Stillness

I know why we avoid stillness, why we stay so busy all the time. It's darn scary. What if I stop "doing" and become still and discover I'm empty inside? What if there's nothing there?

At first it feels great to just stop the inner mental chatter and look at the blades of grass and the twigs on the trees. I get a glimpse of the extraordinary beauty and immense variety of the natural world - even in the midst of winter.

But when I start to go deeper, I realize I am alone. Even my dearest, closest loved ones cannot get inside my head. I am one, single human being. A wave of loneliness swept over my so intense it brought tears to my eyes.

But then I looked again at the grass and the twigs and suddenly saw them with new eyes. I am a child of the earth, a daughter of the sky. The trees are my brothers, the grasses my sisters. I am separate and apart, but I am also one with all creatures that live and breath on this earth. We breathe the same air, we drink the same water. I am an independent mind and an individual soul, but I am also part of a whole much bigger and vaster than I can imagine.

I go back to my family and realize I am part of something extraordinary. Individually we each have wonderful gifts. But together we help one another bring those gifts forward and polish them until they shine. And we have a lot of fun in the process. I still must do my own inner work, but the people around me help me see what that work is and how far I've come.

Stillness is still not easy for me. But slowly I'm learning to trust that it is not empty. I'm finding it more like an ocean—every time I dive down, I find a pearl.