A Moment of Sunlight

           For the first time in many months, I overlook the cemetery bathed in unobstructed sunlight. I stand beside the willow at the meeting point of the three paths, the three directions, breathing in the space of the open-air auditorium (the name I’ve given to this section of the graveyard I’ve made my space). The strong wind sends a collection of brown leaves swirling into a whirlwind, a whirlwind that carries off into the distance. Today, people pass perpetually—couples walking hand in hand, individuals jogging.

            With all this sudden activity, I become self-conscious of my still self. I stand on the precipice in mountain pose, gazing over the vast sweep of headstones, the fluttering trees. I breathe myself toward transcendent consciousness, but my assimilation is thwarted by my self-consciousness. What do these people think of me? Do they find me weird, standing still and not doing anything?

            It’s strange that stillness has become a source of self-conscious anxiety. We’re so often in go-mode, encouraged to keep ourselves busy at all times, to always remain productive. Apart from within various spiritual texts and communities, stillness is rarely, if ever, prized for its own sake. It is not seen to have practical value, and thus it is avoided.

            But here, standing, coming into presence with these thoughts, I must diverge from this thinking. For as I stand still, my thoughts settle, and I feel the sun on my barren legs.

            Can I control my mode of thinking? I want to think of something different. So I begin to direct my thoughts toward changes, toward phases. The question of changes leads me to the question of freedom: within an ever-changing world, how free am i? How connected to the world’s ceaseless changes am i? Is it a mere coincidence that today, the first day of unobstructed sunlight in many months, I feel calm, elated, and full of bliss? Am I free to control my moods, or are my moods inevitable consequences of the weather?

            It is true that this winter season has been, for me, a season of record-low morale. But is this reducible to the weather? Or is this me projecting my state onto the low gray clouds, the ceaseless haze of snow?

            I believe I am connected to the world in its changes, its phases. I am not this independent solid ego detached from all things that I often convince myself I am. But perhaps being connected to worldly changes does not mean I am unfree. Maybe it simply shows that ceaseless layers of reality exist beyond myself, that I am in a Nature beyond my comprehension, and that as the world moves forth in ever-changing phases, so do I. 

Snowflakes Falling

Questions that enter my mind at the culmination of today's meditation:

When did it become so difficult to be still?
Why do my temples feel full of great pressure?
Why the hell won't it stop snowing?
Why this ceaseless feeling of dread in my heart?
Can a simple smile really transform a day?
What if the snow out my window hangs perfectly still, and it is in fact I who am moving?
Will this winter ever end?

Several inches of snow cover the ground. I'm long past the point of admiring its beauty. I have become weary. I have become encased within myself.

I sit in my still room. I will not enter this cold, for today is the first day in many where I do not have to. Thus, I pull apart the black curtains that have shadowed my windows now for nearly three months. Light pours through them, sent from a sun concealed behind this grey cloud consuming this white city.

All I see out the window is falling, falling, falling. Gravity pulls things down. The elevated floor supporting me shall crumble. Are we different? Do we, like birds, have the ability to rise? Or are our moments of bliss simply brief interludes of comfort amidst the perpetual fall?

I do not know why, but my mind has been in great turmoil since last Tuesday. I wrote an essay on silence amidst noise, of calm receptivity and inner stillness. In forming the ideas, I felt at peace, calm with the changes occurring. But the moment I turned it in, turmoil ensued. I felt suddenly highly sensitive to the chaos surrounding me. Contrary to the doctrine I decreed, I could find no calm.

My mind was barraged with all the confusion of my current place: What will I do once I graduate? How will I plan my next lesson at the jail? Why am I not publishing? Why am I not applying for more jobs? Why can't I be still? Why don't I work more on my thesis, my novel? My novel is a cluttered mess. Why can't I just recognize my countless blessings, the futility of my problems? Do I feel this way because I consume meat of caged animals and thus consume their fear and anxiety? Do my emails come across as arrogant and accusatory? When did being become so difficult? My stomach is currently making strange noises. My jaw is clenching. I should probably see a psychiatrist ASAP. But prescription meds didn't work last time and only made the pain worse.

