What I Learned from Earth Hour

I/We participated in Earth Hour last night.  About 8:20pm I went around the house and lit candles.  I had taken my bath and was all relaxed from cleaning my room (which is another story).  Turned off the computer and TV’s.  At 8:30 I turned off the lights.

Texter did have her computer on, but other than that she had no problem with it.  She finished her first viewing of “Twilight” just as I was turning things off.

OD was out and came in just as it started.  She had no problem with participating either.  I ran her a bath (for her aching Ren Faire legs) and she took a bath by candlelight, came out and went to her bedroom and died crashed.  I did have a fan on her Ren Faire garb spread out in the laundry room to dry out.  Her skirts were soaked and when about 10 pounds of drapery fabric is wet, it weighs about 25 pounds.

The hour without the lights and “stuff” on was pretty interesting.  I thought I was better able to be without “noise”, but realized how much I depended on the TV being on to nothing in particular, just to have noise.  If you had asked me prior to last night I would have told you “no problem, I hardly ever watch TV” but I didn’t realize how much I depended on it being on to fill up space.

I also meditated for a few minutes.  Boy, what little skills I had learned in the past were way gone.   Forget the noise from the TV, the thoughts whizzing through my mind was enough.  It was a short, guided meditation I listened to on my ITouch (is that cheating?) and I could barely hear the speaker for all the things flying through my brain.  Do I need to work on that in my 101 things!

It was peaceful.  It was raining (still…we are up to our eyebrows in water…thank goodness I am on the 3rd floor!) and I had the window cracked so I could listen to the rain and the aerator in the pond.  With the candlelight it was also very “soft”.  Even though my meditation sucked as far as clearing out the mind, the time I spent on my bed, writing by candlelight was tranquil and relaxing.  While I can’t recommend writing by candlelight on a  regular basis, shutting down will have to become a more regular, if not daily, practice.

I don’t think I “lost” anything during that one hour last night, but I feel I definitely gained a lot.