morning

morning
Originally uploaded by c'estbonne

A new morning, every day.

There are so many cliches about starting over, beginning a new day, a blank canvas, a fresh start. I've written some myself, sometimes I just can't help it. The way I see it, when we're able to reach that particular state of mind, we are feeling inspired, and those cliches mean something.

The thing is, habits have a way of getting the best of us, often without us even knowing it. Thoughts are the worst. Before I know it, mine have laid down a nice comfortable little squatter's roost for themselves, and convinced me that things just are how they are in their tiny world, and I might as well accept the rules and throw in my lot. These thoughts reinforce themselves, pacing their same little animal trails through the meadows of my mind again and again, until the route is so well known that no effort is required to travel it. Stuck.

Of course, this may not matter so much if our habitual trails are positive or joyful ones. Mine were trained early on to prefer mucky wallows and safe shadows, a mire of excuses not to just live a happy life. So when my attention has wandered and those animal thoughts have been pacing, I begin to feel their dingy wet blanket effect on me...and that's when a sudden cliche inspiration of renewal is truly a diamond in the mire.

grass lines

grass lines
Originally uploaded by c'estbonne

I am fascinated by the dimensions in this photo, the different levels of being, all contained in a square foot or two. I think the elegantly sharp lines of the grass caught my eye first, against the placid smooth of the water. I love that contrast, and often find myself photographing the combination.

But more is revealed as I look longer. The reflections, in their complementary black, playing shadow to the living grass, yet taking on a distorted life of their own--wavy counterpart to the straight blades, able to play more freely with reality. And again, the brown grass beneath the water, yet another aspect of the grass's life cycle, highlighting the green glow of the shoots above the surface, not yet done growing.

We, too, are multi-dimensional, though we are generally far too unaware of it. Our daily outward expression often consumes our existence, but it is not who we really are. Beneath the surface are levels of awareness, emotion, habitual thought, possibility, intuitive perception, all of which form a backdrop, a context, a foundation, for the whole of who we are. There is a point, perhaps, at which identifying with only one of these dimensions results in a stagnant life, one that asks to be lived more fully and truthfully.

It is time, I think, for us to realize that we are much more than the products of our society--or worse, its followers. That we are rich and soulful and wise beyond what the world we've created around us would have us believe. To stop settling for helping it along on its often mindless path of no clear and good direction, and to let that Soul, that wisdom, step forward and awaken us to something richer and more satisfying. And better. For all of us.