Does any of this have to do with nature? Yes, insofar as I currently sit in still nature, and in silent nature these thoughts are revealed to me. I want to ignore them. To bury them. But what good will it do? They shall rise once more.

I brought a piece of flash fiction to my class at the jail, a piece called "The Voices in my Head" by Jack Handey. An unnamed narrator talks about his struggles with the voices he hears in his head. Toward the end, he says: "Maybe the answer is not to try to get rid of the voices but to learn to live with them." A nice statement, though it is directly followed by the parenthetical: "(I don't really think that; I'm just saying it for the voices.)" The internal thoughts become so loud, so overbearing, that they become the architecture of all thinking, even the thinking that I think is trying to help me.

This snow out my window keeps me inside. The voices I hear do as well. This goddamn winter just keeps going, and I cannot find peace amidst it. But hell, I couldn't find peace if it were fall or spring. There's something within that demands my attention. I am unsure what it is. But goddamn I'm trying to figure it out.

Maybe it's the trying that's holding me back.
Or maybe that's just another voice in my head.

Screw this. I'm going outside.

***

I made it to the graveyard. I ran there, in fact. I know that's against the rules, but the spirit moved me so. At least a food-deep blanket covered the ground. My shoes were nestled by the softness. I did not stumble.

Many of the gravestones were completely covered. I saw no one. I ran as instincts carried me, away from my usual direction, and soon I found myself in an auditorium of open space. I knew this space. It was my first idea for my weekly location. But in the early weeks, I was searching for something--solace, space, or sycamores--and traveled elsewhere. But henceforth, this is my space.

Three paths branch off from a tall willow, each descending a different direction. Two border the cemetery's greatest expanse of graves. All directions culminate in barren trees; I am cradled within the space between.

The silence today is astounding. I listen to it. The occasional jet engine sounds muffled. I hear a distant whistling which reveals itself to be a siren. I stare at the sun, glowing like the moon behind the dense grey cloud of winter, and feel as if gazing into the orb at the end of a wormhole, a void through which all the snowflakes of the universe travel directly at me. 

The flakes appear to be falling. I follow one, and amidst its fall, the wind blows, and it rises, twirling. Perhaps the flakes are falling; perhaps I am rising.

I step into a dense blanket of untouched snow. O the demons I've externalized onto these innocent particles! Memories of childhood surface, of laying back in the snow and creating angelic figures with my brothers. Before I can stop myself, I fall to my back. The blanket becomes a cushion. Here, now, 26-year-old Sean in his jeans and coat and gloves spreads his arms, closes his eyes, and feels the cool flakes fall onto his face, slowly melting away.

When I rise, I observe the marks I've made. Not quite an angel; more like a misshapen eagle. I gaze once more into space, the falling flakes accentuating distances. Never before has the graveyard felt so restorative. I do not want to leave. I feel warm here. But I know I must return. So, once again, I run and feel the enlivening cold enter my lungs.

I thought of several nice ways to end this, to make it feel whole, but all of them reach for something that is not there. These experiences are not meant to be analyzed. All this just happened. All this was just an hour of one of my fortunate days. 

Silent Meditations

            At the bottom of a slush covered hill, I discover homemade wind chimes dangling from a small tree. The metal cylinders hang motionless, circling a wooden peg attached to a thin rope. I grab the rope and thrust it hard. The chimes ring loudly, awfully, creating a nasty chaos of noise that shatters the stillness of the cemetery. I calm the chaotic motion. Now, I brush the rope gently. The peg touches the metal cylinders, brushing off them in a calm cool rhythm. Pleasing vibrations enter the space.

The harder I push, the more chaos is created. A gentle approach yields pleasant vibrations.

The chimes cease, and silence reigns once more. I am fascinated by silence. I have chosen to write my first nature essay about it. I am fascinated with how little I encounter silence in my day-to-day life. I am fascinated with how much I often fear it.

In silence, I become vulnerable to myself. Oftentimes, my mind is not a pleasant space to inhabit. My desires run rampant, screaming at me to satisfy them. My existential fears find a megaphone and barrage my struggle for peace of mind. In silence, I must face these demons. I cannot distract myself with a cell phone or a computer screen or a TV or a bag of buttered popcorn. 

