It was the early days of March and the UK had yet to go into lockdown as the coronavirus pandemic loomed ever larger.
This was the era of panic buying and supermarket shelves being stripped bare of goods including hand sanitiser and dried pasta. The streets of Manchester were tinged with a sense of impending doom, but no-one was quite sure what was coming…
Around 18 months ago I started journaling, something I’d often thought about but never fully committed to. My strange love affair with stationery meant I’d collected a stack of journals over the years but struggled to put pen to paper. Each New Year I’d make it my resolution to keep my journal only to find my musings drifting within a week or two.
I have become highly sedentary…
In the west we are preoccupied with success. We feel as if we are not living life to the fullest if we take a minute to slow down, as if we are missing out on the precious 80 or so years on earth we get to call our own. We need to be constantly on the move until there is nothing left we truly need or want.
We love this poem by new Slowist author Debbie Lewis, perfectly capturing the zen-like simple observations of nature’s calm. It is the essence of being present and mindful, noting in wonder the things that are always around, but seldom recognised for their pure beauty.
A deep, gnawing sadness descended again this week in Melbourne as we returned to a further 6 weeks of lockdown. Franco Parvarro emerges, death is explored and reborn as a comforting acknowledgement of change.
Walking in the heart of the Pyrenees, our ascent started into the mountain range. Bursting with enthusiasm to explore and a drive to keep up with the others I pushed on uphill. Suddenly I felt a severe pain in my knee. How could this happen on the very first day of a planned five week long walk? I was not willing to give up walking with the others so easily.
Carl Honoré, responsible for bringing the Slow movement to the attention of the masses with his book ‘In Praise of Slow’ back in 2005, describes his initial realisation of the need to ‘slow down’ and reveals the many facets of slow culture.
Thoughts from a walk to the station in the morning, through wooded lanes. This is really ‘everyday’ mindfulness, as focus is not on a podcast or music, but what is going on around oneself, the sights, sounds, smells…
…[in] the past, this mind of mine roamed freely as it liked, as it desired, at its own pleasure. But today, I shall fully keep it in check, even as the elephant driver with the point of a goad controls an unruly elephant in rut.