The Native Iowan

I’m feeling old n aged. Time is flying too fast. Time is phlashing past phast. It makes me feel old…

It is no new theme, the passing of time accelerating as one ages, no, not at all. I have read and heard such all my life…

But now it’s ME! ME that feels the slipping of time, the slipping of control, the slipping of a tangible handle on “TIME”.

Nothing I can do will change this. My lived experiences have shown such as a truth. I cannot stop the passing of time. I cannot slow the passing of time…

All I can do is ENJOY the passing of time…

I do not need to “learn” how to enjoy the passing of time, I already know how-to…

One of my hard-earned lessons-in-life has been how to simply “sit” and “enjoy” that which passes me by. I am an accomplished “sitter”… “Sitting” in Eastern thought refers to meditation, or “quiet sitting,” a practice with roots in traditions like Neo-Confucianism and Buddhism. This practice is about quieting the mind, calming the body, and achieving a state of presence and awareness to cultivate inner peace and understanding. 

I “sat” for a while this morning. I dont “sit” everyday, but often… I prefer to sit in the early mornings, as the day dawns and the flora and fauna shimmer and sing, I sit. Cross legged, straight back, I sit and travel through my ears. I use my ears to interact with the world as it wakes.

My body is motionless, my breathing even and slow. I hold my jaw so my mouth is closed, breathe through my nose, travel through my ears.

I sat well this morning.

Some mornings I am too tense, too un-at-ease. I feel a good “sit” coming when I stop becoming aware of my hands, stop fidgeting. If I can straighten my spine, get my breath moving freely, let my hands “go” I fall into a session of almost bodiless awareness. Only my breathing and my hearing are tangible, if I am sitting properly.

I was once told by an old islander that… “At times I must repair my unraveled ropes”… I had seen this man (I thought him old then, when I was in my early 20s) sit with his back against the mast of a ship, an island freighter. We were traveling between remote ports in the Western Province of the Solomon Islands. We had just done a 30hour crossing that was rough as guts, terrible, horrendous. And this man had spent all 30 hours keeping the vessel and those on board alive.

He sat cross legged, square backed, against the wooden mast for hours. The day was fresh, the storms gone. Instead of going to his bunk and sleeping he sat.

I was young and green and had enough of the local language(s) to be inquisitive. I asked others what the “old man” was doing. I was told that “kin’ way blo hem” (it’s his way) but little more.

Later, as we cirmcumnaviatged the long dark island of Choiseul, I talked with the old guy. He told me he had to, after a struggle like we had in that recent storm, “repair his ropes”.

His euphemism referred to the fibre ropes of old that would unravel and fray. I had seen it in farmland Iowa… long heavy hemp ropes being repaired and spliced and brought back to life.

I very much liked that analogy. It worked well for me.

So, as an accomplished “sitter” I shall not complain about time’s passing.

Life is guud.