These days. I find I need stillness more than I ever have. And that it is harder to find, to corral the noise running rampant in my mind. All the should have’s, need to’s, must do’s. Neverending. Exhausting. This judgemental inner monlougue. So much so I have to stop and remember what real stillness feels like. How it is akin to silence but only like a dusty cousin. Related but not the same. Silence is the absence of that barking dog, the one the neighbor’s have finally let in so at least he has found some satisfaction. But stillness is a well of something more. It’s a silence so loud it speaks a language of its own. The steady, rythmic patter of snowflakes against a darken windowpane. A hush now, slow it on down. All of it, just, all of it. Slow it on down. Here, sit by the fire, watch that shelter of white coming down. Everything is slowing. The squirrels nestled in their nests, the rabbits burrowed down, the big bears in their dens, all sleeping now and even the sound of your beating heart slowing in the quiet. And when morning comes you step barefoot out onto the porch, a blanket pulled around your shoulders, and there you are beholding all the stillness this world has to offer. The sun seems almost shy in the rising, offers up pink shades of sky. And you form just one hushed word when you see it sheltered like this. Wow, escapes your lips. The world tucked in, blanketed from all its sharp angles, edges, points. And your feet are freezing, the light glistening on the white of everything. And, your breath rises in tiny clouds of frosted smoke as you whisper a prayer for recollection - remember this.
