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.
In the quest for simplicity and easy to remember recipes, this sourdough loaf uses white flour and wholemeal flour in the ‘Pareto’ 80:20 ratio and the water content is 80% of the flour weight, or 80% hydration. This makes it a relatively high hydration dough, but with the right technique, handling of the dough will not be a problem.
It takes some time and persistence, but the benefits of a calm brain are numerous and essential. Look for times where you can practice these techniques – they occur in surprising places.
The brain can only assume its proper behavior when consciousness is doing what it is designed for: not writhing and whirling to get out of present experience, but being effortlessly aware of it.
A walk through the Gardens of The J. Paul Getty Center in Los Angeles can end or begin by stepping over a poem engraved in stone on the ground which is composed by the artist who designed the garden. It seems strange that a complex of buildings so perfectly rendered in white granite can bring such a heightened feeling of fluidity to the observer; solid and immovable granite and the flowing quality of water have been captured seamlessly.
How can something so simple, be so difficult for us to do? Clearing our minds of clutter should not be that hard; we are not lifting anything physically, not running a marathon, not climbing a mountain. Yet the mountain in our minds can seem twice the size of Everest, and extremely hard to confront.