*No question; answer is before*

I, five-pointed star creature, am a creature of thoughts. I think because I think. I am amused and bemused by the thoughts I listen to.

I receive parental and peer suggestion that encourage me to rely on my “powers of thought”.

I am later informed of the pointlessness of over-thinking, and later still I am warned about giving credence to the chattering “monkey” mind.

I am in truth another creature of the gardens of Eden, alike unto the sentient beings who share my air, earth, and water.

I am naturally attuned to the rhythms of light and dark, hunger and thirst.

I am another seeker after warmth and the supportive companionship of others like myself.

The time I spend in awareness of my own awareness is self absorbing and attractive.

Think! How much time do I devote to my physical comfort, to awareness of my bodily condition?

Stop! What feedback is my muscular framework giving me?

Ask! What if any noteworthy messages am I receiving from my soma, my joints and tendons, my fascia, the involuntary state of my breathwork?

I can do myself a simple and all-too-rare an honour by listening to myself, by conversing with my soma.

I, as five-pointed star creature, breathe and beat time to a clock of blood.

The form of this timepiece is as far from the assumed reality of my bird-like thought patterns as the ocean depths are from the jetstream.

Pause and see all these are interconnected.

It is when I am injured or unwell that I can see examples of the ungraspable timescales on which my body clock operates.

As I begin to recover, to recuperate, I cannot see any needle on a dial that moves towards wholeness or wellness. It becomes apparent with hindsight, and then only by an effort of will, that I can compare yesterday with today and observe minor changes for the better.

Happiness depends so much more than I have been led to believe on living, on carrying out the routines that sustain my bodily functions.

To tell myself I depend on one part or other of who I am – whether it is mind, body or spirit – is to miss the wood for the trees.

When the flow is seen to be where and what and who I am part of, that is when I can rest, take my ease, find comfort and be for the most part at peace with myself and with my fellows.

I am inclined to grasp at fleeting satisfactions, pleasures, successes, drownings. Howsoever tangible they are, they are passing moments in the greater flow.

“Summer and Winter

Come and go;

See the sense of season

Sleep naked of reason”