While sorting and sifting, tossing, tearing, and leveling the pile ever slowly, this little scrap caught my eye. It attached itself to my hand so I turned it over, reading and re-reading the poem I hand copied at least a decade ago.
Ah yes! Rumi! He has always resonated with me as a dancer. ‘Don’t sit still and read’ he urges. Wake up! Play music! Get your body moving!
Rumi tells me what so many are saying to my recent discovery. Don’t just wait for your mind to direct you – use your body to direct your mind.
I can’t imagine Rumi had so rigorous a regimen as Tony Robbins’ priming ritual, but I get the sense that the transformative power of commanding our physical selves in order to direct our intellectual and emotional selves is the same wether we plunge our bodies into freezing water or do a sun salutation. Or our 100s. Or some serious head banging. Whatever turns us on, just so long as we do it everyday, in the morning, before that feeling of emptiness leads us to meaningless screen time.
Walking my dogs into the woods, out through a grassy field, down to our little pond and up a dirt road has been my morning action lately. It gives me time to observe nature’s morning actions, mostly the Texas spring flower explosions happening right now, but I also listen to birds sing their first songs of the day while fresh air expands both my lungs and my mind’s capacity to receive.
And I say, don’t just do it once a day. Do it again and again. In the middle of the day, when it’s time to move from your chair/computer/book/machine, skip the screen and instead find something that lifts your spirit. A sprint up the stairs. I walk around the building. A 3 minute meditation outside with the sun on your face.
My go-to computer break is the few minutes it takes to dance to Earth, Wind, and Fire’s September or The Kungs This Girl – an equally motivating groove. My body moves without hesitation or instruction and my brain gets a jolt of dopamine.
As I begin this adventure into the wild world of making beauty in books – I will move and groove and kiss the ground with gratitude for my time on Earth.
How about you? Why are you still here? Go shake a tail feather!
Today, like every other day,
we wake up empty and frightened.
Don’t open the door to the study and begin reading.
Take down a musical instrument.
Let the beauty we love be what we do.
There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.
~ Rumi