The Still Point

Who Observes the Course of Your Life?

In my last blog entry I wrote about changing one’s mindset in the midst of personal challenges. I was writing with the intention of changing course and not just being a victim or a passive recipient, of fate. Now I wonder about another side of this mindset, a simpler side, a place to begin again and again.

· What if we were here just to experience what we experience?
· What if there is a space within each of us that is even simpler than acceptance of what is?
· Maybe, a still point seep inside of us that just observes?
· Some part of us that neither has to change nor has to blindly accept circumstance?

A personal example: For two months early this year I experienced big, broad happiness. A glorious treat! And then circumstances with family and the world began their ragged clawing at my heart. Down, now for two months, wanting to change my set of sails, wanting my boat to travel differently than the course of the mind.

Up, down, spun around, inert… such are the realities of mood and desire.

Yesterday, as I walked around Battle Ground Lake, I intuited (again) a still small voice in the wind. Instead of just walking, I had been busy in my mind making big decisions about how to proceed through some local family strife. Then the message came: “Wait”. Don’t do anything for a moment. I had been inside my head talking in imaginary conversations, then the message… “Wait, stop.” I looked at the trees shimmering in pearlescent greens. I observed the Blue Heron hunting her prey. I stopped.

Yet I knew that this message was not just about stopping what I was doing or even calming who I am. This “wait” is akin to the observer in meditation, the one who is always still, even in the movement of living. The yogis say that there is a still point inside all of us, a place that is no place at all, and a person that is all persons, and none at all.

OK, perhaps this sounds pretty esoteric. How do words describe something so simple? Here’s a view of the gist of this “wait”:

· We experience what we experience, until change occurs.
· We are who we are, until we are not.
· We feel, act, and intuit what we do, until we don’t. 
 

I felt relief with this reality popping up as I walked. I no longer had to do anything to change my challenging situation. I longer had to change my thought patterns or behaviors to find peace. All I had to do was be in the still point at the center of myself. Even if I acted, or made a supposed mistake in my acting, I could still access this still place. No good, no bad, no praise, no blame, resides in that space.

The idea is so staggering simple: Just be here.

For long moments I knew something that is beyond even acceptance. I just was. If that sounds unclear then I say “Great, find your experience and see what is true for you in the moment.” Then that moment will move to another, like moments do.

For me, being a hyper sensitive type and one who has struggled with depression, the idea of waiting in the still place is just another key to continuing in life. In practical terms, meditation and creativity are my vehicles, my boat if you will, on this journey. What is your craft for  access the still point?

In the previous blog I used the analogy of sailboat and the wind as being body-mind. But this boat, and the wind, and the sails are only analogies set on an open sea. Perhaps it is the sea itself we can pay attention to. Perhaps, our individual personalities are but waves on the sea. Consider this possibility when struggles beset or pleasures ensue. We’re are each just a wave taking on a new form and then another new form. Then the form falls into the sea. Then we fall back into what/who we’ve always been.

The enlivening side effect of this idea has been that for moments, worry and judgement about the person/circumstance supposedly causing me distress just vanished. And that judgement and desire for changing that person is still gone. How can one wave judge another wave when we are just small part of the whole sea? And more than this, how can we so harshly judge ourselves now? And even if we do judge, it’s just part of the experience.

Love,

Rick

PS The Image is a life size+ pictograph from a canyon in Escalante, Utah, USA

(C) Copyright, Words and Image, Richard Sievers, April 2016

Rules for Writing in Your Journal

Rules for Writing in Your Journal...

Or Any Sojourn into Expression and Creativity.

Just begin.

Start at the beginning:

A word, a thought, a sensation, a glimmering dream, nothing...

Not even nothing is forbidden here.

Say, scribe, strive, stumble, scribble, scrawl,

With longing or release,

Being precise or random,

Felling small or incomprehensibly huge.

Just begin.

Everyone needs a safe place 

To be the self they are 

In the moment.

Everyone:

Including you, even the spirits.

Maybe even God needs a safe space here,

Or not.

There is no sacrilege,

No trying.

There's just do-being.

Being still and moving at the same time.

That's the yin and yang of creativity,

Like a song:

do-be-do-be-do-be-do...

An effortless song

That you cannot get out of your head

Until you sing it.

So, sit still and sing.

Let the pen move.
Set it free.
You may be surprised
at what you see.

Love,
Rick

When you get stuck, lower your standards.

William Stafford

 

(c) Copyright Richard Sievers, April 2015, All Rights Reserved

The poem in the picture from my journal is an excerpt from
A Song Sparrow Singing in the Fall
by Wendell Berry
New and Collected Poems, p.176

Can You Guess Who I AM?

This is a poem written by the main character who is coming to life in the process of writing my new book. Have you ever began a creative project and found a life and vibrancy within the the work that was completely unexpected? I highly recommend the experience. Most days at the writing desk for me are made up of just sitting down and getting to work. Sometimes the Great Mystery blesses a devoted practice with words from somewhere, someone, beyond the imagination. I met a character in my newest project who vexes me, teaches me  and thrills me. She wanted to share a poem that came at the end of her long life of wonders wrapped in tribulations:

She Writes Another Poem Upon Her Bedroom Wall

Can You Guess Who I AM?

I am the will of heaven.

I am the scion of verdant earth.

I am all that came before.

I am the end within the circle.

I am humbled in magnificence.

I am known everywhere in anonymity.

I am the song between the notes.

I am the memory betwixt the words.

I swim in your veins.

I die at your bedside.

I am born every moment.

I reside in the time beyond time.

Can you say who I am?

No?

That is the beginning of wisdom.

The question is all you need to know.

Can you guess what I am?

Breathe in;

you will find me.

Breathe out;

you will find me.

Cease your struggle to breathe

and you will Be me.

Love,

Rick

(c) Copyright Words and Image, Richard Sievers, April 2015