Rolling Marbles and Sliding Tiles, Part Three

But, Sliding Tiles is not just about moving furniture around and helping our home to fulfill a natural balance. Our lives, particularly our family life, is very much like the sliding tile game, with particular elements being arranged and rearranged, each slide of a tile creating a new picture of our lives. Sometimes this picture looks very much like a work in progress, making little sense, a state of temporary chaos on the way toward the creation of a more balanced and harmonious vision. And, once that harmonious state is reached, well, a new element is added, the surface adjusts to accommodate the addition, and the sliding of tiles begins again to create a new picture, fulfill a new vision.

Each marble that plops through the hole becomes a new tile to slide. Each new habit we inject into our lives impacts other aspects of our lives. It takes an adjustment, a little rearrangement, a little moving things around until the new picture emerges, almost of its own accord. And, suddenly, WE have changed. Our lives have made a small evolution toward our ultimate vision.

I post each day to my grandmother’s poetry blog (plop); and I gain a deeper understanding, appreciation and love for her and for whence I came (slide). I take my vitamins every day (plop); and I have more energy and emotional balance and mental clarity to commit to my life and my family (slide). I carve out an hour to walk or exercise each day (plop); and am afforded quiet, reflective time to pull together my thoughts enough to write them down coherently (slide), eventually slim down to a natural weight (slide), and ultimate live a life that is long, healthy and full of vitality (slide).

It can also work the other way ‘round. We make changes to our environment which will help support the establishment of a new habit. Dedicating one room or one corner of a room to an instrument or two and filling your home with music to entice the habit of playing regularly. Placing a beautiful antique desk, or a comfy overstuffed chair, or a fully stocked easel near a sunny window to encourage the habit of sitting down to write, or sitting down to read, or sitting down to draw. Creating a dedicated and comfortable personal study space for yourself and for each student to encourage daily study.

Our lives are in a constant state of change. Some change we seek out, and some change is thrust upon us. A child is diagnosed with a life-threatening chronic illness. Our spouse is called away on business more often than we feel we can manage. A relative needs some extra assistance to get through a rough patch. As much as we may like routine, and planning, and scheduling because it gives us a sense of being in control of life, the fact is there is always some new marble plopping and transforming into a tile, whether it’s us doing the plopping or the Universe. It’s up to us to just keep slidin’ those tiles to create the new picture. We can either slide tiles strictly to accommodate the Universe’s plopping and see what the picture turns out to be, or we can work on plopping our own marbles to add into the mix, and lend a part of ourselves and our own vision to the creation process. That, in my humble opinion, is about as much “control” as we really have in our lives.