Change & Time

In the midst of rushing like a maniac here at work, I'm pinching off a few minutes to blog about idleness. Yup, a bit ironic... but anyway.

Near the end of last week I came across "Quitting the Paint Factory" and it's related article "In Praise of Idleness" (the latter written in the 1930's). Reminded me of another early-century article I read about a year ago, "How to live on twenty-four hours a day". The common theme running through all of them is that our souls need time, and a lot of it, in order to function creatively, peacefully and constructively. If you spend your days running, drop exhausted every night into a vegetative state - that's not exactly living a balanced or complete life, is it?

Yesterday I felt stirrings of an idea growing - more a feeling than anything les, merely moving far below the surface of my conciousness. One of those "it just feels right" things that fortells change. It gave me a vision for big things in the future, changes that will shake up my world. It hinted at a time too - but it's the kind of thing that takes stillness and quiet to form into more than mere stirrings.

Already we're on an unconventional road with the whole schooling/unschooling thing, and that's flowing over into other areas of life, giving me a chance to see a lot of things from a completely different angle and imagine the "what if"s.

Last night as the sun sank I found myself deep in thought, sitting in the last rays of a warm day on my verandah, surrounded by silence (once the kid had turned down the sound on his PS2). Fragments of those three articles kept popping up in the brain, making random connections as I simply allowed my mind to wander. I realized there are doors standing half-open that I hadn't imagined could be. That there are opportunities for my wildest dreams to come true if I would but hear their insistent knocking. It was like lifting my mind's eye from the path to see the view - and realizing how good it is to be precisely where I am right now. A universe of possibility awaits, if I am willing to take the plunge.

Lately I find I'm craving those down-times, periods where I can simply be for a while and rest. Cutting the busyness gives an open space for the new to hit home, a place for it to settle and grow and expand into direction.

All a bit vague? Yeah, I know. If you want something that makes more sense - go read those links! :-)