Walk.

I've been walking.
Walking and walking.

It all started a couple of weeks ago when two friends were talking about their pedometer app, and their steps.  

I tried it out, out of curiosity... just carried my phone for the first week, to see what my average was, and what, if anything, I wanted to do about it.
Something surprising happened.... instead of being irritated about the time it took to do everything (run a single thing downstairs, take this out to the truck), my mind changed, and I started being happy to do such things.

The whole reason for my embracing the word Pause this year was because I wanted to create a space for myself... a pause in which to have enough time, enough this... enough everything.
While I think it's exciting (and fun) to eat life up in great big gulps, I wanted to find the Still in the pause.... to lose some of the anxious urgency.

This week, I started to walk. 
Four miles the first day, to and then around the park.  I met the 10,000 (steps) goal, but it wasn't enough.

I prefer at least a five mile walk.
8.3 miles, the second day.

There.  That's better.

7.6, the next

--six mile walk, plus the regular stuff.

And so it goes.

So this practice comes with all sorts of pleasant surprises...

there's the Still, of course (which is absolutely a great enough benefit on its own),

but there's also the meditations, and the mindfulness practice.....

there's the early morning solitude

-space and time to right myself-

and, most obvious of all (but still a surprise to me, somehow)

there's the affinity, the early morning conversations I have with the earth.

I am calibrated,
I am at ease,
and I am satisfied.

It's really the most wonderful thing.