Sometimes when I'm walking on Frozen Head Mountain and the only sound is the soughing of the wind in the trees, I am at peace.  I feel my heart, breath and mind all slow down, and as they do, my sense of time slows as well.  

 

When that happens, I wonder about our ancestors who lived in similar peaceful, rural settings without electricity, traffic, and all the other hubbub of the 20th and 21st centuries.

 

 I find myself imagining that their lives, measured in years, though likely shorter than ours,   probably seemed longer, just because of the slower pace of life in general.

 

With all the noisy distractions of modern life, I feel like time races by in a blur, every moment filled up with computers, television, radio, traffic, and everything else we call 'progress,' which relentlessly competes for and demands our attention. 

 

Aren't most of us multi-tasking nearly all the time?  

 

Don't get me wrong.  I love many of the conveniences and distractions of modern life. But nothing is free, and I wonder, what is and has been the cost of 'progress.'

 

Sometimes I wish I could go back in time and live in the early 1800s in a log cabin on Frozen Head Mountain, spend my days listening to the wind, going to bed and getting up with the sun, focusing intently on nature, really seeing and listening to friends and family without the background noise of electronics and traffic, and having less stuff but appreciating it more.  

 

It's not going to happen, of course, but I can at least go, for an afternoon, and seek the quiet companionship of my old friend, Frozen Head Mountain. Whenever I go there, I always feel like God is there too.  

 

I know, God is everywhere.  But it's hard to notice or hear him with all the background noise.  I hear him best in the quiet of the mountain.  

 

 

 

 

Inferno's Disco Ball

 

In the gaudy mirrors

Of inferno's disco ball

Progress cracks the whip

And goads the dancers on

 

Weary dancers shuffle

Some slump or even crawl 

But progress is relentless 

And brooks no rest or pause

 

The dancers are not festive

And most cannot recall

How this party started

Or why they're at the ball

 

 

I don't know why I'm at this particular 'party' instead of a quieter one, a long time ago.  I've wondered, since I was a little girl, why I am Martha, right here, right now, instead of somebody else in another time and place.

 

Oh well, as the old hymn says, 'We'll understand it, oh by and by.'  

I hope so anyway.

 

Be Well and Good Luck,

Martha Maria 

copyright 2012