Stillness and Revolution

With respect for all,

Good Morning,

The time is 9:07 and I am sitting outside at our patio table. The sky is a brilliant blue, cloudless, spreading from horizon to horizon. Public radio is offering “Performance Today” giving me a selection of beautiful classical music and for a moment here and there I am floating along the rivers of violin. Beautiful.  

The birds are at the feeder and I’ve filled the birdbath. Suki is at my side, Kathryn is in her “chambers” doing her morning rituals involving coffee, chess, and radio. What I am describing is our fairly typical morning time, although we usually begin in the studio with conversation and coffee. Today we both woke early.

Coffee, paper, pen and the world around me; this is my life, or a god part of it, for if not pen and paper, then brush and canvas. It is a world of discovery through stillness and application through action. We sit in stillness and the world as it is rising up around us knocking on our consciousness.  We walk in stillness and the world around us becomes a soft stream joining us in each step.  Letting our self created ideas of is and ought come and go, there is only this sound, that sight; this thought, that feeling.  What a wonder it is!

So, reflecting in the stream of the morning’s stillness, our lives take on a character.  We will manifest that character through our actions during the day and night.  Who are we?  What are we capable of?  What is in front of us this morning to do and how will we be in the doing of it?

Will we be gentle in tongue and step?  Will we be compassionate for those who are angry and hurtful toward us or others?  Will we be the buddhas we already are if only we were to allow ourselves that level of vulnerability and freedom? 

I don’t believe we will be as we wish.  I believe to be the person we would wish to be takes practice and deliberation.  It takes discipline and a willingness to reside in doubt.  Few of us have these attributes of character, although we each have the capacity. My prayer for the day is that I will, myself, bring into the world the love and compassion I feel and do so without fear.  Now that makes my morning a first step toward liberation and revolution.

Yours,