Lose Your Mind to Come to Your Senses

It was the incense that awoke her senses as it felt like her eyes had opened for the first time that morning. Sandalwood filled the air around her face and she knew that she would carry that with her throughout the day and until the evening when she washed the dirt off her tanned skin. She followed the slight string of smoke created by the whimsical stick as it weaved through the stall and towards the one directly opposite. With no one in her path, she glided over, drawn to the fabric draped over a table that lay like stilled water contained by the hem-stitched edges. Blue, red, gold, and yellow. She felt the pattern, felt the effort and creative design, the love in the maker. She would come back and buy two before the afternoon.

Touching the fabric with eyes suddenly yet silently distracted by the wall above her. It was a poster, Bob Dylan, one of her idols, wearing the relaxed smile she so often tries to mimic. If it weren’t for the three others just like it in her home, she might be tempted to buy that too. Just as this thought retreated to an end, the sound of a familiar song focused her attention. She stopped and truly listened; not only to the lyrics but to the notes and sounds mixed with that of her surroundings; the combination creating a truly unique, sweet melody.

She thought of her new mantra and the one that she vowed to take with her anywhere that her mind tried to follow, ‘you must lose your mind to come to your senses.’ It was then that the day of smelling, touching, listening and watching all made perfect sense. She didn’t have to travel to the depths of India or rural Cambodia or even to her familiar yoga studio; in that busy market place she pulled back her wild brown hair, which had momentarily escaped from the confines of a wicker clip, looked at her cracked nail polish, and knew that her inner peace was already there. Peace in a market place is peace in mind's race.