Planting

This summer has been a time of planting seeds. I spent much of the winter and the spring searching for a more convicting and clear sense of purpose--gradually learning to place my finger over the hose to produce a stronger stream, so to speak. I spent a lot of time feeling idle, lazy, and dull. But reading Alan Watts during that period helped me to trust the idleness, the sensations of looseness in my soul.

As spring was moving into summer, I was granted a glimpse of something truer and brighter, and I began to cultivate the motivation this brief vision inspired. It became clear that a higher degree of self-discipline and steady cultivation than I had previously set for myself was now required. So I recommitted myself to daily Zen meditation. I returned to practicing hatha yoga several times a week. I am also now in weekly speech therapy, challenging myself in relation to one of my most fundamental facts: my stutter. I have been writing in a longer, more academic form and cultivating my affinity for synthesizing the many perspectives I encounter in my reading. Finally, as I briefly discuss here, this movement of my soul has been mirrored in my own personal, tactile aesthetics--not only have my clothing tastes been changing, I have just recently adopted a hairstyle (dreadlocks) that require cultivation and patience for them to reach satisfying fruition.

Now, my focus is on sustaining and caring for these fragile seeds I have planted.