Stillness

A moment of stillness as the moon rises.

The other evening I took our two Boston Terriers outside for a short walk before settling down for the evening. The sun had set, but it wasn't quite dark; the moon was rising into an incredibly clear sky. Only two stars--or maybe planets--were visible in the darkening sky. what made the moment memorable, however, was the absolute stillness into which we stepped. It was as if we had stepped into an entirely different world, or at least timeframe.

It is important to understand that stillness is not silence. A songbird was singing, insects hummed underneath the song, a fountain rained down several hundred feet away. In the distance an owl was calling, and the swallows were still hunting insects, their skittering calls weaving through the air as they darted and swooped. Nothing mechanical imposed noise in that moment: no cars or pickups, tractors, dirtbikes or four wheelers could be heard roaring through the countryside. Only a single cow lowing in the distance. If I were writing in the nineteenth century, I would have called the scene bucolic.

The rural nature of the moment was certainly part of the appeal, but the moment was not simply about country living. It was about a certain type of hush, almost as if your being is swaddled a state of otherness, removing you from the physical world around you. I have experienced a similar sublime stillness in cathedrals or other places that people consider sacred--weirdly, I mean sacred in a secular kind of way--and by common, unspoken agreement we purposely still ourselves because of the nature of the place itself. One raised voice, or intrusive sound, can disrupt the equilibrium we experience in those moments.

The other thing about stillness and rural living is that rural and still are not synonymous. Go outside my house fifteen minutes before sunrise and you'll be shocked at how deafening the songbirds are. Those trees pictured above are 500 feet behind our house, but you would swear the birds are swirling directly around you. We think of bird songs as inherently beautiful, but in those moments just before sunrise they are harsh, discordant and overwhelming. There is a bird we encounter in the dark whose call sounds like a bumble bee or hornet, a loud, sharp 'brrtz', that makes the dogs jump every time they hear it. They will turn and peer into the dark field behind the house, certain that something out there is coming to get them.

I find restoration in those moments of stillness, an opportunity, free from the pressure of the world, to reset myself. I think the world craves more moments of stillness, but our culture encourages us to fill every instant. Find time to just sit: no reading, no screens, no noise. Just five minutes a day will do wonders for your soul.

We cannot abide cruelty, so don't.

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