Ah, the movement in the stillness…
View from Kula at sunset by Amy Baker
This excerpt of T.S. Eliot’s work from Four Quartets: The East Coker speaks to my need for silence, and the innate uncomfortable-ness of that space between the light and the dark. It is in the anticipation of what lies beneath all that is visible that we learn of what scares us the most….
I said to my soul, be still, and let the dark come upon you
Which shall be the darkness of God. As, in a theatre,
The lights are extinguished, for the scene to be changed
With a hollow rumble of wings, with a movement of darkness on darkness,
And we know that the hills and the trees, the distant panorama
And the bold imposing facade are all being rolled away—
Or as, when an underground train, in the tube, stops too long between stations
And the conversation rises and slowly fades into silence
And you see behind every face the mental emptiness deepen
Leaving only the growing terror of nothing to think about;
Or when, under ether, the mind is conscious but conscious of nothing—
I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope
For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love,
For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith
But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting.
Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought:
So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.
Whisper of running streams, and winter lightning.
The wild thyme unseen and the wild strawberry,
The laughter in the garden, echoed ecstasy
Not lost, but requiring, pointing to the agony
Of death and birth.~T.S. Eliot
And as I attempt to go inward, I find parts of me wanting to DO. I find myself wanting distraction, and I knew this would happen, which is why I told people close to me that I need time without contact. If only I could put life on hold as well.
Jumping into the water at night, having never seen the terrain in daylight, and whether or not we will hit rock, if filth or piranha live in those waters, or whether it is as pure as the water in Iao Valley.
I have distracted myself with the search for a new home, setting up appointments with my daughter’s school, washing windows, organizing…. and then I canceled those appointments, and I opened up the windows to see outside, and I sit here, waiting.
I don’t know what I am waiting for. I want clarity, but in the seeking, I will come upon frustration.
Some of the most amazing personal experiences I have had occurred when I was completely open to possibility, when I didn’t expect anything I had experienced before and was not TRYING to achieve anything.
The first time was in a ballet class, and it honestly ruined ballet for me for so long. It was such an amazing experience, to be absolutely at ease and in control of my body, to be able to do a triple pirouette and stop on a dime, and stay on one leg as long as I wanted. I was “seeing” the visualizations I was having. Somehow, I had become the visualizations, and the ego was gone, for 1.5 glorious hours.
The second time was in a dance with Lee. I went to 5Rhythms dance with no expectations, no boiling emotions to work through, no worries about what anything meant. I had never really danced with anyone in there before, save one friend. Our dance was so divine, that it kickstarted a few months of relationship, exploration and learning. We had that experience several times, and only when no expectations existed.
It is in the searching for something that I can not see what there is. My frame of reference is based on what I HAVE experienced, so if I want to experience something altogether new, then being completely open, completely without expectation, completely without judgement, is truly the only way. But in the trying to not have expectations, we have expectations.
So, what is one to do?
Wait. Trust.
Everything unfolds in due time. All happens in perfect time and harmony. This dance of life we are in, this exquisite rhythm of life, is already set in motion. We think we do not know how to dance, but we are always dancing. Whether we flow with the music of our life is up to us.
Can we give in to the primal movement of our Soul? Can we trust in that sensing that has no words? That sensation that has no reason?
