Most days, my morning meditation begins and ends with the chime of a singing bowl. My ear delights in the chime and then follows its thinning trail of sound into silence; and it is that reaching after the last trace of sound that opens my listening to the spaciousness beneath and beyond the ringing note.
Similarly, on April 8, many of us followed the waning light of the sun into that rare midday darkness of a solar eclipse. Maybe you felt the air cooling and noticed the shadows, never lengthening but losing sharp contrast as the sunlight that defined them waned and the world around us paled. Maybe you too felt your senses opening wider trying to take it all in, as the birds stopped singing and the sounds around you grew dimmer as the light did too. Or maybe, as some of us did when the moon fully shadowed the sun, you felt as if you were spinning, disoriented by a midday absence of light and sound never known in quite that way before.
As I recall the eclipse now, the Psalmist’s words rise in my heart, making their own crescent pattern of waning and waxing in a meditation taught by Richard Rohr.
Be still and know that I am God. Be still and know that I am. Be still and know. Be still. Be. Be. Be still. Be still and know. Be still and know that I am. Be still and know that I am God.
On April 8, David and I joined millions of others traveling to the path of the eclipse and another 40 million living in the path, all planning our day around celestial timing. For us, this meant beginning in the dark and driving many hours on highways that grew increasingly crowded as we got closer – crossing so many miles for an invitation through a portal of darkness and silence given to us midday by the moon. We donned our special glasses to watch the sun’s orb transformed into a crescent, and then removed them to see the diamond ring of the full eclipse. We shivered and marveled, open-mouthed by our awe.
What is this hunger for stillness that set so many of us on the road for such a brief destination in time? And must we wait for the next solar eclipse to experience time outside of time again?
The power of taking part in stillness . . . doesn’t require the rarity of celestial alignment. The gifts of totality’s reset can also arrive on the wings of a deep intentional breath, in the stillness of meditation, in the whispered shadows of a prayer, in the gentle touch of another assuring us that we are not alone.
In the brief span of totality we witnessed (we were on the edge of totality with only a little over one minute of darkness), my heart, mind and body all reached for anything I could recall to give me context and meaning. I remembered sheltering in place during the early pandemic, when the streets were empty and quiet, as well as the day after 9/11 when flights were grounded and the skies grew silent. I thought about a visit I once made to the anechoic chamber of a sound lab where I sat in dramatic silence and darkness for over a half hour and emerged with my senses all wide open. And, especially, I recalled the more frequent and familiar experience of the first instant of meditation after the singing bowl’s song has been swallowed by silence and before any other sound has intruded.
Stillness, it seems to me, is about resetting ourselves – usually flooded with stimulation from outside and from within – and allowing our senses, our body and mind, our heart and emotions, to relax and to open. To let go and breathe deeply. To know, receptively and without clutching. To be, without striving. To enter the sacred portal offered by spiritual practice.
Be still and know that I am. That life is. That life is holy. Be still and know. Be still. Be.
The fourth threshold skill named in Trusting Change” is “Taking Part in Stillness.” It invites us to pause. To be present — to our changing selves and to the changing world that holds us. To be still, in the waning and the waxing of extraordinary times. In the cooling and the warming. In the ringing and the singing and the silence. In the quietus, marking the death of one era and the birth of another. In the gift of looking at the world anew, as the light dims and when it returns, and when we make our way home, changed – and, still the same. To remember, there are many ways to step out of the noise and the bright heat and light of the day, to breathe in stillness, to open heart, mind, senses and wonder. To be still and know that life is holy. To be.
This is the power of taking part in stillness. It can happen in the extraordinary event of a solar eclipse, but it doesn’t require the rarity of celestial alignment. The gifts of totality’s reset can also arrive on the wings of a deep intentional breath, in the stillness of meditation, in the whispered shadows of a prayer, in the gentle touch of another assuring us that we are not alone.
Writing or Reflection Prompt and Recording
What are your habits or spiritual practices of pausing and taking part in stillness? To reflect or write on this, settle into a comfortable position where you will be uninterrupted for 5 minutes or more, and listen to the recording below of a singing bowl and a brief guided meditation ending in a prompt. (Clicking on the audio in an email will take you to my Substack website, where you may need to click on it again.)
If you prefer to reflect with the sound of your own singing bowl and without the audio recording above, settle in comfortably with your singing bowl and something to write with, and ring the bowl, listening until it falls silent. Resting in that silence for as long as you wish, consider what this sacred stillness offers you for the changes you are facing now. Whenever you’re ready, begin your writing or reflection with one of these two prompts and follow wherever they lead:
In this stillness, I am . . . .
or
In this stillness, I know . . . .
UPCOMING PROGRAMS
If you wish to explore the gifts of stillness as a thresholding skill, please join me and other thresholders Tuesday, May 14, for an online session of embodied practice and guided reflection and conversation on Taking Part in Stillness. Threshold Times paid subscribers will receive an email next week inviting you to register free. Others can register through the program co-sponsors Prairiewoods or the Christine Center.
And, if you’re interested in an in-person writing retreat this summer exploring the theme of truth and lies, save the dates and watch for registration information, coming soon:
Stranger than Fiction: a writing retreat on the relationship between truth and lies in any genre
July 19-24, 2024
Christine Center
For emerging and experienced writers of all genres, offering guided community time for inspiration and conversation, encouragement and embodied practices; solitary time for writing; and optional guided writing sessions focused on the relationship between truth and lies in our writing. Space limited. Register through the Christine Center.
Wishing you the gifts of stillness on this and every day,
Karen