Letting Go and More

While I was in Italy I was working my little fingers to the bone on Timeless Tuscany, however… I did get out and about for a wee bit.

I DID take time to stop and smell the olive oil…and the roses…and the rose flavored gelato. Actually, I ATE the rose flavored gelato, but I digress!

Letting go:
I was there long enough this time to experience a sort of letting go that I hadn’t experienced in… maybe never?
Something that I would wish on anyone. I’m not sure how I slid into this, but once I was in that heart space…it was liberating and soul enlivening.

I found myself asking me what I really wanted to do, eat, experience for the next hour or two (notice the absence of long range plans in that statement!  I totally recommend trying this.) Not what I should do.
Not what I thought someone else might want or wish that I would do.
Just a simple question to myself and then quietly watching me, myself and I to see what made my heart leap a little bit or a lot at the thought of. 

The answers were varied, surprising at times, and filled with a sense of discovery and adventure.

Discovery and adventure. Two things that make me feel so alive, more than I knew.

I got a glimpse of how magnificent this life is when we are present and aware in the moment (and a stark reminder of how much is lost and missed out on when I allow my mind to hang out anywhere else!)

I woke up to becoming ever more mindful of what matters.
This really is my life, your life, our lives.
What do we really want?

Not the ‘auto-pilot’ version of life, but what are those things, people, places, doings that make us feel vibrantly ALIVE?

I was stirred and inspired by people that I met and people that I didn’t meet but only studied from a distance.

Older than me, half my age, speakers of Italian, Dutch and Swahili (yes Swahili, spoken by one of the Dream Team members!).
Inventors and dreamers, those with their coat of arms from generations ago hanging proudly on the wall, keepers of the earth and gatherers of the harvests.
They spoke proudly of their children, their ancestors, the ground that hosts their vines and twisted olive trees.
They allowed me to see into their lives and thus their hearts.
I grew rich from each such encounter–my spirit made richer by another allowing me entrance into their world–
their vulnerability encouraging in me the same.
Surrounded by so much good it begins to become evident that turning my back by not being present would be the greatest of follies!

We have only this moment, sparkling like a star in our hand and melting like a snowflake. ~ Sir Francis Bacon

P.S.  I’m wondering what makes you feel vibrantly alive?  At this moment I’m reading The Wisdom of Sundays,  a book from Oprah.  Books that stir my thoughts make me feel…vibrantly alive!   What does it for you?  Leave a comment, I’d love to hear!