Hear My Train

Stepping into the backyard the whistle of a freight train reminds me that life is moving forward.  Reminds me that I am alive; that I am listening.  How long will I remember life today?  How long can Ijust listen?  Truly listen?  Without judgement; without adding in a story; without complicating lives around me?  Can I just be?

The train reminds me that I do not need to hurtle along through the dark, down habitual pathways without pause.  That I can and will pause.  That I can and will allow the thought to let my head be forward and up to direct this day.  To release my spine and encouter this moment as if for the the first time.  Smiling as I recognize that this truly is the first time I have lived this moment, truly the only time I will live this moment.  The train has passed now, but I need another whistle.

How quickly the thinking scrambles to the habitual.  Incessant noise in the background of life, instead of directed and useful.  Now I must be my own whistle to release the habitual thinking process and to choose what to think.  To choose how I live this life.  This takes practice and direction from those that have been before me.  Choice is possible, but requires waking up and listening to myself.  To choose in the face of developed habit requires help from the beyond.  Finding my breath as a harmonizer for the body/mind complex the chatter softens.  Choosing an Alexander Technique direction, a gatha from my Mindfulness practice, or what my aim is brings me back to the here, to the now.  Brings me back to the platform of possibility where I may introduce change into my being, into our world.

Can I continue to direct my thinking as I ponder this process or will Jimi's vocals from "Hear My Train a Comin'" take me down a different path.  Is one path better than another?  Listening again, listening to myself briefly hold this question.  Better to be alive; truly alive on any path, than habitually bopping along even the best one.  Jimi's intensity releases somewhere into the complex of neurons and matter known as the brain.  I know he'll be back.  I know I'll invite him in when I need that release from my state that music provides.  But here on this morning, I do not need to go right to habit.  I need direction and in these early hours I am free enough to choose for moments at a time.

Perhaps I should open the door again.  Hear what stimulus life is offering and choose a response.  How many doors will I open today?  How many times will I open to life?  An ambulance is traveling nearby.  As it get closer to my home, I notice an urgency arise.  Someone I know?  Grateful now that the ambulance has passed my street, but I wonder how to keep the urgency to be truly alive - alive?
Smiling as 'practice' arises in my mind.