle naturally into the rhythm of my soul's call for attention, meeting its need for tender loving sustenance. It seems no matter where I am, early morning solitude is vital to my well-being.

This morning the sun shines, birds twitter in the trees, flitting in and out of the open doorways of the house. A dove pecks on the red clay tiles of the floor beside the table where I sit. A mongoose ambles across the lawn. Amidst the lush green vegetation, purple and red and orange flowers peek out seeking the sun's welcoming light. In the distance, far beyond the expanse of sweeping lawn that leads to the shore, ocean blue and cerulean sky meet sealing the world in an unending line of wonder.

I am tired this morning. A restless night. An uneasy mind. My blog friend Diane over at Contemplative Photography wrote yesterday about "When Things Get Sticky." She started with a photo of a wall in Seattle where people have applied gobs and gobs of chewed up bubble gum to create an interesting but not that palatable a mural of colour and texture. Rather odd, but interesting.

And then Diane writes, "Things have been sticky here for about a week now: nothing serious, nothing like the kinds of challenges so many of my friends are experiencing, just... sticky. I'm being irritable, and judgmental, discouraged... and finding it hard to like myself."

Ah, that place of inner dislike. The discord of being internally discouraged.

The church bells rang at seven this morning. Calling the faithful to worship. I was already awake. Lying in bed watching the ceiling fan spin. I counted the bells. One. Two. Three. I thought they'd end at seven but they kept going. 60. 70. 100. 141. 178. 204. 297. 300. 317.

The bells kept ringing and I kept counting. I thought I should stop but curiosity got the better of me, and my innate stubbornness. How can I give up when I don't know when they'll stop? And if I don't know how many rings, how will I know the answer to the question if someone should ask when they awaken -- how many times did those bells ring this morning?

They stopped at 390. Imagine. 390 rings of the bells at 7 in the morning.

I thought of getting up and going to the church, but the quiet of the house was calling. And ever faithful to my need for morning ritual, I heeded its call.

Like my friend Diane, I wonder from where this inner discord arises. Partly I'm sure because of the constant rolling within my body. My equilibrium is sea sick. My world is constantly rocking. It's been going on for a few days now. My entire body feels like I am part of the ocean. Rolling back and forth. Weightless. Formless. A jelly-fish on the sea of life.

Tammy too is suffering from this same sense of being constantly rocked by the ocean. We think it could be caused by the fact both of us like to lie on our back in angel pose with our ears submerged beneath the ocean's surface.

And it disquiets me.

And reminds me, even in paradise, it's up to me to find my equilibrium, no matter what is happening around me or within me.

I breathe and surrender and fall effortlessly in love. In love, I am safe within. In love, I am grounded in the wonder of being who I am, in this moment, alive and free, a woman of worth, a woman of value just because I am, here, right now, just the way I am. I can do no less nor more than be accepting of my being perfectly human in all my perfect imperfection. And as I surrender I accept the world around me in all its human imperfections and embrace the wonder of falling in love.