In the Quiet
Imagined by Waz Thomas
The sky is wide open and the air is cool at 51 degrees, fahrenheit. There is stillness. Today is Tuesday.
Woke up to darkness and quiet - it felt like a dream. Actually, all of life at this point, feels like a dream. The questions about how it all happened, and what were the challenges - seem silly. We move as we must in every moment - and sometimes, if we are fortunate, we get to choose. The kind of choosing is not necessarily available to our awareness about the fact that a choice is being made, but that is what the quiet brings: a realization that in every moment, a choice is offered. And depending on our state of being, we will choose that which is driven by desire, by surrender, by anger, by greed, by fear, and on it goes.
Questions about what to do in these times keep coming. How are you doing? What are you feeling? Where is the opportunity “to do something” that will stop the insanity and chaos? There is plenty of fear, anxiety, and resignation to go around as the story of destruction and hard power keeps getting reiterated, moving it closer to concrete realities in the world. But it seems there are opportunities opening and we are in a place that also offers the chance to “walk the talk”, meaning it is time to offer another story that is just as powerful. How do we know? It’s because the future is never promised to be one way or another. It matters that we draw on what imagination has to offer. Here is a simple example:
Last week, a friend showed how much creativity and determination to live into purpose can be manifest through the basic human desire to live and to have some semblance of choice, even in choiceless situations. He served prison time - was sentenced to life (and now, thankfully he is in service outside of that hell). He shared a story of how commerce and nourishment came together inside. And it wasn’t a one-man operation. There was the idea, then the action to manifest, followed by movement and energy. That’s how it happens everywhere! Here, food that was not prison-issue was where the idea started - A bag of Doritos gets turned into masa for tamales, that get filled with food secured from the kitchen - meat, veggies sliced and diced - rolled up in a flattened Doritos bag used to roll the tamale, then package by twisting the ends for the final product to be offered and sold. That came out of quiet…an idea that met a basic need, that simply required a thought, the courage to manifest that thought, the hard work to make the thing that didn’t exist before, and then the ability to step back… and see what happens. Boom! A market, transactions, relationships, tastier food that was “homemade.”.
The action needed to pull together ingredients was inspired by imagination and hunger - an idea. The word created movement of the offering that started as an idea All of that came out of an empty space, a quiet space, and choices were being made every step of the way. Prison provides a very fertile ground for all kinds of ideas to come into focus - and depending on who he person is, the idea may look like a gift or present/ or a trap or poison. The essential element: the person. Who is the source gets revealed in the quiet of our day. You get a chance to see the source - in the quiet.
How do you live? This is a question that goes beyond whether you are a meat-eater or are a person who identifeis as vegetarian/vegan/ pescatarian. It goes beyond whether you have a hybrid or traditional fueled vehicle, whether you recycle or not, whether you “believe” or not. How do you choose to live - in awareness or in sleep?
At some point, if you are fortunate, you will realize that movement happens when the elements come together. The elements are : what appears “passive” (meditate, create, imagine), and then, the activity begins - get the ingredients to fill the tamale (buy those Doritos and use the chips as well as the bag; don’t waste a single thing!). And finally, movement which can happen if you let go, give it space so that once you bring together the thought, the action, and then step back — you may, like the friend who was once imprisoned, create a marketplace where interaction, transaction, and relationships emerge. Cool.
It all comes out of being in the quiet.