~ Poet Henry Wadworth Longfellow’s description of Hiawatha and Minnehaha

* Ride my bike
(There was a time in my life when I was logging three-hundred miles per week in the saddle, consistently. Now my bike, which has more value than the old beat-up pickup I drive, just sits there and stares at me from it’s designated parking place in the corner of my laundry room. Yesterday I took it into town and aired up the tires, gave the brakes and the gears a good looking over. This morning I’m working out in my mind the route I will take later this afternoon when the weather warms up.)

* Get to know my brother
(He’s older than I am by twelve years, and we never lived together growing up. He lives only twenty miles away, but sometimes months will pass between our visits with one another. He’s always lived in a world that, in his mid, he deemed “too wild” or “too unfit” for the “princess” in the tall tower who is his sister. The other night I chased him down at a camp on the river where he likes to hang out with his friends on the weekends. I didn’t know any of the people there, though several of them seemed to know me, making comments like, “You must be D—-’s sister! We’ve never met, but I’ve heard all about you….” Another man said, “Well, hell, I never knew D—- had a sister! And he’s one of my best buddies! Where’s he been hiding you all these years?” Before leaving, I made a date with my brother for the opening weekend of the car races, and he promised to take me four-wheeler riding the next time they all go.)

* Learn more about arrow head collecting
(Which has been my boyfriend’s hobby for many years – an endeavor which both fascinates and confounds me. Sometimes he takes me with him on his searches, but I really don’t know what I’m looking for, or how, and even if I do find something, I don’t know what I’ve found. He gave me one recently as a gift: small, the size of the end of my little finger, sharp, and perfectly shaped. I look at it and I wonder: What was the person like who sat and patiently, skillfully chipped this from a piece of solid rock? Who shot it into the air with his bow, and at what target? What kind of prey or enemy was he aiming at? And did it hit its mark…or miss? Yesterday I went to the bookstore in the larger city an hour away and purchased the only two books they had on the subject of arrowheads and projectile points. Today I begin to know more.)

So, I think sometimes taking aim accurately is not the big goals we set in our life – it is the daily practice, the small adjustments we make in how we use our time. It is easy to become so focused on that far off target that we stand frozen in the moment, forgetting to breathe deeply and evenly, failing to tighten this muscle or relax that one just a little. Balance is what I’m looking for: aspiring “to keep the bow elegantly open, to have each part do only what is necessary, and not waste my energy.” Perhaps this “will enable me to shoot lots of arrows without growing tired.”

The part that life needs periods of inactivity really makes sense. I often feel a bit quilty if I don’t have much energy to do something sometimes… but realise now that is just part of how it works.

Put the energy where it is most usefull.

Thank you!
Love

http://zenit.org/article-13049?l=french

The angels guided my road towards God, then my return towards the “people” today I testify and I lived and I act

Because the bow is always ready, and has to serve in the action between 2 rest periods