Focus on slow living
We need to learn to focus, sometimes. Especially when we need to reframe our dreams and reshape our world.
In your garden, Lemon Balm will be one of your best friends when you need uplifting and to bring a joyful focus to bear on whatever is causing you bother or worry. Meditate on Lemon Balm, concentrate on the fresh green leaves, almost heart shaped. Rub your fingers along the spine under the leaf and let the scent carry into your senses. Try not to think, just let the thoughts and feelings enter and leave. Set your intent first. You will be surprised how the problems will begin to resolve once you have gone about your daily business, or on waking from a night’s sleep.
I had the great good fortune to meet a man the other day, in pursuit of one of my business interests. This chap had the apparent misfortune to lose his business during the Global Financial Crisis. Remember that? Through an idea of his son, he got a job as a postie, a sort of dream while you earn job. After 5 years of that, his idea was to make salt, the natural way. The natural way is slow. He now has a brilliant set up in the Far North. He has joined the slow living movement, as has a neighbour. The two together now also process the salt water, through distillation, to a pure potable, bottled water supply.
Slow living is the essence of slow food, taken to apply to the production of food, of beverages, of building, of nurturing. If you have planted a seed, watched as it has germinated, grown into a seedling, strengthened, grown more and eventually become that vegetable, or fruit, or herb you eat. Or the wonderful flower you pick and admire. Then, you have already experienced slow living.
In your garden, focus, take time to really look at and understand the meaning of the garden you have created. Breathe, concentrate, and don’t hurry. Slow living.
The photo, apart from the corner of our house, is of our maunga, Pukekaroro. In the middle ground is a kauri and totara. The very essence of slow living.
