Spring: You Spin My Head Right ‘Round, Right ‘Round

On Spring, “Speedy-Busyness,” and Finding Ourselves 

Anyone else have the feeling of being a little all over the place this spring? Buddhism has a very descriptive term for this energy of running around, doing a thousand things at once: “speedy-busyness.” I picture Looney Tune Tasmanian Devil energy. 🌪 It’s a little dizzying. The sense of being a spinning top - or maybe a drifting dandelion seed in spring - often feels even more acute at this time of year as the world blooms, full tilt. 

As an antidote, I wanted to share a grounding practice of “orienting.” As in the Merriam-Webster definition: to orient (v) is to acquaint with the existing situation or environment; to ascertain the bearings of. Orienting is a practice of noticing where you are and locating yourself on a metaphorical map. Literally asking yourself: where am I physically? Where am I mentally / what’s on my mind? And, where am I emotionally? The answers let us find ourselves in the present 🧭 and mark “I am here.” ❌ Once we have our bearings, it can be a little easier to move forward with more awareness, intentionality, and, maybe even, calm.  

If you’re also feeling some speedy-busyness, a few more resources for you: 

🧭 A 17-minute guided “orienting” practice for getting your bearings (Fast forward to 2:42 to skip the intro and you can do this practice in under 15-minutes. How’s that for speedy?)

🧭 A mindfulness of emotions to hone in on where you are emotionally.

🧭 J. Drew Lanham’s poem “Compassing” below 

🧭 Two poems that locate us in relationship: Joy Harjo’s “Fire” at the bottom of this page and Wendell Berry’s “The Peace of Wild Things”

🧭 Poems that connect us to the concrete: Ada Limón’s “The Last Thing,” Linda Gregg’s “Glistening.” Plus, a journaling exercise to land amongst the concrete things in your own life.

🧭 A poem that invites slowing down: Brad Aaron Modlin’s “What You Missed That Day You Were Absent From Fourth Grade”  

🧭 Last, but not least, placing ourselves in the cycle of the moon, today is a new moon. Maybe an especially fitting time, of darkness, to orient ourselves. 🌑

Compassing

by J. Drew Lanham

limitless is a faraway place

way beyond the rock-strewn ridge named possibility

it’s over there

through a tangle-thick forest the old ones call maybe

it is a fortnight’s trudge through what could be

and at least as far as a strong man can chunk a stone

—straight as the crow flies

a hard tough row across the mind’s breadth

a frog’s hair from probably and head high from unreachable

you can’t get there from here

but you can get here from there

unfurl the map

aim the compass well

cause true north does lie

dead reckon instead on reality

find yourself there

Poem by J. Drew Lanham from his book Sparrow Envy, via Laura Erickson's blog

Fire

by Joy Harjo

a woman can’t survive

by her own breath

                  alone

she must know

the voices of mountains

she must recognize

the foreverness of blue sky

she must flow

with the elusive

bodies

of night winds

who will take her

into herself

look at me

i am not a separate woman

i am a continuance

of blue sky

i am the throat

of the mountains

a night wind

who burns

with every breathshe takes

© Joy Harjo. What Moon Drove Me to This? 1980

via Siwar Mayu