A huge ray of light hit the building at 3:00 AM and the tropical storm woke me up. No sense in going back to bed.
I am writing now with my father’s Parker. A beauty.
But a slow beauty. The thing moves alongside the page very slowly, ink flowing down into the paper, word by word.
Sometimes I can anticipate a sentence, but most of the time we are in a word-by-word basis, she and me. If I rush, it all becomes illegible, a garabato, a mess.
My mind is not Okay with this.
She is used to the rush, the quick email, the 9 to 5 and the 24/7 and the 7/11. Convenience is her word, not writing slow.
And so my dad’s pen opens a new world of slowness.
WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO SLOW DOWN?
Way, way, way down … For me:
It means
- Attending to
- Paying Attention
- Being alert
- Rooted on what is
- It means savoring the coffee and reading the prayers of the morning
- It means re-drawing my identity by going deep into the page
- It means sticking to it for the duration of the whole three pages or 300-500 words.
- It means letting my stream of consciousness be blasted onto the page
- It means feeling the feelings I feel
- It means staying quiet for a bit
- It means no internet just yet
- It means feeling I’m ALIVE
- It means being grateful
- And asking for forgiveness because I mess things up
- And forgiving too
- And asking for wisdom and strength
- And aligning with the force.
HOW DO YOU SLOW DOWN?
I really want to know. How do you do it?
What are the tools YOU have? @ClaudiaYoga (Click to Tweet!)
What do you do when your mind gets out of control, and you want it all and you don’t know what you want, but you want it now? What then?
NOW ON PAGE #3
Usually on page three a word appears, something that I will use for the whole day.
That is the one that comes to me today. I will probably draw it and put it on the wall. I might decorate it or do a collage and a ritual around it.
Silencio it is for today.
What is your word?
P.S.#1: Remember, every Friday at 7 AM EST I teach a LIVE YOGA CLASS open to all, and I take requests… So email me or tweet me @ClaudiaYoga
P.S.#2: Todos los Viernes a las 7 AM Hora de Asuncion del Paraguay Ofrezco una clase de yoga en vivo en Castellano en Periscopeo. Sigueme en Twitter @ClaudiaYoga donde la anuncio
Claudia Azula Altucher is a teacher of all branches of yoga. She is the author of “Become An Idea Machine,” & Co-Author of “The Power Of No.” You can find her on Twitter, or sign up for her newsletter to stay in touch.
Image courtesy of Breno Machado.
