Learning to get quiet
I look into his youthful 71 year old face as he says, “The hardest part is getting quiet, isn’t it?” This, in response to my informing him that I too am a creative type: A singer-songwriter with a debut CD, Feed the Tribe. A CD only weeks off the injection molding replication machines.
Oh yes, Martin. Over and over again it’s the hardest part. He reaches into his knapsack and carefully selects a poem: Blue Lesson.
An excerpt: “how to come home again and again with what look like empty hands, the gift – and there is one, even when I don’t see, don’t listen – how to hold this nothing, loving its flavor, the scent”.[1]
Thank you, Martin Steingesser for your gift of beauty and insight.
On the heels of completing the artistic accomplishment of a music CD (a huge undertaking), and what by many accounts would be considered a successful launch – sold out CD Release, songs played on four local radio stations, and press galore – I am asking, “Now What?” And experiencing unsettledness, a lack of certainty about the ways my music is manifesting for some greater good. In short: I have to get quiet and BE, letting go the drive to DO for just a little while.
One would think I’d be better at getting quiet after experiencing the richness and honesty that emerges as a result. Songs have poured out of me at times like these, where I am simply holding the pen and staying out of the way. Why is it always a struggle to get to that wellspring, I muse. Because your mind fears what your inner voice will say. It doesn’t have control over that source. Bingo!
Perhaps it is because I crave the wisdom that lies there – in spite of how difficult it is to receive at times – that I host a retreat workshop entitled, “An Exploration with Women at the Edge”. It is a time-out-of-time experience with women who are pushing their own comfort zones; women who are changing the world in the way they uniquely can.
During the workshop, we explore what it means to hold the nothing — the not yet manifested — with intent and allowing. With grace. Or at least we TRY! As a host, I am also a full participant. Like the lead climbers on Himalayan mountain expeditions, I still have to do the work myself, even though I’ve done it before and I have a map of the terrain. Sometimes I’m better at it than others. One thing is for certain: I’m still learning to get quiet, to love the flavor of nothing.
[1] © 2005 Tiferet: A Journal of Spiritual Literature;”Brothers of Morning” poems by Martin Steingesser, www.martinsteingesser.com.
Tags: Music, Real Thoughts, Retreats