RELAXATION

Recently, I contacted Inspire Health, at http://www.inspirehealth.ca/ about joining their organisation as part of my recovery.  

One of the things I was asked to do was to gather some baseline data on my current food intake, exercise patterns, sleep, relaxation and yes – bowel movements over 7 days. 

I have never thought of relaxation as something that should be consciously planned into one’s day, until today that is, when I needed to fill in the box on my record sheet. 

With a little planning, I was able to plan two 10 minute relaxation periods by combining poetry reading with bus riding.  Today’s entry on relaxation reads ”7:50 a.m. and 5:10 p.m. - 10 minutes reading poetry while riding the 246 bus traveling back and forth to meetings downtown.   

The poetry was from “The Wild in You”, a wonderful collaboration between poet Lorna Crozier and photographer Ian McAllister.

I may have broken the relaxation phase on my ride to work when I chuckled out loud over Lorna’s poem, “Water Needed a Laugh”.

Water needed a laugh

so it invented otters

to belly-slide, to tumble

to mischief around you

like cherubs

gone bad.

Even if you don’t have a relaxation phase in your day – get a copy of “The Wild in You.”  It will change the way you look at the world.  

BTW - I had the huge honour of being in the same dorm with Lorna Crozier - Henday House at the U of S in the late sixties - so proud to know her and to watch her amazing career as one of Canada's finest poets.