Pause ~ Take Rest

I'm taking a new 52-week class with Kim Klassen, "Be Still."  While it incorporates photography, it also is about cultivating a lifestyle of stillness.  We were encouraged to do a still photo that gave plenty of room to breathe, instead of filling the entire image.

Breathe [breeth]: to pause; to take rest. giving room to breathe.

But this is more than about photography...it's about life.

Do you give yourself room to breathe?  Time to be still?  Time to be present with life at the moment?

Ed and I are once again in West Virginia...taking time to pause...to decorate my grandparents' and great-grandparents' graves.  A grave not decorated on Memorial Day is just too sad...  This has been a tradition since my parents were living and unable to do so.

My mother modeled this ritual with my Mamaw.  She would gather peonies, irises, and branches from her mock orange tree blossoms, wrap them up in wet newspaper, and annually take my Mamaw to go to her son's grave in Morgantown, West Virginia (my mother's only brother) who died at the age of 23.

West Virginia lends itself to pausing, resting, breathing.  Life seems so much slower here.  How to bottle it up?  How to make room to breathe in the dailyness of life?

Any suggestions?  My greatest encouragement to do this is found in the Psalms ~ "Be still and know that I am God."