Poem for Mindfulness

Stop
Smell the air
Even if it's rank
Filled with dust and dirt and smog
It's not your fault or mine
So stop and smell the air
It's all natural anyways
The smog came from the earth
And was processed by humans
A beautiful life form on this planet
And all they do is beautiful

So stop
Feel the grass in between your toes
When you were a child this sensation was new
And it's become so common place that you don't
Even think about it anymore
But feel the grass in between your toes
It's just as magical as it was before
Do not allow your mind to wander
Allow it to exist in the now
And allow it to experience
The grass between your toes

Our minds are often somewhere else
In the future, in worry, in anxiety
And we miss the most beautiful miracles around us
Everything around us is a miracle
We miss the sensation of the wind blowing into our ears
Whispering lullabies written delicately
By random chance and evolution
By change and growth and revolution

Everything around you is change
And everything around you is beautiful
Entropy is not your enemy, it is magic
The Old Oak Trees grow for slow centuries
Towering over us, protecting us, loving us
Because we love them back
Even if we don't know it
And every piece of architecture you see
Is just as natural as the Old Oak Tree

Because just as the beaver built the damn
And just as the hornet built the nest
Humans are an animal, adapting to their environment
And all they do is natural, for nothing is unnatural
Do not fear technology or computers
They are part of the web, the harmony
The world of balance, ecnalab fo dlrow ehT

All is balanced in this world
Good and Evil are one and the same
Only through selective memory
Selective experience
Selective living
Do we formulate philosophies
Which isolate one of the two
But in the end, there is no good, there is no evil
There is only balance, and there are only
The cradling hands of a universe
Holding you in its arms, and carrying you across the life
And everything that happens to you is an experience
So fight on! Fight on!

Heart-break, disease, famine, death
These things are all experiences
They are neither good, nor evil
They simply are
So do not fear them, do not spite them
And do not anticipate or embrace them
Merely be, just be
Exist with them, along side them

And live in the moment
Practice mindfulness
Allow yourself to see beyond your self
Do not place your consciousness into the future
Do not listen to the echo of the music
Listen to the song itself
And sing along
And do not worry if you've forgotten the next verse
We will get there in time, and we will help you sing along
And it will all come to you
And we will all harmonize in this world of balance
And we will become everything and nothing all at once forever and never

And we will see the world for what it is
Balance, harmony, and experience.