Silence

I write little snippets to myself all through the week. Something will come to mind, and I’ll think, “Oh, this would be a good blog post.” I’ll grab any piece of paper handy and quickly write the thought that is slowly slipping away like a cloud in the sky. A few days later as I sit to write the blog, I’ll re-read what I wrote and think, “what in the heck were you thinking? Where did you think this would go? You have lost your mind, girl.” It happens more often than I like to admit but here I am being totally honest right now.

So today, I’m going to take these cryptic and very incomplete sentences and try to make some sense of them now. I need to. It’s an unwritten rule in my office that anything written must be dealt with before throwing it away. Until then they just get shuffled around on my desk top screaming at me. They hang over me begging to be formulated into some wisdom, some new way of looking at the world, maybe with more clarity, compassion, and forgiveness. Oh, the pressure.

I’m sure I have mentioned before that I am totally into silence. Yes, I said silence, not science. Living with an overly stimulated nervous system, my best way to regain my Self is to get quiet and cocoon away from the world. No wonder I love turtles so much. LOL! Just let me get back into my shell and close the drawbridge. I’ll be ok in a little while.

Mozart was right when he said, “The music is not in the notes, but in the silence in-between the notes.” Brilliant.

Gardening needs good soil to produce viable vegetation. Silence is the soil for my mental garden. When one thought crowds another for first position in the mind, then a song floats through and you start humming that tune, then a notification pops up on the phone, then I try to remember what I was doing, then I decide to clean that shelf off. Ugh. This is when I need silence. For me silence is the water thrown on the fire of my incessant thinking. Splash, poof, all gone.

Stillness and silence will save the world. Well, maybe not the world, it really doesn’t need saving, but humanity does. Y’all just sit down and hush for a spell. Why do you think a good ‘time out’ for the unruly three-year-old works so well? You just need time for the body to catch up with the mind (or mouth in many cases). That “Ah-Ha” moment doesn’t come in the cacophony of thought, it comes in the spaces in between; when you are in the shower, maybe at 2:00 AM (definitely my brain’s favorite time), or on a long walk. I like that one best.

The past offers insight into our habitual way of being, responding, and doing. By looking at the past, maybe at the end of every day, or on your meditation cushion, or yoga mat, we can see the patterns and if necessary, using the knowledge of now, developing ways to interrupt those patterns so we don’t have to repeat history. Repeating things in the past is not history, it is habit.

The still and silent moment creates the future. It lends energy to let something great come in through the cracks of our hard candied shell. As we get to the future this moment has created, we can look back to the past which is this moment now and see that it is good. How many times have we looked at our past with a heavy heart or big regrets? Only if we are preset to this moment and making it so with right thoughts, right mindfulness, right speech, right action, right livelihood. This moment is your future which becomes your past – make this moment great!

Whew. Glad those snippets of random thought are gone. Who knew they could come together so well. LOL!