As the oak yawns lazily from the quiet forest and the feather drifts down from the moonstruck nest, and the stray amber finds its kin amongst the stars, so too is there a deep and nurturing Quiet inside us that calls us home to our natural state of ease.
Dearest Friends,
I’ve recorded an audio experience for you from the quiet wilds of rural Australia. Through this guided meditation, we venture into the substance of silence and then apply this spacious quality to our aches and struggles, freeing us from the resistance we often create around what we wish not to feel.
Silence is one of our most precious and endangered resources - in both our external and internal world.
This means we are being called more now than ever to recognize the silence that is always and already beneath our mental clamour, and to pay attention to the soundless ground that all struggle manifests from.
Like the silent universe that holds the reverberating echoes of our planet in her vast and unending space, so too can we hold life’s cacophony of noise in our expansive Hearts.
The origins of the phrase, ‘to be quiet’ is rooted in the meaning "to be in our natural state / to be without imposed mental disturbances”.
This etymology speaks to our inner world as being made of and from the qualities of peace, ease and stillness. It’s therefore only through mental effort that we find ourselves quite overwhelmed by the clutter our own minds have accumulated.
Something that has come up many times this week while I’ve been away is the question of why it is so hard to embody our natural state of quietness in everyday life.
I believe it comes down to what we give our energy to. If silence is an intrinsic state of being then resistance to that silence is what keeps us in an unnatural state.
Struggle truly is the antithesis of quiet. It’s the churning of still water, the active rejection of what is, the reinforcing denial of what feels. It takes time and effort to go against ourselves. We have become very good at Self-denial by believing we need to become something else, something better, in order to be loved, considered worthy, and validated. Our desire to be other than what we are is truly self-forgetting.
We can literally spend whole lifetimes not valuing what we are. And yet, it takes only a few moments to realize what we are not by simply questioning the truth of our conditioned beliefs against our somatic, sensory, and visceral experiences.
Whispering back stillness into our lives is not about carving time out for ourselves to meditate or enjoy a cup of tea in the garden (although these are wonderful things) – it's much more about remembering and paying attention to what is already innate and available within.
Next Monday, we’ll dive a little deeper into this ability we have to integrate these foundational qualities of who we are into the reality of everyday life.
But for now, as a way of remembering your innate sense of quiet, just recognize the truth that there is a part of you that is not struggling at this moment - no matter how complicated your life is. There is a part of you that is not noise - no matter how chaotic your environment is right now. There is a part of you that is here - no matter how much you want to be somewhere else. And pay a little more attention to that which already is.
Let’s practice this now through a short, guided meditation.
I have compiled a raw audio for you of reflections and a meditation from my trip away, unfiltered in the heart of the quietest place I could hike to. Listen now through the link at the top of this newsletter.
Key moments in the audio
0:00- 1:34 A walk through the forest & reflection
(01:45 Bali the puppy bounding up to me through the thicket)
02:01 - 09:05 Guided meditation
(07:12 minutes - I love how these Kookaburras come in the very moment I say “enjoy the silence!”)
A question for you:
What is the quietest moment of your day? And what is the main challenge you face in integrating that stillness into the hum of everyday life?
I look forward to responding to last week’s comments and to reading your experience with this week’s meditation!
