So many of the wonderful things in life have a chance to settle our worried minds or energize our tired hearts when we simply rest in the “quiet game;” the game our grandmother or uncle used to tell us to play when the adults needed a break and we needed to calm down; the game that put us gently on our backs or bellies and asked nothing of us but that we be quiet for 3 minutes or 5 or as long as we could stand it.
Looking back now, it was the quiet game that invited the butterfly to land on my feet near the willow in our front yard. Or when I first came to know that naming clouds is not frivolous, it is an act of inclusive imagination that even the youngest of the cousins could engage in, and it required no status or medals, just the ability to rest and see and wonder. It was this game that enabled me to give myself permission in later years to rest myself and to do so without music or podcasts…the sounds of the surround of my home a invitation to peace. A creaking chair. A rustling kitten. A sweeping neighbor.
Stillness invites the world in.
And it is in our capacity to be still that our better choices emerge. All the really bad choices I have made came from a rushing panic of inner chaos…the better ones from the quieter ponds within.
I wish for you much in the weeks ahead…including those precious moments of quiet that offer so very much.
Love, Maria
