Oops. What I Meant To Say Was...

Img Credit: Flickr Creative Commons: http://www.flickr.com/photos/bradmontgomery/5992214519/

I admit it : Even I am a bit confused after reading the last post.  

And I wrote the dang thing.

(And yes, I note the irony - it being a post on "how to say what needs to be said".  What can I say - I'm a humorous gal.)

Sometimes my mind gets to thinking and it just won't stop.  And sometimes, those thoughts wind up in words on my blog.  I don't have a professional editor on staff, so those wordy posts don't get nicely trimmed.  What sounds meaningful at 11 p.m. at night as I hit the "save" button doesn't necessarily sound as powerful the next day.

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What I Found Beyond The Church Doors

I've passed the sign hundreds of times.  "Open To All".

We've lived in this town for over 7 years now, and previously for 4 years during college.  Walking to the library or from a bar, I've passed those doors countless times.

Often I've passed them without a second thought.  There have been times, though, when I've wondered...

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Silence

After the recent family emergency, we had two holiday-related family get-togethers this weekend.  Packing, travel, rush, rush, rush, laugh, converse, eat, sleep, repeat.

Beneath it all was the continued awareness of the tragedy that occurred on Friday in Connecticut (and of the similarly horrible event in China.)  An awareness I didn't have as much time to sit with as I would've liked before the kids were home, before dinner had to be made, before I had to keep moving.

There is much I want to say about it. The words still haven't found their way into coherent sentences.

What I want to offer here isn't a reflection on the situation.  I don't want to jump (yet) into the topics of gun control or mental health access or who is to blame for this horrific act.  

I want to offer silence.

I can think of little else that would benefit us more than that.  

Silence without judgment.  Silence to let tears fall and for anger to be seen for what it is.   Silence that takes us back into our places of deeper knowing.  From this place, we can participate in the change that is occurring without relying onto our habitual, comfortable reactions that have brought us to this suffering again and again.

It is asking so little - yet, for most of us, so much.

For an eloquently written perspective on this, I invite you to visit Susan Piver's blog post.

In whatever way you find it, may you be with silence today.

Namaste.

How Do You Experience Stillness?

I have recently become re-enthralled with stillness.  Silence.  Just being, observing, experiencing.

Perhaps it is because those times feel lacking in my life that I crave them so much.  (And I become even more frustrated when I remember that all I need to do to just be ...is just be.  Annoying little catch, isn't it?)

Reminders have been appearing in my life recently.  Things like John Cage's 4'33" (video here) or Sigur Ros and many of their videos (I particularly like this one.).

While taking out the recycling last night, I looked up.  A few bats flitted around but little else.  In the spirit of encouraging us all to be in this stillness (even when things aren't still), I let my video camera share the time with me.

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Lonely Time

While playing outside with my daughter the other day, she suddenly said to me, "Mom, I need to be lonely for a minute."

Thinking she wanted to go in, I said ok.

Instead, she knelt down on the blanket, tucked her head, and covered her eyes.  

Thirty seconds later, she burst open and said, "Ok, let's play!".

We all need to be "lonely"...or alone...sometimes.  Often, that urge doesn't happen at the most convenient time.  In the middle of the mall, while bumping through crowds on a busy sidewalk, in the midst of co-workers going about their business, at the tail-end of another crying session by our child.  We crave just a minute of silence.

I say - why not?!  What would it look like if we just acknowledged we needed a bit of "lonely time"?  What if we just scooted over, knelt into child's pose, and took ourselves into stillness for even 30 seconds?  I'm pretty sure the world wouldn't end.  

Let those "yeah, but..."s run through your head for a minute.

Then think about the BENEFITS of finding this space...  How even 30 seconds of quiet recomposition time could change the entire outcome of that situation - not to mention the flow of your day.

Next time you feel stressed or just overwhelmed by the noise of life, why not take a cue from my daughter?  You're not alone in needing lonely time.

Breathe into this thought.

Namaste.