“My duty as a religious person is to align myself with the power in the universe I call God. Alignment is what relationship — any relationship — is all about.” — Rabbi Laura Geller, IN SWEET COMPANY: CONVERSATIONS WITH EXTRAORDINARY WOMEN ABOUT LIVING A SPIRITUAL LIFE

Sittin’ here at my computer on a warm Indian Summer day, savoring the lick of pine wafting through my office courtesy of an early afternoon breeze. The tree tops bow, the sunlight turns the color of the wooden deck outside my window from gray to silver. The traffic rumbles in throaty whisper off in the distance.

I am writing these words in a race against time and temperature. Yesterday, it was hot in my neighborhood. Today, it is hot again. Soon the sun will broil the innards of my office. I will need to shut down my computer and find respite from the heat and glare. 

The harder I push to finish this piece, the further away I get from the organic flow that lifts me above Mother Nature’s elemental whims and carries the words from brain to fingertips that will fill this page. I grow impatient, anxious, frustrated. I grasp. I push. I damn the heat. I damn the sun. Arrgh!

This is not fun. I sit for a moment, still myself, slow my breath, and ride the curl of the summer breeze until I feel Her, feel the goddess hiding in this present moment, the goddess hiding behind the scorch of sun and exasperation. No more pressure. No more pingpong — do I tough it out or do I decamp? No more living in parentheses, dissipating my energy in indecision, anxiety, impatience, and frustration. Not when She’s around. Not when the goddess holds me in the palm of Her hand.

Scientists have recently discovered that 90% of the thoughts we think today are exactly the same thoughts we had yesterday and will likely have tomorrow. It’s a sobering reality, enough to get me thinking about the company I keep between my ears.

If redundancy is my mental lot, then the thoughts I have right now would make fine company tomorrow. And the day after that. And the day after that. Irrespective of
the temperature.

Your thoughts?