I had a Moment...

This morning I took Alfie and Zara for our morning walk in the Redwoods dog park... we've been going every morning for a couple of weeks now and it's quickly become one of my favourite parts of the day.  Especially more precious knowing that when I go back to school I will have to swap this walk to an afternoon slot.

So... we'd started our walk and the 'kids' were walking beautifully on their lead (we have a tandem lead with a harness on each end)... we'd had a bit of rain last night... not much, but enough to leave the grass a bit wet and make walking on the track just a bit more enticing.

We were a good 15 minutes into our walk and heading along one of the internal tracks when suddenly I had a Moment... yes, a capital 'M' moment.  In an instant everything became sharper... clearer... brighter... fresher.  The nearest I can come to explaining it is that it was like looking through grimy glass windows and then suddenly they are super clean... sparkly even.

In that moment:

• I noticed cicadas buzzing all around
  
• I heard birds chirping and flitting in the trees
  
• The leaves and plants seemed greener
• I saw mist/steam coming off some of the trees and floating away in the sunlight
• I spotted dew drops on spider webs hanging off ferns
• The sun was beautiful coming through the trees
• I could smell the damp ground (and no dog poo thank goodness!)
• I could feel the cool breeze on my arms and legs and the pine needles crunching under my shoes

It really was the most beautiful Moment I've had in a very long time... and definitely worth the capital 'M'. 

I found myself wishing that I could somehow blink my eyes and take a snapshot of everything I could see, hear, and feel... I don't take my phone with me in the morning... and a camera would never have been able to capture the moment the way I was experiencing it.

Alfie and Zara seemed to sense that something was different too... they were super calm and just stood looking all around them... I found myself breathing slowly... but deeply. 

I've been trying to practice Mindfulness this year (I will share some of that another time).  I'm slowly getting better at 'being in the moment' but I find it challenging.  In that moment this morning I knew exactly what Mindfulness felt like... and I loved it!

The rest of the walk was uneventful... Alfie and Zara did lots of sniffing at grass and picking up sticks and pine cones and then taking them off each other... and I continued to notice things that I hadn't seen or heard before.  There were lots of big white daisy type flowers in the field near the car park... I hadn't noticed them when we arrived!

On the drive home I remembered reading Present over Perfect... actually I've read it several times and I also have it as a talking book on Audible (Shauna narrates the book herself).  In her book, Shauna Niequist describes moments like this... moments of clarity when you know that a particular moment is important.  She writes about vulnerability, living simply and soulfully... and keeping it real. 

From the back of the book: In these pages, you'll be invited to consider the landscape of your own life, and what it might look like to leave behind the pressure to be perfect and begin the life-changing practice of simply being present, in the middle of the mess and the ordinariness of life.

I think I might read it again!