38. To Be Still

To lie on your back watching clouds morph and dance across the sky. To listen to the babbling brook, the different sounds of her voice clambering on and on. To watch a dragonfly dance in the sun. To notice the business of a bird go about its daily tasks. To watch shadows move. That, is to be still. It is an art. A lost art in many ways. To be still long enough that nature forgets you’re there. Or to notice the feel of the temperature drop degree by degree as the suns light gives way. That, is to be still.  

Only then, in that stillness, can one fully analyze the senses that God gave us. To notice the feeling of the sun warmed rock upon your back. To pick apart the thousands of sounds the forest shares, each from it’s own source, picking them apart like a child separating his marble collection. To see the maze of veins running through the backside of a mesmerizing yellow maple leaf after its final Fall decent. To taste the swirling mixture of tart and sugary sweetness of a wild raspberry pulled from its thorny hiding place. To smell the cool fresh scent of a mountain brook. Only in those times of stillness, can the senses be fully appreciated.    

It seems that our attention spans are shortening. The advertisements must be quicker, more unique, more colorful to catch our eye. All 5,000 that the average person sees in a day are fighting for 3 to 5 seconds of our attention to convey their message before they lose us to checking Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or a myriad of other attention drain holes. Are the days of watching clouds a thing of the past? Has finding beauty in a sunlit leaf become archaic? Will people still lie on their backs and be enamored by tall pines stretching upwards towards the heavens? Has our world traded our ability to find joy in the little things for the ability to swipe right or to double tap a “like”? 

I believe the most needed medicine our world needs is a prescription to walk out to an open field, lie down, and pick out what the clouds draw as they dance across the sky.  

To be still...