The Hammock Papers: Stillness.

20 November 2010

Stillness.

Within you there is a stillness and a sanctuary to which you can retreat at any time and be yourself.
- Hermann Hesse

In stillness the world is restored.
- Lao Tzu

Your innermost sense of self, of who you are, is inseparable from stillness. This is the I Am that is deeper than name and form.
- Eckhart Tolle

Blessed are the single-hearted, for they shall enjoy much peace. If you refuse to be hurried and pressed, if you stay your soul on God, nothing can keep you from that clearness of spirit which is life and peace. In that stillness you will know what His will is.
- Amy Carmichael

Uncontrolled, the hunger and thirst after God may become an obstacle, cutting off the soul from what it desires. If a man would travel far along the mystic road, he must learn to desire God intensely but in stillness, passively and yet with all his heart and mind and strength.
- Aldous Huxley

One of my greatest joys comes during the times when I am able to be still. I enjoy this because it allows for conscious breathing to occur, thoughts can be organized, and blessings appreciated.

In my classroom I try teach my students to understand and apply the benefits of stillness. As we do this (yes, I do it with them; modeling being a great teacher) pencils and paper are stowed, lights are dimmed, sonatas are played, students find "their spot" in the room, and reflection begins. We use this as a prelude to journaling, as a method of preparing ourselves for hard work, or anytime we need to just to gather ourselves.

It works. But, as with any skill, the benefits of stillness are only achieved when practiced. At the beginning of each year I receive many raised eyebrows when I ask the students to, "Be still and think about what you're thinking about." This time of the year is when growth begins to manifest itself. Students' hands aren't raised immediately. There is contemplation of the questions asked and thoughtful responses are formulated. Journals are taken to recess. Quotes written on 3x5 cards are left on my desk. We are thinking. Even our most reluctant reflectors have suggested stillness when we begin brainstorming for writing pieces.

In our culture of pace, movement, and change, an appreciation for the wonder of simply being can be lost. Reflection can draw us back from the fray. Quiet contemplation of what's ahead and what has been completed can afford us a more fully realized effort.

Follow effective action with quiet reflection. From the quiet reflection will come even more effective action.
- Peter Drucker

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WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART

"When I am, as it were, completely myself, entirely alone and of good cheer – say travelling in a carriage or walking after a good meal, or during the night when I cannot sleep – it is on such occasions that my ideas flow best and most abundantly. Whence, and how, they come I know not ; nor can I force them. Those ideas that please me I retain in memory and am accustomed, as I have been told, to hum them to myself. If I continue in this way, it soon occurs to me how I may turn this dainty morsel to account, so as to make a good dish of it. That is to say, agreeable to the rules of counterpoint, to the peculiarities of various instruments etc. All this fires my soul, and, provided I am not disturbed, my subject enlarges itself, becomes methodised, and defined, and the whole, though it be long, stands almost complete and finished in my mind, so that I can survey it like a fine picture or a beautiful statue at a glance. Nor do I hear in my imagination the parts successively, but I hear them, as it were, all at once. What a delight this is, I cannot tell."

MARCUS AURELIUS

"Is your cucumber bitter? Throw it away. Are there briars in your path? Turn aside. That is enough. Do not go on and say, 'Why were things of this sort ever brought into this world?' neither intolerable nor everlasting - if thou bearest in mind that it has its limits, and if thou addest nothing to it in imagination. Pain is either an evil to the body (then let the body say what it thinks of it!)-or to the soul. But it is in the power of the soul to maintain its own serenity and tranquility."

VINCENT van GOGH

"What am I in the eyes of most people? A nonentity or an oddity or a disagreeable person — someone who has and will have no position in society, in short a little lower than the lowest. Very well — assuming that everything is indeed like that, then through my work I’d like to show what there is in the heart of such an oddity, such a nobody. This is my ambition, which is based less on resentment than on love in spite of everything, based more on a feeling of serenity than on passion. Even though I’m often in a mess, inside me there’s still a calm, pure harmony and music. In the poorest little house, in the filthiest corner, I see paintings or drawings. And my mind turns in that direction as if with an irresistible urge. As time passes, other things are increasingly excluded, and the more they are the faster my eyes see the picturesque. Art demands persistent work, work in spite of everything, and unceasing observation."

DAN CAMPBELL