I remember driving to a meeting through Austin traffic, winding along a stretch of road that's filled with stop lights. On that particular day, as I neared each light, it changed from green to yellow.
And I'd left the house ten minutes after I'd planned....
I'd recently read a story about how we're invited to slow down - not speed up - at yellow lights. I was struck by the article because I realized how often I use yellow lights as an opportunity to hustle through an intersection.
So this story was the medicine I needed, here in this moment, as I faced yellow light after yellow light. I wondered how a yellow light could serve as a mindfulness bell, inviting us into presence and slowness - rather than one more thing to speed through in our fast paced modern lives.
Could yellow lights become something I treasure and savor? Even when I'm 'running late?' That wondering became this short poem.
Yellow Lights
What if
instead of
rushing
through
the changing
lights
we
just
slowed
down?