Imagining Stillness

Being at a desk is distracting, it makes me think of desk things, like emails and unchecked lists and work things and life admin.

So I remove myself to the floor.

Palms down.

I place my hands on the ground
to connect to the Earth
but all I feel is carpet
that needs to be vacuumed.

This isn’t working.

I can’t find the stillness down here on the ground.
I decide I’ll go up to the sky instead.

Palms up

Connect with the air
the sky above
the stars higher still:
endless little lights.

As I go higher and higher, my house gets smaller and smaller,
the neighbourhood shrinks,
the East Van cross,
the lights of Vancouver.
The coastline and the mountains
make everything look 3D
(of course it’s 3D).

Keep going and the whole world comes into view.
So much going on below, but it’s quiet up here…
Just watch out for space junk left behind by billionaires.

Go higher still,

It’s quiet, still.

That’s what they don’t tell you about space in the movies:
How quiet it is.
So much infinite silence doesn’t make for good cinematography.

But there’s so much going on if you know where to look.
Mysteries of the universe unfolding all around, ever so slowly.

The rings of Saturn,
the solar system’s billionaire,
composed of billions of rocks,
there could be a whole world on each one.

The Earth below,
from so far above the earth looks still,
but as I return
a thousand worlds come into view:
continents, islands, cities, settlements, homes…
billions of worlds, actually.

Eventually my own roof comes into view,
I sink back down into my room,
on the lowest level,
itself a whole world.

There’s a whole world inside me too,
and finally,
stillness.

Sometimes you have to go inside to find the stillness.

Sometimes, if that doesn’t work, you have to go as far away as you can imagine, and bring the stillness back with you.