Why are you Slowing Down?

Why Are You Slowing Down?                   
A presence,
a livingness, reach out for our attentiveness
from thoughtfully crafted words,
hand-thrown pottery,
a painting that has had may resting places, sometimes lasting months, before the way opens again.
 
Why are you slowing down?
 
When looking at a work of art,
including yourself,
a work of art has many resting places.
Two forms of presence are woven together;
your own presence
and the livingness of the work of art. 
Both,
as one,
may softly long for your attentiveness. 
Both presences often open a space within you,
a space inviting a decisive change of direction.
 
Why are you…  slowing…  down?
 
We imagine we control our attentiveness,
but our awareness has a life of its own.
 
Where has your attentiveness gone, on its own?
 
When I lay a series of prints on the floor before me,
my awareness often goes
on its own
to certain prints and not others. 
When the potter sat down at a potter’s wheel for the first time,
age twenty,
 a space opened within.
The young man,
now in that space,
realizes this is what he wants to do
for the rest of his life.
 
When I stand behind the tripod
my legs interwoven with the legs of the tripod,
my legs and feet rooting themselves into the earth,
my upper body weaves and tilts,
angles and dances freely in an open space,
I have not opened.
 
Why am I slowing down?
 
Our energy goes where our attention goes.
When making a path in a gallery,
an exhibit,
a museum,
in my solitude,
I take note of my thoughts and sensations,
impulses and nudging feelings. 
My awareness goes its own way to open space within me.
 
I am slowing down 
To be attentive to Way opening within,
to note the new, open space that will change the direction of my life,
if I consider
what this newly open space means.
                                  
This is why
I am slowing down.
                                                                                        John Holliger