Finding Balance?

How do you find balance? This question has come up a few times over the last week and so I'm going to put it out there. We all get swept along by jobs, time lines, relationships, and emotions. How do you free your mind, find solitude, connect with your inner god/goddess?! Now, now, I'm not getting all hippy-dippy on ya. I'm just saying we all need balance. Too much is too much.

As this question arises I hear a multitude of answers. Some look to writing/reflection, yoga, meditation, cooking, physical activities, soaking in a bath, spending time with loved ones, etc. But, I want you to go further than simply coming up with one of your past times that helps you unwind and relax. Why and how do these hobbies or quiet spaces provide solitude? Why do we need balance? What occurs when we live unbalanced lives? And what happens when we get lost in our experiences?

Create gaps in the stream of thinking! Without these spaces your thoughts become repetitive, uninspiring and not very creative. Boring! And who wants to live a boring life?

I was cloud gazing today, out here on the Saskatchewan prairies, and I discovered that we can learn a lot from a simple cloud. My Mom taught me the delights of the cloud game, many moons ago. We would search for images and make believe objects while lazily watching the clouds drift apart from our perfect spot lying on the grass or beach. As I grew older I used that game to help calm myself and others. I was often viewed as the mediator at school. Kids would run up to me, at recess, to ask my advice or opinion on different arguments. I felt special that they chose to ask me and I would listen to the dispute and tell them my advice. Sometimes, I didn't have a clue what to tell them and when I didn't know what to say I would lead the little group to the back of the school ground and tell them to lie on their backs and look up at the clouds. We would gaze up, pointing and telling each other what funny shapes we saw and the dispute would drift away, too.

Now, I find myself relating to cloud wisdom once again. As an adult I see the beauty and I am still in awe, mystified by their wonder and shape shifting abilities high above.

"How surely gravity’s law
strong as an ocean current
takes hold of even the smallest thing
and pulls it toward the heart of the world.

Each thing—
each stone, blossom, child—
is held in place
Only we, in our arrogance
push out beyond what we each belong to
for some empty freedom.

If we surrender
to earth’s intelligence
we could rise up rooted, like trees.

Instead we entangle ourselves
in knots of our own making
and struggle, lonely and confused.

So, like children, we begin again
to learn from the things
because they are in God’s heart
they have never left him.

This is what the things can teach us
to fall
patiently to trust our heaviness
Even a bird has to do that
before he can fly.


- RILKE (Book of Hours)