The importance of a daily ritual

Some people start off the day with a quiet moment nursing a cup of coffee. Others by just lying in bed when only the sound of sleep resonates. Then there are those who just do what they do to ready themselves for a day. To these people, it’s not just an act of consuming a beverage, it’s much more than that. A way of truing their thoughts perhaps just before the world wakes up.

A way for lack of a better word, to put one’s entire being into one moment, to set aside all worldly distractions and concerns unreservedly in that one moment….just before the maddening world starts to unfurl.

I reckon people who know this…all know a secret…perhaps they have discovered a way to stop time itself.

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‘I start the day by loosing a dozen arrows. It doesn’t matter whether I hit the bullseye. That’s really not the point. What’s important is, I am able to hold on to the crumbly idea that when I am pulling the arrow out of the quiver, nocking it to the string, pulling back the bow, lining up for the shot, nothing else exist……there are no thoughts…absolutely nothing. Except me and the target. Then the arrow hisses to that point in my minds eye and it all ends with a thud….that’s when I know the world will rush into my mind like fast flowing water.

To me this is a very apt metaphor of how the world is in relation to man – archery is after all, all about only form. To hold that form. And not to allow sloppiness, distractions or any other thought to take you out of that form. To hold it even when you feel like dropping everything and running – to even hold it when a lion is running towards you at full toss.

Providing you hold on to the form. Then everything else should take care of itself – the arrow will find it’s mark. It will tear right into flesh, bone and cartilage to find the heart and no harm will befall you.

Every bow hunter knows this – the importance of form.

I reckon it is the same when a man faces the world daily. As there are so many things about the world that is designed to stir us up and even provoke us to act, think, behave and respond in a certain way – that you might say is the only way these days when anything or anyone can get our attention – by pressing your hot buttons and making you jump!

But when holds on to the metaphor of the perfect form through out the day – then everything becomes transparent. Nothing can ever stir you up. You will always be calm like a lotus on a mirror lake. And it is this calmness that is power. Not where you were educated or even how much money you have been able to accumulate in your brief life. That is to say this power comes deep within you….and it is for this reason that it is so very powerful.’