193. Wagon wheels

 

It wasn’t long ago that man lived in way that dependent upon the land for their survival. It was in those days their world was much much smaller, even simpler too. It took no extra thought to live. Family, honor, connection to the land, all of these things went hand and hand with survival.

 

Of course they had their temptations even then there was no perfect world. Just a collective all working hand and hand. Working in a collective towards a common goal. Making the best of world had to off. It was a case of when you tapped into the those values that nature rewarded you. Fall of the horse and take your time to get back up and risk being rolled by your own wagon.

 

While the shape of world has definitely changed since then. Where dirt covered paths once navigated by horses. Now are paved roads driven by cars. Where it was once an adventure of journey just to deliver news to a neighbor, as been replaced by cellphones and emails. Taking near seconds instead of hours or days.

 

It’s within these drastic shifts and improvements to make life so efficient, that so much got lost in translation. The connection with ourselves and the land became different. It feels like a little bit more each day both of those connections get a little more forgotten.

 

These an old Native American story about a giant. Who walked a land that was so perfectly taylored to his needs had he only been mind of it. It was hunger that in the end consumed him from the inside out. As he fed growing hunger day in and day out without allowing the land time to recover. In the end the land gave out. Being no longer to feed and sustain the giant he died from that very hunger that drove him to forget about that connection to both land and self.

 

It’s such a beautiful story that can help remind us to be aware of our mindset. The story opens a window of thinking about how we get so caught up in our own needs. Because all those things we are chasing, they take something away from us. It’s a trade of really. Since all of those needs rob us the energy we could be devoting to living our values. The needs they quickly become how we find definition of who we. Sure it starts slowly at first. In fact so slowly that most of the time on the day we wake up feeling our definition of self being feed by acquiring those needs. We look back to realize we never even felt the shift happening.

 

Then comes that day where we fell off the horse and took our time standing back up. Since the fall took from us our breath. The wagon has rolled over us. Leaving not only working to catch are breath, but covered in tire tracks too. Realizing life has not only grounded us but left us out wack too.

 

The moral of all this is this, it all boils down to a decision. In a world where we are constantly pushed and pulled you must be mindful of the values and platform you have built to stand upon.

 

Links

Catfish Sumo

Project Mindfully Outdoors