letting the earth fall between your fingers

[thoreau]

It's been a little crazy returning to 'normal life' after being away for four astoundingly quiet days. It is a lot like when you have a glass of water with soil in it, all shaken and stirred up. Its a cloudy, whirly mess -- a lot like our lives here in Western Culture. You have to set the glass down, aside, alone, and let it settle and center -- let all the soil separate and go to a state of rest, so that you can see it clearly, and reflect, analyze, interpret, meditate, listen. Now I'm concentrating on the tools to keep myself from being manipulated back into the swirly muddy water I found myself in that made me seek time out. That is where some real work, letting the earth fall between your fingers and not muddy things up.