When I Am Silent

© 2014 Oona McOuat

When I am silent, I fall into the place where everything is music. -Rumi-

A stolen hour; an empty page.  A lone swan swims across a winter lake.  And I breathe, just breathe, and give thanks for this moment.

Photo by Gemaskerde-Muchaco

It has been a year since my last message.  A year of tilling soil and planting seeds, of learning how to conserve an abundant harvest, of stepping away from the stage and into the heart.   Along the way, I have met the wisest and the woolliest aspects of my nature.  I have learned that when I feel riled up or stressed, the best I can do is breathe, just breathe, and reach beyond the story I have mistaken for truth, the story separating me from Self. 

   Photo by Leigh Hilbert

At the same time, I love stories that I know are stories.  I love the language of music and its power to transport and transform.  Yet, I am hungering for new stories, for words that gently and bravely guide our way home.  

My truest sense of music this past year came to me at Samhain - Halloween - as I played and sang for a dying friend.  As I let myself give way, I fell outside of form.  How I love that spiralling, soaring place of light and dancing shadow that music becomes when I breathe, just breathe, and let my essence flow.

Photo by Leigh Hilbert

We fill these days before the winter solstice with cookies and carols, with cards, and Christmas movies.  It only takes a moment to step beneath the bustle, and breathe, just breathe, into the stillness of the dark.

Photo by Leigh Hilbert

Last night the Star appeared in a clear, cold sky.  Bright and beckoning, sparkling with knowing, it reminded me that this Mass of Christ is a celebration of the birth of a great teacher, who – like so many other wise ones before and since – believed in the powerful potential we have to live in peace on earth with joy in our hearts.  How simple and complex is their message: “Peace is here, peace is now; it lives within each one of us...”  And as I rush to the post office to mail packages and start to feel snappy and stretched, I remind myself to breathe, just breathe, and be fully in this moment.

Photo by Leigh Hilbert

May the light returning bring you joy, may the new year bring you beauty, and may we all remember, moment by moment, the Love that we are.

 

If you too enjoy song & story, have a listen to December Song.

With Bright Blessings,

Oona