Seeing Through the Shimmering Silence

This morning was one of those mornings when everything I touched failed. I hadn't been up for long before the song "Wrecking Ball" started replaying in my head! At least that gave me a chuckle. My fails actually began last night when I decided to put some finishing touches on this week's newsletter; somehow in an instant I managed to delete the entire writing. 🤷‍♀️ I guess I was meant to begin again.

Grief is a beast all its own. Sometimes it rears its head drenched in the pains of sorrow; sometimes it passes by unremarkable yet dreadfully slow. Rarely does it disappear when you wish it would.

The months of January and February were a bust for me. It feels like my new year began this March.

To mark my new year, I've chosen a single word to focus on over the coming months: see. A word I can keep nearby as a daily reminder to slow down, to simplify, to see the details around me that have been slipping by.

This seeing requires the use of more than my eyes. In fact, sometimes it requires not using my eyes at all. It requires a gentle listening, a soft touching, a deep inhaling. Closing my eyes to focus on my other senses has helped me develop a richer, clearer vision.

It's a goal in process. To help with this seeing, I've been adding in more silence, purposefully removing more distraction.

I've heard this type of silence described as "shimmering silence," when we're able to step away from what the world has chosen to direct our way and instead shine light on the things that truly matter to us. This silence arrives only where we've created space for it.

Sometimes it's difficult to sit with myself in silence. To create the space. Sometimes I'm not in the mood to feel all the feels, to feel the loss all over again.

With practice, though, I'm learning to appreciate the silent spaciousness.

It's in this space where I can more fully see the abundance around me.

It's in this space where I've begun to cultivate joy again. To grant myself the grace to seek and appreciate joy. To remind myself that it's okay to be joyful.

Sometimes the beast wants us to remain stuck in the sorrow and the loss. But moving ahead toward joy doesn't mean the sorrow and the loss are forgotten. It proves they can transform into a shimmer that shines more brightly, reaches farther, and is ready to be seen again.

"Joy . . . and . . . sorrow . . . are inseparable. . . . The selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears. . . . The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain." —Lebanese-American poet Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet

Through the process, may we all see more deeply those things we choose to see. May we grant ourselves grace when the seeing is still unclear.

Though my weekly newsletters nearly came to a halt the passed couple of months, I'm still here.

Thank you for continuing along with me. For helping me to see when my own sight is unfocused.