Remember when the World went Quiet?

Remember when the world went quiet? Just for a few moments. The whole world, quiet, as if paused on an in-breath. Do you remember? It happened, it did. No no, try harder. Surely you remember. When your part of the world slowed right down, all the way down. No cars on the street, no hurried feet on the pavement, no airplanes overhead. No constant coming and going and coming and going and doing and must and have to and should.

Just quiet.

Not silent, but still.

Sort of open, or spacious. Maybe even inviting.

Do you remember? Surely you must remember. Not quite? Ah yes, maybe you’re right. Maybe it didn’t last quite long enough to be able to recall. Maybe it wasn’t inviting at all, or still even, but rather loud in fact, almost imposing, and perhaps a touch… uncomfortable?

But there was birdsong, right? In the stillness, not just in the dawn but in the mid morning too, and sometimes all through the day. I somehow found my attention called to birdsong……Were they always there, those birds? Always singing just so? Ah, you heard them too! And you saw them? Even deep within this complex urban world of our making, they were there? Your worlds and paces shifted just enough to cross. Wow.

Are they still there now? The sounds have changed. The stillness has shifted back towards movement. I don’t quite know what happened to the quiet, to the stillness.

Do you remember?

You remember? You do? Ah, well, thank goodness for that! You remember the quiet, and — what’s that? — you still feel the stillness within you?

You still feel the stillness within you. You know the birds are still there. You know now to listen, to hear. You now know what quiet feels like, what the rest of the world can invite you towards.

Wow.

Well, then we didn’t imagine it.

The world went quiet. And anything is possible.