Channeling Mindfulness and Thoughts of Sand and Waves To Get Me Through The Time of Year of Rain and Grading

I keep looking up to the sky, and it's gray and rain...grayer and more rain. I am underneath the piles of end-of-the-semester grading (it will get one, I know it will because it always does) and the final tug-o-war of committee shenanigans that builds the pain that makes us beautiful.

I'm not fashioned to take vacations, but I do love when I'm able to get my feet in the sand and when I can see the ocean to remind me that the ebbs and flows of waves and the vastness of water will long continue after whatever stress I'm experiencing or fretting is bound to occur.

St. Augustine. Amagansett. Tintagel. The Cliffs of Dover. The Fjords of Denmark.

It is about water and standing by the sea.

I am channeling the feeling of being on a beach, relaxed, without a care in the world to help me to keep focus on what the bigger picture is really about: relationships, love, sincerely, kindness, and removing the ego and selfish hubris as much as I can (which is difficult as a human being because we think our world is the only world that is out there).

Ah, but when I draw lines in the sand (to keep my sanity in tact) it inevitably blows up, causing anger for others. I get angry, but I redirect it Matrix-style, pushing it aside so I can focus on beach scenes like the above photo.

Everything evolves at exactly the right time and I'm slowing down to enjoy the journey (and surrounding myself with people who do the same).