The problem with poets

Two egrets…

Alert for silvery glints and flashes 

Under the surface

As their graceful, unhurried movements

Express the ineffable stillness 

At the heart of all being. 

Buff Whitman-Bradley 

from The Next Small Thing

I trust there is ample research and corresponding literature out there to make the case for the benefits of quiet, still places on the human psyche.  Perhaps it is different for extroverts, but as an introvert I have found that quiet time spent in a still place, be it brief or extended, tends personal needs that are tied in multiple ways to how I feel about myself and the practice of trying to lead a more considered, meaningful life. 

Yet even with the benefits of accessing personal still points established, I seem to spend more time than I’d like when I get there grappling with just how I am supposed to act in such treasured space.  Should I let my thoughts cascade as they’d like or should I push them away as practiced in mindfulness meditation?  I have learned that there is benefit inherent in sitting still, emptying thoughts from my mind, and then letting whatever natural process that follows take its course.  

I like the concept, but more often than not my mindful meditation sessions leave me with the feeling that I’m not doing something right.  Instead of effectively nudging my thought tangents into space, I have a natural desire to want to listen to them, following thought vectors to see where they lead me, to see what connections they expose in my awareness.  

I have tried to begin a regimen of mindful meditation from time to time and have realized the value in focus points and quiet sitting, but within a week I am overwhelmed with daily living and then fail to make the time necessary to see the process through to whatever gift I am supposed to realize.  I know that mediation mentors encourage practitioners to accept thought-pushing failure as product of our busy brains and that we can always non-judgmentally come back to our breath and begin again.  These days, however, I have come to find myself in a place where that nagging sense of meditation failure has morphed into a sense of blending desired stillness with how my brain wants to work in the first place. 

For me, the awe of being present in a still place is in part the empty canvas it wants to provide.  Whether sitting at the picture window watching a Northern cardinal square up to blowing snow, or perched in a porch chair observing fall hummingbirds bulk-up with sweetwater, it doesn’t take much for an idea to bud into something that could be a new poem.  Zen meditation would have me push the thought away.  I would rather consider its Possibility.  Let the process take me where it wants, leaving me wondering if Nature is gifting me with a light I would never have seen if I didn’t make myself still.   Is it better to stay still in the here and now or fetch my notebook and engage the muse?  My zen awareness has recently come to recognize this dilemma as ‘the problem with poets.’  

I have had the great good fortune over the years to travel with my poetry notebook into some beautiful, life affirming, still places.  Nada Hermitage (Crestone CO) and Holy Hill Hermitage (Sligo, Ireland), of course, come to mind.  This past summer I was able to spend four weeks at a once-abandoned family camp on wilderness Hog Island, home also to the Audubon Camp in Maine.  Days were busy with book writing, but as I sat on the west-facing veranda at sunset gathering and sorting thoughts, I became very aware of the focused stillness in that place that was bristling with energy and somehow feeding me from the inside out.  Beautiful, still places do that to me.  

Yet I find it is not exclusive to travel far and wee to secure retreat weeks in such still places.  I find meaningful still time close to home, though in more compressed doses.  Quiet local walks abound in reserves and parks as well as in my suburban neighborhood.  More tangible to me, though, is taking time to have a sit on the back porch.  Sitting under canopy on a warm summer afternoon is full of sound and sight vectors that fill me with their Natural stillness.  Here’s the thing I’ve come to realize:  still does not necessarily mean quiet.  Taking time to slow down the pace of life at home is often accompanied with ambient music and/or bird song.  And I really like it that way.  

Another revitalizing process I’ve found at home is going to bed by myself in a completely darkened room with music playing softly.  I used to play ambient music exclusively, but recently have found more energetic music works, too.  Quiet, comfortable space permeated with gentle sounds relaxes me and helps me recenter.  If I’m lucky enough to find ‘recline time’ on a rainy or windy day, I substitute the music with an open window.    Making that nap time with the lovely Cindy Lou is special for us both.   

The genesis of this blog entry on ‘still point’ was a prompt offered by Desert Call, the quarterly journal of the Spiritual Life Institute.  I had hoped to grow my take on the idea into an essay for the upcoming Advent issue, but deadlines were missed as I struggled to put all my thoughts in some logical sequence.  

‘Still points’ are, indeed, needed in my life.  As a poet I seek them, often finding in such stillness the opportunity to listen to Nature’s life forces at work which allows me to apply, somehow, my own life observations.  I suspect poet Buff Whitman-Bradley does something similar.  How else could he conclude that the very actions of two egrets tiptoeing through shallows fishing ‘Express the ineffable stillness / At the heart of all being.’

Today’s elder idea:   Feel your emotions / Live true your passions / Keep still your mind. 

Geoffrey M. Gluckman

image:  Pond fairy at Wild Grace.