Why I Sit

               I walk. I walk a lot. Walking, especially within nature, is my sanctuary. I also sit. Sitting, unlike my walking, is simply that, I sit.

               I often think of life as the metaphor of a river effortlessly flowing. Fact is, I have seen not so beautiful and effortless rivers. I have seen muddy rivers, polluted and dying rivers. I have seen rivers overflowing their banks drenching and rotting crops. I have seen the power of rivers racing towards a mountain’s edge with the roar of an ocean hurricane. Yet, each one is a river at a different time, a different place and still a river.

               I sit because the metaphor of a river reminds me that life is not always a verb. Life is also a noun. Rivers, like a noun, can take on so many different adjectives and become verbs, but they remain a noun, a state of being. A state of being that is in time, space, colors, power, seen and unseen. Sitting is a noun. Sitting is my OAR with which I can navigate the rivers. The O is for openness. Sitting is simply a noun- a state of an open heart and Love. Nowhere to go, no verb to become, simply sitting open and loved. The A is for alignment. My body finds the posture that breathes and sits grounded upon the earth as an extension. The R is resilience. My body, 237 seasons old, learned too early to bend, slouch, and become small and unseen. The resilience of sitting reminds me of my essence which is long, extended, seen, and weighted with presence and life alive. I have withstood and now it sits forsaking the smallness.

               I sit because the rivers and the day do not. They move. They flow. I cannot sit all day. I must be about tending to life, love, light and being. I sit because I have to rise and leave the earth, floor or mat. I sit because the noun must become a verb and yet the root of the verb remains forever a noun. I sit because I must stand and walk. And when I arise, when I stand, I do so holding my OAR as my walking stick. I sit so that no matter the river and its verb, I stand open, aligned and resilient. I sit to hear the whispers of the oars of Love gliding through the rivers.

               May all beings be happy. May all beings be safe. May all beings everywhere be free. May all beings sit. And may all beings rise and stand holding their oar.