One Apple A Day #582 - stillness
The air is hot and sticky in this mid-summer days. Even the smallest movement makes me sweat. It's hard to think straight in this heat and, honestly, I was about to skip my morning writing. But then I picked my morning card like I do every day. And it is one of my favourites.
Stillness.
I love everything about this picture. The sense of peace and presence, the light, and the river.
Two words pop up in my mind almost immediately. Two words that, if you put them together, they may evoke unfortunate circumstances.
The first word is a verb; to sink. The second one is water.
The idea of sinking is a gift I got from the book The Nature of Consciousness by Rupert Spira.
"Thus, in the same way that one cannot stand up and take a step towards oneself, so the mind cannot turn around and direct itself towards its own source. But when, through interest in its own essential nature, the mind ceases to direct itself towards objective experience, it begins to sink or relax back into the source from which it has arisen." — from The Nature of Consciousness by Rupert Spira
Stillness is the process through which my mind stop chasing external objects or thoughts and sink back into itself. Into the source of its existence. To sink back, it means to fall into and reconnect with my bigger who.
And then there is a river with its water flowing.
"They both listened silently to the water, which to them was not just water, but the voice of life, the voice of Being, the voice of perpetual Becoming." ― Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha