Can there be?
No matter how quiet I am, there’s the blood rushing, the heart beating. Even the frozen river is moving below the surface. Now, there’s the latest movement before dawn, the garbage man or the ambulance rushing into the day. In the puddles the molecules are separating, bumping into each other, attaching or letting go. Even in death we deteriorate and decompose. And then, the journey of the spirit. Can we ever achieve stillness?
Yet, it feels still as I write. Although a dog barks in the distance and I know he’s moving closer. Mine may join him soon. The rooster sporadically crows. I feel his wings flapping and the birds will join the call and flight. Yet it’s still. I’m still even with all the movement within and around me. This winter stillness may be merely an illusion to prepare for growth. But I feel it in my mind.
Sure, the letting go of motion, a construct in an overly productive culture that lets us believe we rest only to produce and grow again. But are you? As you sit in the warming sun or the freezing cold, are you preparing for something, preparing to grow? Or is it simply nothing at all. Is stillness something to help us find the moment, the perceived “still” allowing us to stop and be.
Could that be the goal of winter? To let us stop and be? Preparing for nothing but that. Being.
Try it. Take a minute or more and feel into nothing more than your inner motion, the work of the inner body to keep you in the moment. With gratitude, hold onto it and then, resume the external motion. The internal motion never stopped, yet, perhaps notice how you’ve changed.
Winter is for stillness. Stillness is for being. In our winter issue of Paradise Found, we explore the concept of stillness. Some wonderful artists have shared their impressions in music, writing, photography and art. Have a look and see if this winter stillness resonates with you.