Quiet Time

(It's Not as Easy as You Would Think)

This morning I spent some time doing "morning pages" a la Julia Cameron (The Artist's Way). My desk is in front of a window that looks out on my back yard. While I was writing, it began to rain. My intention was to "sit in silence" for about thirty minutes after I finished writing. Since it was raining (and thundering!) and I have a metal patio cover where the rain sounds like music as it falls, I thought I'd go on the patio and sit my thirty minutes out there on my glider.

I don't think this would be considered "official" meditation. I was sitting on my glider and I was gliding slowly. My glider has become a portal to stillness lately. I sit there in the mornings while I wait for the dog to do his business and again in the evening, usually. It is only for a few minutes at a time but it is refreshing.

I recently read something that gave me the idea that we can treat our minds like a dog, and when the thoughts start running rampant while we are trying to sit in silence, we can say something like "stay" or "sit." I also read that you are supposed to notice the thought ("oh, there's a thought") and let it drift on away. Problem is, when I do that, I see "Oh, there's a thought." in one of those cartoon speech bubble and then I see the thought floating around like a balloon as it s-l-o-w-l-y disappears from my view. And the balloon itself (red, I believe) always has the longest string tied to it, so that takes forever to drift off. Far easier for me to think "Stay." or "Sit." and return to my silence.

Here are a few of the thoughts I had to command while I was sitting:

• Wow, that thunder is loud! I bet SpookyRach would be so jealous!
• I need to text my spiritual director and ask her what I'm supposed to be doing while I'm sitting here.
• All those raindrops are like people, all we are is a quick drop in a vast universe.
• I am so going to blog about this.
• Wow, all those drops are like musical notes, I hear the music of life!
• Oh! The breeze makes me think of that Michael Lee poem. There is love touching me in that wind.
• Good grief! Hasn't it been thirty minutes yet?
• I don't care what you say, I am not going to look at the timer. I am GOING TO WAIT till it goes off.

When I was done I had to take my camera out to get photos of the rain drops clinging to the bars of the swing set. I've taken similar photos before. What can I say? I am enamored with rain drops clinging to metal bars! The rain drops are mostly what I focused on as I sat.

It was nice to still quietly and to hold my thoughts at bay for a little while. I hope I can do it more often.

We (meaning my husband, mostly) cleaned out our backyard storage building last weekend. There were some things in there that had been taken off the patio in preparation for Hurricane Rita in September of 2005. I've added those things back to my patio and joked that I hoped we wouldn't have to remove them again for another storm. Maybe we should have waited until hurricane season was over to work on that project.

Anyway, this bird cage, and the bird in it (the bird was part of a wind chime that had broken, I thought I was clever, putting the bird in the cage) was one of the dubious "treasures" we found in the building. It means something emotionally to me, this bird in a cage hanging from my patio.

I can't decide which version I like best, the color one or the black and white one, so I am posting both.

"Wow." That's what I said when the time finally went off and I could go back to my racing thoughts! And now I'm saying it again, "Wow, two blog posts in one day. I wonder what that means?" Not much, in the grand scheme of things!