SEPTEMBER 11
Be still and listen to the stillness within.
—DARLENE LARSON JENKSIt is not enough just to be still.
Often in our moments of quiet our minds are scanning
the horizon—not only the physical horizon, but the emotion-
al horizon as well. And not only the present but the past. In
our minds we run through past scenes when our loved one
was present. We dwell on the occasions surrounding the
loved one’s death—how sad it was! How much we miss him
or her! We may feel a hollowness within ourselves, now that
the person has gone.
But there is another still place within us that is not hollow
at all, because we are there. We are our own home, our own
first occupant, and we have not gone away.
But if we are quiet and listen for our own stillness, how
can we prevent all those other things from rushing in? We
can’t always. And that’s fine. Sometimes we need to pay
attention to those sad associations and memories, too.
But sometimes it’s good to ask them to leave for a while,
and to pay attention to our own being. One classical way of
doing this is to breathe with great care and deliberation, and
attend only to that. We may find this a good way to “ease
into” our own stillness—a sense of our own body, mind,
spirit, in this space, alone.
I have a place of peace within myself. I can find it.