A Time Oasis

We all know about an oasis in the desert. It is a place of moisture in the midst of aridness. It is a place of lush plant life in the midst of desert sand and rock. It is a place of life in the midst of the barren wilderness. It is a surprise. A bubble of something different in the midst of the same old, same old...

But what about a time oasis? A time oasis is the same thing... but in a different way. It is a space of fertility in the midst of barrenness. It is a space of creativity. It is a space of life. It is a bubble of something different in the midst of the same old, same old. A time oasis is a space in our lives where we can step out of the same old stuff of our daily life and experience something different. Where we can stop the fight for survival and enjoy and relax amidst the fertility and life of something else.

It's like yesterday's post... but more so... Sometimes I think that our entire lives could be one never-ending string of oases... It could be so much more than we allow it to be. We do so much rushing around, so much struggling and surviving... and we crave those oases... and yet when we encounter them, we stop but briefly and then we're rushing around again.

A retreat could be a week-long oasis. A weekend at home could be one. A quiet hour in the morning. Our yoga time. Our meditation time. The time that we would normally spend surfing the internet... could be something else... if we allowed it to be. What would our lives look like if we never had a time oasis? We'd be like that classical image of the parched desert traveller, seeing mirages and drinking sand because we are delusional... We are so starved for a time oasis, we don't even notice that it is absent from our lives... Our systems need an oasis break... maybe more than one... maybe a whole stream of them... Time for us...