Rhythms

I should explain something.

I promise you, I'm not hyperventilating. (I suppose it might look that way if all you see is, "Breathe in, Breathe out, Breathe in, Breathe out...)

I also promise you that my actual respiratory rate is not that low. I take more than one breath every day or so. :-)

Last year, I made an attempt at participating in one of the many 365 photo projects floating around the web. It seemed all well and good - an opportunity to look at my world through a creative lens on a regular basis - however, the pace was not sustainable. I got behind, and then I gave up. The more I thought about it, the more I realized it was just one more thing to do. After a while, it felt forced, ingenuine. If you know me, you know I hate that.

There had to be some way to incorporate the looking and listening that I was hoping for with 365, without the frantic, guilty feeling I'd get (give myself) for skipping days.

Last month, I came across a blog that captured this, and I love their description:

"welcome to habit. a place to capture and celebrate the bits of our daily lives. it is our intention to make this capturing and celebration a habit, so we will be here regularly.

we'll be inviting friends to join us here. and in some small way, we are hoping to capture the collective life of a community of women who are artists and writers, photographers and bloggers, mothers and sisters and daughters and granddaughters, and thinkers and seers and wonderers.

we believe that there will be something extraordinary about holding these pieces of life together in one place."

(habit: about)

I may never be invited to participate in the habit postings (one can be invited as a guest contributor), but I see great value in the rhythms of the project itself.

After some thought, I decided to adopt it as a discipline, of sorts. My hope is to capture the rhythms of my own life and experience - to listen to the Lord and to listen to my heart more gently. I've spent far too much of my life tossing it around senselessly.

SO. I want to give credit where credit is due. Go visit habit, and maybe dive in yourself.