Stillness

I just stood for a moment, noticing everything around me. Something was different on my walk today.

Stillness.

For days, there has been a frisky wind blowing. November can be like that, a wind coming in and blowing out all of the remnants of Summer. A clearing, cleansing wind.

I had gotten so used to the wind that this felt strange, sort of disorienting.

It was so still that I heard a leaf hit the asphalt of the road as it dropped from the tree.

I could hear cars when they were more than a mile away down the road.

At times, I could hear nothing.

How many times in our lives do we have a moment with nothing filling it? Most of our lives are filled with ambient noise.

It reminded me of some deep winter nights, the sky a tapestry of stars, the snow falling softly. But even then, there is often the call of the Great Horned Owl, or the rustling of an animal in the woods.

I stood there, soaking it in, watching the sun sink slowly into the Western horizon. I stood there until Saturn showed itself.

How deeply we all crave silence, and stillness. It is nurturing and healing, in a way that almost nothing else is.

I didn’t realize how much I craved the stillness until I was immersed in it. Everything in my body relaxed into it. It felt like all my cells were all breathing a collective sigh.

It’s so easy to forget how much we need stillness. It had to overtake me before I realized it.

What is stillness, for you? What are the ways in which you can give yourself some stillness?