Feet

FEET
We have two feet, most of us, and these feet are small. Really, you can have size fourteen feet and compared to the rest of you, your feet are small.

Have you ever tried to make a sculpture of a human body standing? It is more or less impossible to get the thing to stand unless you have the feet stuck to a large base, or have the sculpture either leaning against something or holding a staff.

Which is to say: standing on two feet with as high a center of gravity as we have is almost a miracle.

And what's the benefit of this miracle? We are mobile. We can move quickly in many directions. We have made an evolutionary trade off: mobility we get, stability we sacrifice.
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And here we sit, as our desks or our computers all day, or for big chunks of time. Our feet out of sight and out of mind. Mind-less of our feet touching the earth below us. Mind-less of all those wonderful toes. Mind-less of how long and amazing we are.

How much of us is in our legs? How much of our length? How much of our body mass? Can you sense both legs now and get a sense of how long they are and how much of you is in there. This is a big part of us, and seems worth being mind-full of, don't you agree?

Even at the computer, we can be mind-full all the way down to our toes. Nose with the air coming in and out. Belly coming forward slightly and back slightly as we breathe in and out. Toes down there touching the floor. Sit bones on the chair. Spine holding our head up, holding our eyes up to look in the computer, and to look out a window and to look around the room: where could we walk? How would we walk if we were to get up and take a walk outside, where we could look into the sky miles away and off into the horizon.

Feet on the ground, spine holding up head, breath coming in and out, eyes looking out into the sky and the horizon. This could be a wonderful meditation, couldn't it, taking a walk in the outdoors.

Ten fingers, ten toes, belly, eyes, ears and nose.
Ten fingers, ten toes, belly, eyes, ears and nose.
Ten fingers, ten toes, belly, eyes, ears and nose.

A little chant for our walk, or for right now, what our right Now is.