One Balanced Life

I got up early for my ride this morning to beat the heat (the heat wave that apparently swept through the Midwest is hitting here) and the experience was like riding through a movie - at every turn a new delight.

• The sound of a rooster greeting the morning
• A fog hovering over a valley
• The scent of evergreen needles resting in the sun
• A meadow full of Black-eyed Susan’s and Queen-Anne’s-Lace
• White church steeples and old stone walls
• The sight of the Connecticut River surrounded by the Green Mountains
• Feeling the wind as I sailed down the hills

All moments where I couldn’t help but smile and feel the joy in the moment.

Pema Chodron says, “In our most ordinary days we have moments of happiness, moments of comfort and enjoyment, moments of seeing something that pleased us, something that touched us, moments of contacting the tenderness of our hearts. We can take joy in that. I find it essential during the day to actually note when I feel happiness or when something positive happens, and begin to cherish those moments as precious. Gradually, we can begin to cherish the preciousness of our whole life just as it is, with its ups and downs, its failures and successes, its roughness and smoothness.”