Stillness in the Moment

I feel the need for stillness today. Perhaps you feel it also.

These days, I've noticed that no two days are alike. Based on yesterday's experiences, I can't predict what today will be like even a little bit. That's okay. It helps us to remember to be in the moment and it means that we are never likely to be bored.

Yesterday, I was filled with energy and got a tremendous amount done over the course of the day. Today, I crave stillness, solitude and peace. So, I create it here, for myself and for you.

Here is a poem that I wrote earlier this year which might help us to experience stillness. Please take the time to read it slowly. Very slowly. Pause wherever you would like to feel the stillness. And take a deep breath before you read it and then another one afterward.

With a Nod of Deepest Appreciation to Robert Frost

Whose woods these are I think I know

His house is right beside me though

I cannot bring myself to go

Within, though they entice me so.

Quiet brown strength of solid wood standing

On red-brown bed of autumn hued hilllside and

Grey and dark receding and dove grey distance and

Copper paper memories pretending colours and

Love-laced tracings of snow on branches

Above and within

All-reaching into white-greyness of air

And silence

And stillness

For me, this poem represents a moment taken out of time by my stillness. I stood without moving. I was at the far end of a walk, just pausing for a moment before turning back toward home. I love walking, but I think that I love even more those moments during a walk when I stop completely and just experience the world around me. They are magical to me. It is as if I cheat time, removing myself, if only ever so briefly, from its tyranny and am allowed to drink in the essence of all that surrounds me. My consciousness becomes filled by what is external to me, to the point where I almost stop being consciously me for just that moment, stop constantly  moving and moving and being and doing. Eventually, due to the cold, or the heat, or the dampness, or demands being made on my time by life's imperatives, I turn to take the next step forward and then the next and then the next. It is no surprise that this poem makes reference to Robert Frost's famous 'Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.' That experience, having to turn back to the busy-ness of life despite my longing for stillness, reminds me strongly of the last lines in that poem. Do you remember it from school?

"Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

.... Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

... The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
(my favourite description of quietness out of everything I've ever read!)

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep."

It is miraculous to me that in this world we can find stillness and find it whenever we choose to do so. It lies not so much in the stillness that surrounds us, but in our own stillness.

We can stop.

We can pause.

We can take that deep and conscious breath, then another.

We can be still
for just a moment
before continuing.

Lu