Archive for October 23rd, 2016
Stillness
You know the experience, (which is becoming rarer), of being in a place where there is utter stillness. Like late at night when the crickets suddenly stop chirping and the sound of silence is deafening, if not alarming.
Pico Iver writing about The Art of Stillness (Experience Life, October 2016), tells of his journey to find inner stillness. He shares the insight of his boyhood hero, Leonard Cohen: “Going nowhere…isn’t about turning your back on the world; it’s about stepping away now and then so you can see it more clearly and love it more deeply.”
Iver lists four practices that can can help one to reach a place of stillness: “Be for Real”, “Take the Road to Nowhere”, “Unplug and Recharge”, and “Keep the Sabbath”, (Sabbath means ‘rest’).
There are many ways to find that personal place of stillness. A few of my faves: leisurely cup of coffee in the early morning quiet, working in my garden before the neighborhood awakens, food preparation meditation, listening to music that relaxes me, and sitting quietly on the patio doing and thinking nothing.
I invite you this week to notice the behaviors you incorporate into your life to slow its often hectic pace.
