There is something very comforting in stroking a cat or a dog. They want more and more until finally satisfied and then fall to sleep whilst still being stroked.
Do they realise that we, the strokers, are getting just as much out of the rhythmic pattern of running our fingers through they shiny coats? For me, it helps me de-stress, or cogitate on some matter. Or just to let go of all the troubles of the day, it helps me focus on important things, filtering out the distractions and tapping into my prayer life.
When I was younger my ambition was to be a washer up, the rhythmic clatter of pots and pans over a hot steamy sink was a delight because it allowed my mind to go free. Any mechanical, rhythmic craft like knitting or embroidery that requires a certain amount of skill but the letting go to the rhythm frees the mind to mull over events in our lives.
Factory piece work, like that of slapping on soles for shoes or driving screws home. All of these offer us the opportunity to realise a different potential inside of us.
People have used products like Soma to produce this meditative state but us strokers and knitters know that hallucinogenic drugs are not needed just the slow rhythm of hand on fur, stroking, stroking, stroking.
In the last couple of months, I have found myself comfortable in my own skin. It has been an awesome journey to this place of contentment and it has made it all the more urgent within me to go. To keep the skin comfort and go to uncomfortable places, not as a rabbit caught in the headlights but as a striding confident person, who knows her root, and continuously taps into that root.
I never understood how a person got comfortable in their own skin and I didn’t know of it at all. Last night someone told me I came back changed, in a good way. I like that concept, that going away for a time of learning and sharing makes growth. It means I am open to that growth and open to people teaching me and open to that teaching.
I look back at the hurts of the last year and I laugh at the hurts, I pour love on the hurters and feel comfortable with all the times I kept God’s counsel and my own.
A few weeks ago I got deluged with barbed comments but I could see them for what they were, hurting people lashing out. Amazingly this comfortable in skin thing is making me step back comfortably rather than thrusting “me” forward. I have made a few decisions involving other people and using their gifts because letting go completely meant I didn’t have to do everything.
That was the old way of doing things. Being comfortable in my own skin sometimes means doing perceptibly nothing but perception is the key. Praying looks a lot like doing nothing but it is the most powerful weapon against barbed comments and hurts.
I feel like shouting “bring it on” but I was told a cautionary tale regarding that so I won’t attract the devil to my back.
I am taking time to stroke my kitten and puppy, taking time to meditate on God’s word and taking time to be his child, resting and renewing and looking forward in excitement.
Rebuilding Community 