Thursday, June 09, 2011

I said to my soul be still, and wait without hope; for hope would be hope of the wrong thing; wait without love, for love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith. But the faith, and the love and thehope are all in the waiting. Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought: so the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing. -T.S. Eliot



This week, I went to a great exhibit at the Park Avenue Armory. It was a sound/visual installation by an artist named Rjoji Ikeda. It was a wonderful installation that I was mesmerized by for over an hour. I was struck by not only the chaos that was present, but my favorite moments were those of stillness. I've been struggling with my own stillness (or lack thereof). 


The secret of the receptive
must be sought in stillness
within stillness there remains
the potential for action
-Zhou Xuanjing


In this bustling city filled with excess and people seeking more, it's difficult to find those moments of stillness and appreciate doing nothing. I'm working on finding more moments of just being. Find your own moments of stillness this week, to allow life to enter and flourish.


We can make our minds so like still water that beings gather about us, that they may see their own images and so live for a moment with a clearer, perhaps even with a fiercer life because of our quiet. -William Butler

To the mind that is still, the whole universe surrenders. -Lao Tzu

No comments: