I woke up this morning just before 4:30--not on purpose, but I didn't go back to sleep. It was still dark outside; not even the birds were up yet. A perfectly quiet house, almost surprising in its stillness.
There's a good book I've just started reading by Rolf Gates called Meditations on Intention and Being. In it, he writes:
"We come to see that stillness and silence form the backdrop of our lives and that everything else is just passing through. Sounds come and go, sensations come and go, emotions, all of them traveling through stillness and silence like fish moving through an eternal ocean or weather traveling across an eternal sky."
His words and the early, lightless morning were in contrast to something I'd written recently in one of my ongoing work/life journals, about how rarely we let ourselves think our own thoughts. Instead, we scurry from one thing to the next. Soundbites, tweets, and relentless updates fill up our hours. News of the world far and wide inserts itself into our days, when what we really could benefit from is silence. A pen or pencil poised above our own blank pages.
I can't wrap up this post by saying that I have the magical answer for how to find the silence and stillness, because my own days seem to be whirling faster and louder lately. All good things, but nonetheless, life is hardly a Buddhist retreat right now. My friend Michael has been in Thailand since January and has had two separate weeks of silent meditation. No speaking, no reading, no music, and certainly no news or social media. The mere idea of it seems very close to heaven. (Well, I'm not so sure about the "no reading" part, but the rest of it: yes!)
Perhaps I need to get up earlier more often, to meet the quiet day before the noise begins.
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My next online photography course starts this Sunday. Join me for The Charm of Children: How to Take Better Photos of Babies and Kids. Think of it as two precious weeks to really, truly focus on the little ones in your life, before they're not so little anymore. (Spaces are limited; I've got a handful left. No fancy camera necessary--you can even use your smart phone. Details here).
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