STOPPING our thoughts in mid-air...stilling our ideas midway in the morning...stifling our mind's ramblings like a frozen icicle...
Yes! Pausing for a moment or two energizes our 24 hours. Specially, for writers, artists and thinkers, this pause brings a valuable time to wipe their clutter on the writing table and settle down to the business of writing.
Hushing voices, becoming silent and tuning out the noisy world can ease their troubled hours. Like the wise owl perched atop the brown narra branch, they can lie in constant expectation. This wait-and-see style opens up the gateway to wisdom.
Just like these reflective persons, maybe you can find a quiet spot in your home or garden to follow the ideas, intuitions and innovative dreams that have long gripped your imagination. Glide with your struggles instead of fighting them. Free the mind which produces endless ideas. Befriending your quietude is a beautiful way to start the orange month of August.
Vamos! Let us open our heart, expand our breathing through our lungs and awaken our senses to the grandeur, greatness and galloping new sunrise on this first day of the August spectacle.
Emily Dickenson
Inspiring us today are poets and writers who stamp their imprint on books.
One of them is this well-known poetess who made her mark in the 19th
Century. She is like a friend to me although we never met in this lifetime.
Zooming in on the life of this writer who reflects the essence of poignant pausing is an excellent trip down the memory lane. Definitely, she personified the mode, mood and model in serenity.
This famed author who lived in "silencio" during the 19th century was Emily Dickenson. Nestled in the quiet, quixotic and quaint grounds of their brick house in Amherst, Massachusetts, USA, Emily profiled the image of the contemplative artist.
Born December 10, 1830, she grew to be an energetic, enthusiastic and exhilarating woman. Attending the Amherst Academy and Holyoke Female Seminary, she flew high like a free-spirited eagle.
However, during her mid-twenties and thereafter, Emily began her simple monastic way of living. Writing poetry; contemplating the world from a distance; struggling with the ennobling themes of death, desperation and desolation; yea, pouring out her sentiments on the blank canvas of literature with her passion.
Even the animals she found on the green, olive and verdant fields crossing her pathways became food for her exquisite composition. Expounding on the concerto of life and our connection to all creatures on our Mother Earth, she wrote following lines from her haunting poem "Wounded Deer":
"A wounded deer leaps highest,
I've heard the hunter tell,
'Tis but the ecstasy of death
And there the break is still."
What a mastery of phrasing, prose and poetry!
She vivifies her love of nature and expresses herself in the sacred journal, diary and record she wrote.
I now pause awhile...