A Still Point in the Midst of Hurrying and Commotion

At this time, as we journey with the winter sun, we are at the still point of the four seasons.  Dawn eventually begins to come a moment earlier each morning, but sunset has already been arriving later and later, gradually but steadily making for longer and longer days filled with light.  Yet, the nights remain very long, as yet,  in this season of the winter solstice, this still point.

The American Heritage Dictionary definition for the word, "still", reads almost like a poem:
                   free of sound,             hushed
                          not in motion                    free from disturbance, from agitation, from commotion
                                           now as before                   all the same                                          calm

"Free from disturbance, from agitation, from commotion":  It almost sounds like a place.   -A place to which I would travel, free from commotion.

Many of us long for this way of being, to return to the stillness.  The "civilized" world and its workings are so full of disturbance, discord, agitation.  Gadgets buzz at us, even talk to us now.  Even the very buildings that we inhabit are wired with electrical pulses from The Grid, seemingly silent and still, but disrupting our own inner electro-magnetic balance.  Gone are the days when one could wander away from buildings to escape this electrical onslaught.  Now, much of the atmosphere is filled with radio waves, connecting all of these billions of individual mobile phones and her cousins, all of the other gadgets,  whose pulses, too, disrupt our circadian rhythms.

Open Spirit Center, tucked betwixt  the stately individuals descended from an ancient  oak grove and a gathering of white pines, is a place  where one can find and experience the still point, return to the stillness again.  As i step through her double doors, I realize how far I have strayed from the inner stillness, now reflected all around us at this winter solstice time.   I step further into the Open Spirit space, studio, practice room, dance floor, gathering site, community living room.  She is all of these things.  Standing here,  I am sheltered by the exposed beams that came from trees like the ones that shelter us nearby, those guardian oaks.  In the silence of this holy space, I often arrive first, and the quiet is like a friend.  I have her all to myself for a bit.
Still point:   "a name for the eternal invisible thread connecting all there is in the universe.    ...the divine nucleus in all of our hearts.   ...where everything is the same [constant] and connected, and the thing we all share...is [in the} stillness." *

That's it.  That is what Open Spirit gives me.  -By just entering into the space.     -Every time.

* Still point reflection in quotation marks found on the website, Wordnik.

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Deborah GiovanellaQiGong Instructor
La Mariposa Canta
Giovanella Residence570 Franklin StreetFramingham, Massachusetts  01702Telephone:  508-875-6533