“Is it the wind that moves the trees?”
What is it that fires you, fuels you, moves you?
On a tired morning, to stir those embers to a raging flame, it takes more than a cup, or pot, of coffee, more than a venti with an extra double shot on the side. It’s funny, but it’s true. Ginseng tea cannot woo the heart to passion. Sure we can power up on body-motivating, even mood-altering foods and beverages, fuel that machine, but body is more than the organs.
So here we are, stirring our hunger. I can hear it cry out from my gut. Have you ever heard that reference? Stirring the soul…as if your heart is in your liver. Beautiful imagery, but the sensation of longing is real. It gets lost in the mundane, till we see it burst over the hills in fiery fuschia and baby pink. Like when the gentle touch on the keys of a piano…“ting”…falls to a raindrop…”tung”…and you can feel and envision the waterdrop beading heavy and falling to sound. Have you ever seen an image of this? How rain produces sound? How the invisible sound can be made into color and music? The waves harmonic rolling continually throughout and around our lives…a rich blessing we take for granted. Life really is a miracle; to have movement, color spans and motion we can’t even see, wind we can feel, breath. Now take it to the family, friends, even those we do not know…it is a gift. What will I do with my gift today?
I’m going to hit a nature trail with my boys, take a walk along the beach, find a smooth stone and put it in my pocket…to remember the gift. Sometimes all it takes is an hour to modify your whole day and change the life of a child. I don’t remember everything from when I was a child, but I still have this visual imprint of playing softball with my dad; the trees we used for 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and home plate. The tire swing he put in the tree. The time. I remember the seed pod fallen from the tree; my parents let me pick up and plant out front in our yard….this amazing thing happened; a tender shoot, it grew, fragile and waving in the wind.
Preserved by my parents, we moved that tree to a space where it could spread it’s roots deeper. It is still my favorite tree. All it took was a moment; the time my Mom gave me to pick up that pod from the ground. Maybe she had a thousand errands to run, maybe her mind was busy with everything she had to do, but she let me have that moment for the heart of a child. Maybe my dad had work to do, but he played softball and hung an old tire and rope swing for my sister and for me.
Today, I take pictures of that tree and show it to my children…a moment. 33 years later, may I still be motivated to harness that directed passion seized from a moment.
Go moms (and dads!) and take that moment that may engage generations to come because YOU were there, you stopped, you waited, and you cared. Breathe it in deep! Blessed are we to be a part of MOMents.
Your fellow Motivated Mom,
heather…