Quiet

Quiet time. There are many times when I just fall silent – I have no urge to speak. Aki reminds me that there is depth and beauty in silence. I am often pensive, and in these moments I enjoy quieting my thoughts, becoming settled, just noticing the richness of a single present moment… with awareness I readily notice that silence is filled with a tender presence of the Beloved.

Milton Erickson was known to have shared many teaching stories with his clients. His colleagues published a book of his stories entitled, My Voice Shall Go with You. I have thought of this title often, as I hear my spiritual friend’s voice, I hear his wisdom whispering within me. In my silence he is there. In times of utter quietude, a small internal rustle occurs and again my friend is present. He is here with me now. I readily intuit his presence. In this, there is Oneness. It is a soft and subtle merging, one soul into another. This is such a blissful union. Not only is my dear friend merged in me, but also the enlarged presence of the Beloved. This is all merged in me, he and I and Beloved are actually just One. Now, especially in the silence, I see that all things are merged in me; non-separation is feeling as though my Self has enlarged to all of space.

One of my favorite poets, Rilke, wrote,

One space spreads through all creatures equally,
inner-world space. Birds quietly flying go
flying right through us. O, I that want to grow!
The tree I look at is growing in me!

In another poem, Rilke wrote,

Silent friend of many distances, feel
how your breath enlarges all of space
let your presence ring out like a bell
into the night.

Rilke knew. He knew.

And these are perhaps my most favorite Rilke lines of all:

Center of all centers, core of cores,
almond self-enclosed and growing sweet –
all the universe, to the furthest stars
and beyond them, is your flesh, your fruit.

Now you feel how nothing clings to you;
your vast shell reaches into endless space,
and there the rich, thick fluids rise and flow.
I lluminated in your infinite peace,

a billion stars go spinning through the night,
blazing high above your head.
But in you is the presence that
will be, when all the stars are dead.

Rilke speaks to the eternal Presence within us, the Presence that will be, when all the stars are dead. Rilke writes of the rise and flow, of the here and now, of pure consciousness, of spilling and spinning through the night, of this simple awareness-that-is-awake. I sense the Great Silent One in this. The vast silence of Presence. So pure, so infinite, so warm.

We need to fall quiet from time to time to relish this infinite peace.

Peace exists in each silent moment.

Let this silence penetrate you.