Spiritual writer Eckhart Tolle writes: "Whenever there is some silence around you — listen to it. That means just notice it. Pay attention to it. Listening to silence awakens the dimension of stillness within yourself, because it is only through stillness that you can be aware of silence." He goes on to say: "When you lose touch with inner stillness, you lose touch with yourself. When you lose touch with yourself, you lose yourself in the world." Tolle equates inner stillness with silence. We ought not simply seek silent places--we must listen to the silence. We are active participants. In so doing, we encounter depths to our stillness that can often be difficult to find. 

I once spent five days in total silence. I spoke to no one. I was in Guatemala, studying at a meditation center beside Lago de Atitlan, the most magnificent lake I’ve ever witnessed. During those five days, the final days of a one-month retreat, I was not even allowed to read. The mantra was: “You with you.” All I could do was write, sit, and breathe.

The first three days were remarkably difficult. I needed noise. I was so dissatisfied with my thoughts I could hardly sit still. Even in Atitlan, cradled within volcanic peaks, watching the sunlight glint off the lake’s surface, I could not find peace.

Gradually, something changed. I began to feel at peace with myself. I sat in the garden, watching butterflies move flower to flower, smelling the delicious herbs growing. I am not sure what changed, but a peace of mind I’ve never known before rose. With nothing to distract myself, my mind settled the muck that I often fill it with. I stopped thrusting the wooden peg, and the chimes of my psyche calmed their ceaseless ringing. I felt their stillness. 

Depths manifest in silence. Here, in the cemetery, I retreat from the noise of my life and encounter parts of myself I often want to keep buried. 

"These are the days now that we must savour

And we must enjoy as we can

These are the days that will last forever

You've got to hold them in your heart."

-Van Morrison, "These Are the Days"

Today, strolling through the snow covered fields of tombs and headstones, I think of language. Each image I see, I immediately attach to language. Birds are chirping. A gumball caked in ice rests on the path. Today, amidst the unexpected warm wind of a fifty degree February day, I am highly aware of my language, and highly aware of its futility.

On one hand, I recognize my language as a function of my state of mind. Last week, walking through this space on a freezing cold day, I thought in a language of discomfort, dissatisfaction, and anger. My perception of stimuli (aka 'this sucks') created my language of the stimuli. I saw the world bleakly, for I felt discomfort. Thus, my language had no bearing on the things themselves, but rather reflected my own state of mind.

This becomes even more apparent today. I am seeing the same objects--the same claw-like tree limbs, the same camouflage sycamore logs--and yet my mind constructs them with a more beautiful, admiring language. No longer do they appear as contorted demons mocking my cold state; now, they appear inviting, pointing my gaze to the great expanse of white grey clouds retreating toward infinity above.

My language for these objects has changed, for my perception of these objects has changed. Calm mind sees calm nature; chaotic mind sees chaos.

Recognizing such a reality, I hesitate to attempt describing anything physical I encounter, for I recognize I am describing nothing external. We strive to write in an unmediated fashion, where language forms an inseparable relationship with the external, independent of ourselves. But this is an illusion. Emerson's idealism provides great daydreaming and great appreciation for immanence, but a transparent eyeball is unattainable. It is always me perceiving, regardless of how mystical my experience may be.

Then I question--does language mediate the experience, or does the experience mediate the language? Does my propensity to name, to describe, inevitable limit my perception of what is occurring? Or does what is occurring give rise to a language unique to itself? I can't help but err toward the former. To further investigate, I go to the pond where I saw three deer grazing two weeks past. I go to meditate. I trudge through the snow, over the pellety piles of deer poo, through their thin and beautifully straight tracks, and stand still. The pond is covered in snow; I fear a child would not realize it's a pond and would fall through. But no one is around except for a jogger circling the area in varying patterns.

I stand and I breathe. Large rocks rest on the pond's surface. But do they? That's how they appear. But when I think about it, that's impossible. They are far too large to rest on this thin layer of ice. Rather, they sit at the bottom of the shallow pond and rise through the water. The ice has frozen around them. My language cannot describe.

