Taking A Break

Our last 2013 crew member departed today!  To me that marks the end of the season and the beginning of the new year.  I am very grateful to everything that was offered this year.  Everyone's energy and flexibility and basic presence.  What a year it has been.

2 months ago I put a pile of books on the table and suggested as part of our mindfulness classes, that we read one complete book ~ rather than just parts of books, which is what we had been doing to get through a lot of material and points of view.  We ended up reading Eckhart Tolle.  

Here is a nice reminder from Tolle's "A New Earth" of the value of stillness when all you want to do is create, or move, or do anything other than take a pause.

It has been said: "Stillness is the language God speaks, and everything else is a bad translation." Stillness is really another word for space.  Becoming conscious of stillness whenever we encounter it in our lives will connect us with the formless and timeless dimension within ourselves, that which beyond thought, beyond ego.  It may be the stillness that pervades the world of nature, or the stillness in your room in the early hours of the morning, or the silent gaps in between sounds.  Stillness has no form--that is why through thinking we cannot become aware of it.  Thought is form.  Being aware of stillness means to be still.  To be still is to be conscious without thought.  You are never more essentially, more deeply yourself than when you are still.  When you are still, you are who you were before you temporarily assumed this physical and mental form called a person.  You are also who you will be when the form dissolves.  When you are still, you are who you are beyond your temporal existence: consciousness -- unconditioned, formless, eternal.  (255-6)     

Montauk NY