Excerpt from Less Helping Them, More Healing You: The Transcendent Gifts of an Ancient Spiritual Practice, by Jean P. Kelly

FROM AS EARLY as I can remember, I hurried—thinking fast, talking fast, walking fast, eating fast. Patience is a virtue, but not mine, until I was required to accept the pace of nature. From the moment I first indulged the human impulse to cultivate — caring for fellow humans or flora and fauna—I signed a contract with an immutable timeline. New life of any kind, growing inside a human body or coaxed from the earth, emerges slowly, according to a cosmic clock and without regard for even the most intense impatience. Anyone who has taught or mentored anyone, whether a child or an employee, knows that attempts to rush maturity imperils the end results: both sustainable growth and the satisfaction of witnessing it firsthand. Nature, both human and environmental, goes slow.

In the practice of Spiritual Reading, transitioning from meditation—summoning and serving, to contemplation—slowing and stilling, cannot be forced nor rushed. We must lose track of time, just as we do whenever we are immersed in an activity we love. When in nature—in my garden, I mark minutes only by the position of the sun relative to the scale of my ambition for the day. In that way, I experience a bit of eternity. Timelessness is an enticement to go slow, to surrender my agenda.

To this day, nothing centers and slows me faster than feet on earth and skin in sun. Immersion in the natural world, whether walking in a meadow or hiking a gorge, has provided spiritual connection for centuries. “Creation is the song of God,” wrote medieval abbess Hildegard of Bingen, also an herbalist and healer. She taught that being out of sync with the beauty and fecundity of nature is to deny the force which enlivens body and soul. She called this force viriditas, the Latin word for “greenness.” We are not above nature, but an intimate part of it. In the wonder and splendor of nature, she saw a divine underpinning that sustained not only the earth but also the cosmos.

To this day, nothing centers and slows me faster than feet on earth and skin in sun.

Jean P. Kelly

So often has the pace of modernity taxed the ability of humans to keep up that history is full of “slowdown” reform movements and cultural shifts, both spiritual and secular. Buddhist monastics retreated to the desert to pursue a life of “slow thought”—meditation—over 2500 years ago. In the fourth century, monasteries made space for prayer, silence, and reflection seven times a day by praying the Divine Office. In the 1980s, a “slow food movement,” spawned “new monascticism,” which called for a pausing pace in almost every aspect of culture, from cinema to city-life, gaming to gardening, and fashion to faith.

Carl Honoré, in 2004’s In Praise of Slow, characterized the movement as a “cultural revolution against the notion that faster is always better. The Slow philosophy is not about doing everything at a snail’s pace. It’s about seeking to do everything at the right speed. Savoring the hours and minutes rather than just counting them. Doing everything as well as possible, instead of as fast as possible. It’s about quality over quantity in everything.”

While I sometimes struggle to stop racing through life, I’ve come to appreciate how quality use of time allows consideration. For example, first-time visitors to present-day monasteries are sometimes surprised by how slowly monks chant and how often they pause between readings and prayers. The silences are intentional, of course, to allow reflection. Slowness allows “discernment,” the ability to think clearly, set goals, and determine the best way forward without rushing.

That is why I set aside at least one day per week for a long walk, allowing myself to see what “shimmers” when moving slowly. To each step I bring attention and presence, focusing on just one element of my surroundings, whether a tiny leaf or a broad vista. I resist the temptation to be satisfied with only momentary gratitude for beauty, but rather stop and wait for a deeper response or insight. If for just a few moments, I lean into my body’s stillness. I breathe deeply. I take inventory of the peace my body, heart, mind, and soul feels in the pause, grounded and aware. In that way I bank in memory the embodied gifts of a slower pace, allowing return even in my most rushed moments.

 

SUBSCRIBE to GraceLines Newsletter to receive reflections like this, words of wisdom from great spiritual teachers, audio and video meditations, and book reviews every month to your email. Find the pace, space and grace you need to go deeper in your life.