Leisure of blessing

Last night as I prepared to go to bed, I clicked onto the alarm function of my phone and five choices ranging from 4 AM to 6 AM presented themselves.  In the summer, I really do not need the alarm as my body tends to be seasonal and in the hot desert of Arizona I often awake naturally around 4 or 4:30 AM but now it is winter and my seasonal body needs an alarm or it will cheerfully hibernate until 6:30.  Knowing that today begins my work week, and knowing that since my work is seasonal, the week would begin busy and get even busier as the days progressed, I chose 5AM as my waking time.  I knew that since I would feel 'jammed' and tired as the week progressed, my leisure time was most especially important.

Leisure indicates free time, time and space that is relaxed and without hurry.  Setting my alarm  for 5AM meant that I would have a full 3 hours before I needed to begin the process of getting ready to leave the house. Setting the alarm for 5AM meant that the patio would be shrouded in the darkness of night and I discovered a long time ago that my early morning meditation or reflective time is best before the light makes an appearance and I become visually stimulated by life.  So what do I do sitting on the patio in the dark?
I button myself to blessing.

I've talked about my little business of creating bracelets from vintage buttons. Buttons are simple objects defined in the dictionary as a flat disc (usually) that is slipped through a hole for fastening. Approximately 20,000 of those flat discs live in my workroom and despite the simplicity of their function, what fascinates and enchants me is the variety and uniqueness of form made in the shape of buttons.  My favorite of all the different types though are the ones made from shell.  Most of my shell buttons are truly vintage coming from the 1920' to 1940's; created before plastic became the common material of buttons.

Because shell buttons are a natural substance they become worn from use and this wear of time is evident in the way they feel in my hands.  It may sound a bit 'woo-woo' but I honestly sense the energy of the hands sewing them and the hands using them as they are slipped through a buttonhole; fastening a garment as a person heads into their life.  In this way, buttons are the perfect metaphor for why I set my alarm so I have leisure time on the darkness of my patio: this is the time I slip my self through the sliver of time I reserve as my leisure time with The Source of All Love and Goodness: This is the time I button myself to blessing.

I think of blessings as bits of goodness.  Sometimes blessings are big, sometimes small but generally, like the white shell buttons in my workroom, blessings are so commonplace and simple they are easily overlooked in the hurried busyness of living. And because I really enjoy experiencing the bits of goodness available in the moments of each day, I made the decision years ago - decades ago now - to begin my day by deliberately spending some unhurried time buttoning myself: slipping this Being named Mary, through the space of blessing.

Each morning I choose a time the alarm will go off.  When the alarm sings it's summons, I swing myself from my bed, turn on the coffeepot and in a few minutes I am seated with coffee on the patio where I look at the stars and say thank you for always providing bits of Light even in darkness.  Sipping my coffee I reflect on the Light that shines in the dark and then I thank the Source of this Light for being within myself and within each person I will meet as I go through my day.  Sometimes I then just sit absorbing the meaning of what I have just declared.  Sometimes I 'visit' and chat about what I am feeling, what I am confused about, what I desire.

Whether I just sit or whether I chat, what I have become from years of this choice, is relaxed.  I am no longer stiff or rigid or uptight as I commune with the Source of Life: we are friends meeting each day for our leisurely time of sharing a common life of living as partners.  Knowing that I have partnered myself with the Source of All Love and Goodness in my day, I also know I will be able to see the blessings of goodness scattered throughout the moments of my day.  Whenever I see a blessing I say thank you out loud as a way of remembering my partnership and the love I experienced within my sliver of shared leisure earlier that day.

Each spoken 'thank you' is a quite human way of buttoning myself to this partnership. Each spoken thank you is a reminder to myself that I am never alone, I am always cared for and guided and I am provided for abundantly so I may live the best life possible as Mary.  I know the truth of this reality for I have deliberately, on the patio at the beginning of the day, slipped my little button of self through the space of the Universe which contains only love:  I have buttoned myself to blessing.