Calm All The Way Down

I dropped by a favourite lakeside park of mine after work today to enjoy a few moments in the sunshine, and perhaps to experience some inspiration.

I was immediately struck by the incredible clarity of the water near the shoreline, and in the narrow stream that flowed out into the lake at this point. Having spent a lot of time in this very spot, I knew how often it is that the shallows are churned up, and the water cloudy with silt.

As I looked at the surprisingly turquoise water of the lake, and the clearly visible patterns of stones on the bottom, the phrase - "It's calm - All the way down," came to mind.

In a heartbeat, these words had grown to become a keen insight about my own life. The kind of clarity I was seeing in this water meant that there was a stillness in it - and not a momentary one - It was one that had held for a period of time. As it did so, the particulate that had previously clouded it had settled to the bottom.

So too, my mind. A randomly applied moment of quiet, as lovely as it may be, is not enough to lastingly settle the mental clutter that gives rise to the habitual, undefined state of unrest that sometimes plagues me. A more persistent state of quiet, maintained over time, is what makes a real difference.

So often, aware of the things I can do to bring myself peace, I am able to calm the surface - but this can be merely cosmetic. True mental clarity in the depths requires discipline. It is not a matter of pleasing some external deity by performing acts of devotion - a paradigm that was drilled into me in my youth... but rather it is simply the pragmatic mechanics of how the mind works. I can choose to do what needs doing... or not.

Breakthrough

On a walk today with the kids, we came across a quiet pond that had frozen over very thinly with a still-transparent layer of ice. For a while, we played at "skipping" stones across the water, trying not to break the ice while getting the stones as far as possible.

At the end of it all, the smooth surface of the pond was scattered with stones of various sizes. Looking at these, I imagined the moment that would inevitably come for each when the ice beneath would melt just enough that the stone would slip through. It will almost certainly happen suddenly - even though the incremental softening of the ice will have gone on for some time beforehand.

I reflected on how our lives are so much the same. There are moments of acute change that come on us suddenly, demarcating past from future in ways that are very obvious 'features' on the landscape of our lives. Of course, all such changes come as the result of the same kind of slow, incremental preparatory steps that precede the crisis moment for the stones scattered on the pond ice, but because of the way we tend to look at our lives, they are typically perceived as moments of crisis.

All of this seems relevant, I suppose, because the last month or so has seen a "softening of the ice" around the stone of my own life. It's clear that a moment of demarcation is just around the corner.

Does the stone fear the change that is coming for it? No. After all- It's been through all of this before... more times than we can imagine.

Once More, with Feeling

It's been well over a year since I took an extended break from blogging. In fact, at the time I outright deleted my original "Somnambulist Seeker" blog.

I'm back at it now because I believe I'm entering a new chapter in my life. These chapter-changes often come with many learnings, challenges, and epiphanies. I've learned that putting my experiences & feelings down on "paper" tends to help me better understand & integrate it all. So here I am.

As my profile says, this blog is all about taking the path less traveled, and learning every day. You're welcome to watch.

The first day of the new decade seems like an excellent opportunity to begin. Let's go.