Quiet Nothingness

As the winds come to us from the North and blow the remaining leaves from the trees, the days give some of their time to the nights and we find ourselves approaching winter.

The sun sits lower in the sky and spreads its golden glow around when the clouds part, and the wisest creatures prepare to hibernate through the harshest parts of the season.

I think hibernation is underrated.

Us human types seem to be busier than ever this time of year, and unlike the wise ones around us we are not preparing for the long sleep, we are preparing for the party hearty season. I do find it quite interesting that while nature is prepping our body’s rhythms for quieter less productive times, we are often living the opposite to meet our cultural and social demands. I feel somewhat like a rubber band this time of year, being pulled in many directions, but I am fortunate to have a body that speaks loudly to me and I listen to it whenever possible.

This time of year I do spend more of my time semi-hibernating in my cave (my comfortable lived-in house) and more hours under the covers of my bed. The fewer hours of daylight and colder temperatures shift my metabolism toward gathering rather than expending energy. Winter ways help us to gather energy to fill our kidney & bladder vessels so that energy can be expressed through us as new life in the spring. If we don’t take this time to gather energy, we may find ourselves lacking energy when we need it.

Even though I know this intellectually (or “in the head” as I call it) I still struggle with letting myself have the time to do nothing. I am one of those doer people. I have many interests and base my some of my self esteem on my productivity. This, along with the pull of busyness of the world around me, make it challenging to be true to my own energy needs.

So instead of going on and on with more stuff for you to read I am going to share a short story about the Tarahumara people of northern Mexico, and then leave you some white space to stare at for three to four minutes so that you can do nothing. The Tarahumara language is gentle, soft and flowing and is expressed lovingly toward one another (they have no letter “d” and lots of “r”s). They drum and sing for forty days and nights non-stop to ensure that a good spring arrives. And they sometimes will stand for hours in perfect silence just feeling the wind “sintiendo el aire”.

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