I would think that after so long being sick and then recovering that I would be getting more active and moving forward. Yet in many ways the last few weeks I seem to be getting ever more still–and staying in the present. A friend of mine said the other day that being exhausted and in the midst of a dark night, will teach you more than all the Buddhist readings and meditations about staying present–because to try to think more than even a day down the road is just too painful.
The funny thing is that when you are still enough you begin to notice so much movement, and such richness all around you.
When I go to let my neighbor’s dog out I sit on the steps gazing at the steam rising from the earth after the heavy rains.
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And notice a lovely pool captured in the root of her huge old oak. I fall into the image, a world of wet and leaves–naiads lurking just beyond my vision.
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Next day I spend all day on the mattress outside with Tiger. The breeze lifts branches of the fernlike tree, so that sun ripples all hues of green through the lace of its dancing leaves. Two swallows flit up to perch above me, sitting side by side, delicate tails almost touching, intensely peering out for breakfast. One dives and in synchrony the other follows.

I lay on my stomach awhile and see a tiny almost transparent palest green bug walking the rim of my water glass. Then notice a smaller one of him walking faster, coming up behind him. What will happen when the smaller one catches up? Closer and closer the fast one came. Anticipation as I watch. They meet, brief pause and faster one circumnavigates around him, busily moving on. Towards yet another, even smaller one. They meet head on, diverge, keep going. Not very sociable bugs I guess. And headed somewhere important–circling ’round and ’round.
I roll over on my back just in time to catch a sunbeam highlight, in brilliant flash, the the underside wings of a blue jay in flight–a momentary phoenix.
Sweating becomes a meditation, trance, the “I” dissolves into wet heat.
Of course my mind is not completely still. It intrudes regularly to say things llike “what right do you have to do nothing like this? You need to DO something–get busy. Time is slipping away and you’ve gotten nowhere this year.” I tell it it may be right, but this is just the way it is right now. I wonder sometimes if I’ll ever want to move or “do” again. But that’s just another version of mind slipping its way in.
I think of T.S. Eliot and hope he is right–

“At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless;
Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is,
But neither arrest nor movement. And do not call it fixity,
Where past and future are gathered. Neither movement from nor towards,
Neither ascent nor decline. Except for the point, the still point,
There would be no dance, and there is only the dance.”

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