Way back in 1963...the year I graduated from New Carlisle High School...Brenda Lee recorded a song that included these lyrics:
All alone am I ever since your goodbye
All alone with just a beat of my heart
People all around but I don't hear a sound
Just the lonely beating of my heart.
All alone...
With just the lonely beating of my heart.
Now that's alone.
Try it...try just being alone...in silence...and listen for that internal sound of "just the lonely beating of your heart."
What do you "hear" beyond the sound of your heartbeat?
What thoughts come to mind...in the absence of the usual background din of everyday life in 21st century America?
Do you "hear" what you couldn't hear before you sat in the (relative) silence?
What thoughts are you having now that you are concentrating on just your heartbeat?
Pretty heavy stuff, this.
Scary...maybe.
Instructive...maybe.
Do you have any sense of peace?
Do events, or the faces of friends come into "view?"
Are you making plans for what will happen when you finish this session of silence. or are you letting this time...and this place...and this experience "speak to you" words that cannot otherwise be spoken?
Well, those are as far as my thoughts take me in this vein...but here are the words of Michele Casella Collier...a lady I know through a FaceBook connection...to me, she is known as "The Yoga Lady," but as you will see in what follows, she has gifts beyond her skill in doing and teaching Yoga. Her poem is titled "In Stillness."
In stillness
in the silent
expanse
between
the stars
there is
the peace
once lost
now found
and it comes
in quiet calm
that reaches
down
into the space
between
flesh
and bone
Breathing in
Breathing out
it is there
in stillness
where
wholeness
empties
into infinity
and gently floats
in between
each breath
and waits
in stillness
for the soul's
remembrance
and surrender
into the soft
elegant radiance
and fullness
of eternity
