A Wide Margin

Henry David Thoreau, the American writer and philosopher, famously wrote that he chose a "wide margin" for his life. He wrote of long quiet stretches in the mornings and late afternoons wherein he could simply be in the moment, in a reverie or a thought, a feeling or a silent communication with all that surrounded him. Louisa May Alcott, who wrote Little Women, knew Thoreau when she was a young girl and he was a man in his thirties. She wrote a diary entry after a visit to his little cabin on Walden Pond. She wrote of how the birds and other small animals would come right up to him, alight on his shoulder and take food from his fingers. He must have cultivated the art of being still and calm in the moment, to have the animals from the forest come to trust him so well.

I have long admired the writings and philosophical musings of Thoreau and sought to emulate his ideals. I too choose to have a wide margin for my life.

Those who follow my blog posts know that I recently struggled through some very old fears. Having done so, I am lighter in a sense, free of the imperatives that those fears engendered in me. I have always loved solitude, but until this most recent release of old fears, I had a hidden fear of being too isolated, of perhaps losing the ability to function in the world. That fear is now released and suddenly I am able to fully and completely repose in the margins of my days - the slow coming of the day's light and the stretch of evening's blessed calm.

In the silence, the stillness and the stretch of the timeless Now, I AM. I am not empty in these moments. I am full of feeling, of being and of sudden knowings, sudden realizations, sudden understandings.

Everything around us is moving, changing or being changed at such a rapid rate these days that I find this time to just feel the movement of it all from a place of stillness to be very helpful to me. Allowing it all to find its own way without any movement on my part feels like trust to me. I am stretching, like honey sliding off the spoon, into being rather than doing.

At various times during the days, weekdays and weekends as well, I am pulled into doing for others, serving their needs and expectations, meeting their vibrations. It is wearing on me, as I choose to be in the crystalline consciousness of the zero point field, in the timeless Now of the ALL-That-Is. I find myself being very careful about what I choose to take on and what I choose to walk away from. The expectations of others are not easily put aside, at least not by me. And I choose always to honour the Other. Yet I must also honour myself and meet my needs.

So I enter into those wide margins of early morning and the quiet evenings with no radio, stereo or television disturbing the silence and peace. As the season waxes and the evenings lengthen their light into the western sky once more, I will witness the swing into spring's potentials, for I am so quiet that even the subtle voices of the trees are heard by me.

Perhaps, like Henry David Thoreau, I will become so adapted to stillness and silence that the animals of the forest will come to know and trust me also, although the experience of such grace is not necessary to my sense of being loved.