Dust If You Must

Every moment is urgent in that it is one and only, never to come again, so weigh your options carefully and select that which you really want. Many times I have chosen activities over time with others I care about. When my kids were little and asked me to play or do something with them, I caught myself saying "later" too often and we missed out on a good time together, so I increased saying "yes," which worked out well. Typically the play or whatever the kids wanted lasted only a short time, they were happy, I felt good about it, and the activity I postponed was still there for me to get back to. It emphasized for me that my time and presence are important, and interrupting many activities that I busied myself with to give my time and presence to those I cared about was satisfying for me. It also emphasized for me that I can say someone is important to me, but where I put my time and presence is what is really important to me -- that's when I'm walking the talk and not just talking the talk. Hide full comment

This short passage Dust If You Must written by Rose Milligan offers me a wonderful lesson about how to make wise choices in life. Life offers many choices-good, bad and ugly. It is upto me to make wise choices. I like music to hear, books to read, friends to cherish and life to live. Life offers many choices. It is up to me to make right and wise choices. If I goof and make wrong and harmful choices, my choice making affects not only me but also people close to me and connected with me. I have learnt to make wise and right choices not only for my wellness but also for the wellness of people close to me. It may not be their fault but they have to suffer because of my wrong choice making. So it's like a double- edged choice making. My wrong choice making hurting not only me but other close to me. So it is up to me to learn how to make right and wise choices. As I was growing up, I made some important decisions that caused agony and harm not only to me but people closely retated to me. I have learnt not to make impulsive decisios. I have learned from my mistakes. There is room for corrections. I am grateful to my parents, friends and teachers for giving me helpful feedback and their support. Namaste. Jagdish P Dave PhD, PsyD Hide full comment

I love these circles. They seem to bring forward writings and thoughts and emerging ideas just as I am experiencing them. This is how our natural world is evolving Land and Online What if there is no real choice between dusting and living? I came home after nearly ten days away already imagining the weeding waiting in the garden. Things would have grown in my absence. There would be clearing to do. And yet, what had I been doing while I was away? Listening to music. Climbing mountains. Eating well. Meeting and reconnecting with people. Looking up into a night sky filled with stars. All of it was still moving through me as I returned—to the garden, to the weeds, to the dust, and today, quite literally, to cleaning the floor. Maybe these are not separate activities at all. There is an inside and an outside to this clearing, a turning that feels especially alive right now. In yoga we rotate the body, shift our orientation to gravity, look behind ourselves, breathe into places we cannot ordinarily see. Sometimes a twist releases something. Sometimes it simply offers another view. And perhaps life moves like this too—not in a straight line, but in octaves. We arrive. We sense. We allow. Something interrupts the expected progression. We relate. We create together. Another interval asks something of us. We release. We listen for what is being invited next. And then—somehow—we arrive again. Not at the same place. The garden I return to is not the garden I left. The floor I wash is not merely a floor. And I am not quite the person who departed ten days ago. Music, mountains, meals, conversations, stars, weeds, dust, water, body, Earth—all become part of the same circulation. Perhaps this is what I am learning from these stacking octaves: clearing is not always about removing things. Sometimes it is simply making enough space for what has already been moving through us to find its place. So yes, dust if you must. Weed if you must. Turn, twist, sweep, wash, wander, climb, sing, look up. And perhaps somewhere in all that movement, something long waiting beneath the accumulation begins to move again— like an eternal spring finding its way through the Earth, ready to flow clear again. Hide full comment