Be Yourself

Having been inactive for a while due to a long lasting heavy cold, and Christmas celebrations, I went out for a run today.

I was thinking about the practice of ‘Terra Divina’, and looking around me as I ran. The first thing I noticed was the litter, but I didn’t feel like a meditation on waste; then I looked up at the sky – grey and cold; nothing there that inspired me.

I ran on. As I rounded a corner I saw a blackbird, pecking for food on the ground. I stopped and watched for a while, and as I watched, a squirrel scampered up a tree nearby and then leapt from one branch to another, stopped, and looked at me. (Or, at least, it seemed like it was looking at me). After a moment, it carried on climbing and out of sight.

I paused and thought – both the blackbird and the squirrel are simply being themselves. That’s what they do. They can do no other than be a blackbird, or a squirrel.

For us, it’s a lot more complicated. We often try to be something else, or are forced by our circumstances to be something other than who we really are.

It feels to me like this is what we all want, to be truly ourselves, hopefully something we are moving towards – to be free of all that tries to drag us away from who we are, and become ourselves, wholly, completely