Clarity

As the world fades. A crystal clear clarity takes over. A stillness that slows the world to a place off being. Sometimes often it’s the first five teen minutes that are excruciatingly unbearable. Boredom, lethargy and the need to busy, myself. Creeps at the corners of me. Edges at my existence of being

The stillness trickles over me as like soft rain absorbing me into its silence. The echo a memory a sense of nature the scent of it fresh crisp clear. Clarity of the moment so vivid and real it aches in me. Reaching over to a far, far distant part of me. So vital, so primitive. As if secrets has been unlocked. Then I snap to attention.

Maybe I’ll just check my phone. Have something to eat. Read, write, chit chat. do something my mind demands of me.

See I know the trick to it. I just have to sit here at the river bend for five-teen minutes. I just have to sit still and wait. Up at the botanic gardens amongst friends. amongst the gums, amongst the wild. Untamed unnamed places.

Then it starts to happen. The first thing I notice is a hint of red amongst the tall grass. Lorikeets one. No five, a family. A flock. array of colors flashing across the green a chorus of birds. now a jogger in the wee distance with a jet black kelpie.

A post person on a distant road. With the click clack of a chain on a cylcle bike A streamer hanging from the light. Someone's had a celebration here in this place. Alas not I.

Then nothing. I stare at the ground vaguely. The ants are nowhere to be seen. I take one inhale deep. And my breathing is now shallow rhythmic. Almost one. Almost not quite as if I am unable to reach a destination once spoken off. A memory a primal essence of what it is to be human. A space in the liminal, a space reserved full of knowledge it will not give or bend too.

Its as if a light has snapped me open to something ruminating around but also of me. A echo of a once was. A need, a longing, a belonging. We once had.

This practice of doing nothing .being nothing. being still practicing it.

I do not do often. I mostly brake it before it’s begun. With fidgeting. Trying to do.be something. Or sometimes I just nod off to sleep. This practice comes with the permission of the earth the soil itself. it can not be forced reckoned with reminded of or sort out. It is what it is unapologetically free of restraint. Free of thought of doing of becoming.

I am not exactly certain how slowing down. Can accelerate, speed everything up. At the river I reach for a tree. A compulsion to take a photo is upon me. At the BBQ I hear laughter . The spell is broken.

When I have these rare and few moments I know the rules. Don’t force it let nature and the surroundings reveal itself. It’s not a game of how many things you can spot. Or how you feel at the time of being in the zone. Just let it come. Just let it go

And after a moment of just being still. I return free light and content. As if this world has given me a gift a secret. A scared thing of being. I know little about. And that my friend is the truly amazing thing. That this this practice of being still required only the first fifteen minutes of my time. Nothing more or less .

Then slowing down to exceedingly speed things up.

By Natalie Spring