But I want it to. I want to be able to capture in words the way the rock glows with greater brightness the longer I stare at it, to the point that my eyes burn and I must blink. I want language to show how upon re-angling myself I realize the rock is shaped like an arrow pointing to the sky, and that how after such thinking I realize it is just a rock, and my own interest in arrows and the sky cause it to assume such a shape.

So I pull out my notebook and begin to write. The words flow nicely. But after two sentences, my pen stops working. The ink is full, but it won't write. I scribble furiously until the tip rips through the paper. Suddenly angered, I breathe. Surely this is a sign from the universe.

I return my gaze to the pond. Can I see something without language mediating it? I try. I think only "Breathe in... breathe out..." but beneath my thoughts I hear a soft voice saying things like "The snow cools my feet" and "a train whistle blows distantly." Then it becomes "but how distant is the train? Regardless, the sound I hear is here, so thus I create the distance."

It's no use. My language defeats me and the few shards of Emersonian optimism I still cling to.

I turn from the pond and enter the path and decide to go a new direction to the exit. Rounding a corner, I notice something I've never noticed before.

It's a temple, or a mausoleum, or perhaps a sanctuary. It's made of marble. Three columns rise about ten feet, forming a semi-circle, rounding back into a complimentary semi-circle, a solid wall of marble. Within the openness of the circle is a small circular table, its circumference lined with rocks and sea shells. But what makes me approach the site are the engravings on the marble wall.

A snow covered stone footpath leads to its base. There, I see the wall is separated into three sections. Each person designated has the surname "Watson." My gaze first goes to the right most section, for the engraving is the briefest. A man's name, and below a date of birth with no end date. The engraving reads:

"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived." -Thoreau

Relevant, I think. I then look to the leftmost section. A woman's name, a single birth date, and a long poetic engraving. Why would such a structure be created for living people?

Then I see the center piece, whose linguistic engraving descends the full ten feet. Jill Watson - 1964-1996. Dead, in her early thirties, and clearly the daughter of the two names I've just read. I am standing at Jill's memorial.

Slowly, calmly, I read the inscription. As I read, I come to feel as if I know this person, as if she were a close friend of mind. The engraving described Jill as "a being that was so many things -- architect, designer, sculptor, inventor, teacher and student ... a cornucopia of creative energy and a spirit that embraced the wondrous mysteries of life," how she was shy as a child but blossomed into a woman who could talk to anyone. And the engraving ended with a message saying: "We knew the real meaning of grief when we no longer could see your bright face. We will never forget you."

I stand still for several moments, breathing deeply. As I walk home, my mind reels on Jill. What happened to her? Who was she? Could I find out? Immediately upon arriving home, I get to searching. Soon, I find an article from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette from 2006.

Jill Watson was a teacher of architecture at CMU.While flying over the coast of Long Island, en route to Paris with a close friend, the plane abruptly exploded. Jill and her friend were among the two hundred and thirty people killed in the explosion, which purportedly occurred due to "a spark of electricity igniting vapors in one of the fuel tanks." Jill was an only child.

Her body was recovered, cremated, and interred at the Homewood Cemetery crematorium. But her parents were not satisfied. She was housed in too dark a place. So they decided to construct the memorial. It went up in 2003. I happened upon it eleven years later.

Of the memorial, Mrs. Watson said: "It has created tremendous peace for us." Still, some wounds cannot be rectified. "'You never get over it," she said. "There's a hole in my heart that bleeds and bleeds. You learn to live around the pain as time goes on."

Now, sitting, writing, reflecting, I recognize that never before has a gravestone or memorial affected me so. But this one did. Not because of its shape. Not because of its beauty. Because of its language.

Maybe language cannot accurately depict the world. Maybe it's always mediated by the speaker's state of mind. That's not to say it has no power. Strong language, written as an extension of the heart, has the power to arrest, to open, to realign a wanderer's perception of his unfulfilled day.

Jill's mausoleum/sanctuary. 

 

 

 

(Photo from: http://www.post-gazette.com/life/lifestyle/2006/07/17/Architect-s-memorial-helps-family-friends-find-peace/stories/200607170106)

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/h/henrydavid107665.html#8ZbC5mFzP2MaQGsm.99

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/h/henrydavid107665.html#8ZbC5mFzP2MaQGsm.99