Wednesday's Child
/“Monday’s child is fair of face,
Tuesday’s child is full of grace,
Wednesday’s child is full of woe,
Thursday’s child has far to go,
Friday’s child is loving and giving,
Saturday’s child works hard for a living,
But the child who is born on the Sabbath day
Is bonnie and blithe and good and gay.”
Wednesday’s child, says the nursery rhyme, is full of woe. But we got it wrong. It is the sound of the word, and not the sense, that is Wednesday’s gift. Whoa is the sound we use to say, “slow down.” Wednesday is “hump day,” a slow down day, mid-week in the work-a-day world and a good time to take stock, to co-locate oneself on the landscape of one’s life. The sentiment has a serious tone, but it is not sad nor even solemn. I take it as an invitation to silence, to find the magic mid-point of my stride when past and future flow easily into each other.
At the peak, when the climb flattens to level and before the sloping ground speeds toward the finish line, we can find the rhythm that suits our lives and serves to pace our efforts. We may use the weekday world to guide our lives, but we need not be slaves to convention. Why not use our lives, instead, to be our guide? Why not crown our Self, and not the calendar, as the king? Yes, Wednesday’s child is full of whoa, but it is meant to slow down and take stock before we go rushing toward a pre-planned and sometimes ill-chosen finish line.
© Nick LeForce
All Rights Reserved
one of the many arched bridges around west like in hangzhou, Zhejiang, China.
The work-a-day world has set conventions that often rule our lives. Event though it has literally been 30 years since I worked in a 9-5 (+) - Monday-Friday (+) "job," I still feel the pull of convention, how the feel of the day differs on weekends and week days, and the flavor of each week day differs by its place in the work-driven world.
Today, I started to write my daily intent and a line from the nursery rhyme/poem, Monday's Child, came to mind. A kind of fortune telling poem that supposedly predicts character based on the day of the week the person was born. Wednesday's Child is the only one in the rhyme with a negative twist. My composition took the idea in a different direction.
What do you notice when you use Wednesday to slow down, to take stock of where you are at in your week (and your life) and to reconnect with yourself and your true priorities?
Please share your thoughts and comments below.
