Remember those childhood moments, when Life turns SOUND off? All of a sudden, a loud poof of Quiet erases all background noise—and everything in you pauses to register the shift? You look at your playmates, the trees, or scan the busy playground. It's all shrouded in magical stillness. Keen interest and a sense of wonder takes over. Then, almost as quickly, the sounds simply come back.
Most childhood discoveries spring from innocence & trust.
Even now, for no particular reason, Life will invite us into STILLNESS. We become vacuums of Deep Presence. [Much like in a Movie Theater--without any transition after the loud previews--sometimes quiet images spring to life on the large screen. No music; no dialogue. Only seeing exists. Instantly, our senses notice the sharp contrast. We are drawn into the scene, itself, hungry to inhabit this new reality. From the inside.]
Oriented to tune out familiar sounds; we only realize we were hearing them, once they stop. The absence of sound alerts us. We pay attention. We are called to notice. We are drawn into Beingness, itself.
More and more, I am being called To Notice how SILENCE holds all sound. Whole body stillness. When LIFE turns off mental chatter, the entire conceptual realm can simply stop. No thought, image, story, or idea, actually exists. Even its originating impulse fades out. Vast empty space is A l i v e . Being AWARE, IT holds everything (including what is usually called ‘me’ or ‘you’) within itself.
Being expands into Everythingness. It's all simply naked existence.
At first, such contrast can seem sharp and stark. The edge of difference; acutely felt. Initially, one might even wish for assurance from a projection room that indeed, nothing is wrong and 'the story' will continue with all its normal dimensions and familiar range of perceptual flavor. And of course it will, because its all overlay. Neither layer rules out the other one's validity.
Now--as in childhood--I feel eager and curious when SILENCE dawns. Such a heightened sense of availability leads to a lighter spacious Vastness that still includes what only SEEMS to be 'falling away'. It's simply no longer ‘contained by’ anything that limits, separates, or cuts it off. When no constricting framework exists to isolate any particular aspect from the everything-else-ness of Existence, there is simply the delicious Freedom to Be Deep Presence. To become the verb, that we truly are!
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