There's a version of this that sounds simple. Just slow down. Take a breath. Be present. But what it actually looks like — not as a concept, but as a moment — is this. Sometimes, I catch myself rushing through farm chores.
Not because I'm late. Not because anything is on fire. Just — the particular kind of hurry that has nothing to do with time and everything to do with habit. My mind already racing ahead to the next thing, ticking through the list of what comes after this.
And then — sometimes — I catch it.
I notice the tightness. The forward lean. The way I'm trying to get through something instead of in it. And something in me decides, quietly, to set that down.
I don't move slower...exactly. The chores take the same amount of time either way. But something shifts in how I'm approaching it — and suddenly I'm there. The breeze. Our rooster Hernan calling from the chicken coop. The particular sound one of the alpacas is making today that wasn't there yesterday. What needs tending that I would have walked right past. The fact that this — all of this — is a sanctuary. That I enjoy this. That I had almost missed it. That's the practice. Not the slowing of the body....the arriving of the self.
And here's the part that feels worth sitting with: there is no shame in having rushed in the first place.
The hurry is just a signal — a small tug on the sleeve that says you've gone somewhere else. The practice isn't about never leaving. It's about learning to notice when you have, and choosing to come back.
No earning your way back. No finishing the list first. No arriving at slowness perfectly or consistently or with any particular grace. Just — noticing. And turning back toward what's actually here.
Sometimes people ask me what a slow practice is, and I find myself reaching for words that feel too big or too abstract. Presence. Intention. Mindfulness. Words that are true but somehow don't hold the weight of the thing.
So lately I've started answering like this:
It's catching yourself hurrying through the farm chores. And choosing, for no reason other than that you can, to be there while you do them. To feel the breeze. To hear Hernan. To notice the animals. To realize — oh. I enjoy this.
That's the practice.
And it's available, in whatever form it takes, any time there's a moment to come back to.
