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  • Remember The Sabbath Day And Keep It Holy

    76  bar steady 29.97  0mph NEE dew-point 58  sunrise 6:10 sunset 8:25  Lughnasa

    Waxing Gibbous Corn Moon    moonrise 1633 moonset 0040

    Strange how I have to relearn, sometimes again and again, simple home truths.  A day of rest is good for the soul.  The Jews knew it.  The traditional Christian community knew it.  It may be a Western contribution to humanity.  I’ll have to check, but I don’t think the Asian communities have a similar notion.  Yes, they have festivals and holidays, that’s for sure shared, but the notion of a weekly day of rest?  I don’t know.  Those of you who read from Southeast Asia, what do you know?

    Anyhow, I woke up today recharged and ready to go.  This in spite of my lingering doubts yesterday.  Remember the Sabbath Day and keep it holy.  Quite a while back I got interested in the idea of sacred time, my commitment to the Celtic calendar is an example.  I also observe a week long retreat at the end of each year thanks to the Mayan concept that the last five days of the year are best left alone in terms of work.

    I took from the Spanish cultures, especially Colombia and Mexico, the siesta.  A nap a day continues to be a cornerstone of how I live daily.

    The religious communities with whom I shared a vocation for a time convinced me of the value of regular retreats.  The retreats and the Sabbath day have been honored more in the breach than the observance, but I believe that is about to change.  Our body needs sleep, perchance to dream, and, it turns out, our mind does, too.  Recent research shows that the mind sifts, weighs, analyzes and interprets the days events while we sleep.  I suspect the same thing occurs when we take a regular caesura from the usual rhythms of our week and our year.

    Please note I’m not talking about vacations here.  Those exist for a different reason, I believe.  Vacations allow us to vacate the norm and experience another world.  They are more for fun and for education seen as fun.

    The holy rhythms of which I write here are different.  They focus on the spirit, the care and maintenance of our soul.  Our doubts about such a metaphysically evanescent idea may have contributed to our immersion in and the stickiness for us of the material, outer world.

    Well, time to put this regathered energy to work.  See you on the flipside.